This is my sharpest shot, what's yours?

Dr_Q

Dr_Q

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I've been reading a lot of photography related forums where people will argue for days about which lens in sharper but in reality I don't think there would be any way to really notice unless you exaggerate a flaw (which Ken Rockwell does quite a bit). With this in mind the sharpness of an image is just down to how it was taken and not the gear it was taken on.

Here is what is probably the sharpest image I have done to date with a Nikon D200 and kit lens (I think it's an 18-70 :p). I've made a few different crops because I was bored but without the horrible colour fringing I think it's pretty sharp.

300%
https://pic.armedcats.net/d/dr/dr_q/2008/12/08/300percent.jpg
200%
https://pic.armedcats.net/d/dr/dr_q/2008/12/08/200percent.jpg
100%
https://pic.armedcats.net/d/dr/dr_q/2008/12/08/100percent.jpg


So people of Final Gear, post your sharp shots!
 
When did Finalgear become the DPreview sharpness-wankery forums? Worst topic ever. Normally I'd be kinder about this sort of thing, but threads like this are basically what's wrong with modern photography. Instead of "best shots" or "most interesting composition", it's "post the best example of something that involves no photographic skill whatsoever and relies only on gear." What's next, "Post your favorite test chart!"?

If you put a camera on a tripod and shoot at f/8, it'll be nice and sharp. It's not rocket science.

Sorry, Dr_Q, but I had to be honest here.
 
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I should totally post this kick-ass shot of my gray card. It's totally 50%! :p
 
threads like this are basically what's wrong with modern photography.
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Modern photography is alive and well. It's out there. It's actually quite an exciting time for it right now.

What's next, "Post your favorite test chart!"?
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Well, this forum is very tech-heavy. I don't see any "who is your favorite photographer" threads or "what sort of composition works best" or "what shows have you been to recently"/"what books inspire you" threads in the lot. Can't really blame him for continuing along with the themes we've imposed, now, can we?
 
cLW - there have been a few "who is your favourite photographer" and "composition" type threads.

FWIW, I don't see a heap of point in this particular thread, because as BCS said, sharpest will be f/8 and on a tripod - and then the only variance of "sharp" is the given equipment (camera/lens/filter combinations)
 
carolsLittleWorld said:
Modern photography is alive and well. It's out there. It's actually quite an exciting time for it right now.
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I don't recall saying modern photography is dead or boring. I do recall saying that gearwhoring and testmongering is basically the problem with modern photography, in that a huge amount of people seem more interested in how "good" their lenses are whether people think they got a "bad copy." Drives me nuts, if more people stopped worrying about trivial shit and just went out shooting the whole scene would improve immensely.


Well, this forum is very tech-heavy. I don't see any "who is your favorite photographer" threads or "what sort of composition works best" or "what shows have you been to recently"/"what books inspire you" threads in the lot. Can't really blame him for continuing along with the themes we've imposed, now, can we?
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Sorry, but you're way off-base here. I've seen may gear advice threads, whether it be new shooters wanting to learn more or others looking for advice, that's totally cool and a part of most buying decisions. We've had lots of threads about technique and inspiration and processing and Q&A, the whole nine yards. This topic sticks out like a sore thumb because it's not looking for advice or betterment, it's just looking to compare what's probably the least important element of a good image and will do absolutely nobody any good or improve anyone's abilities or present something thought-provoking. Nothing but retarded 300% crops and ZOMG LOOK AT MY PIXELS.
 
BerserkerCatSplat said:
When did Finalgear become the DPreview sharpness-wankery forums? Worst topic ever. Normally I'd be kinder about this sort of thing, but threads like this are basically what's wrong with modern photography. Instead of "best shots" or "most interesting composition", it's "post the best example of something that involves no photographic skill whatsoever and relies only on gear." What's next, "Post your favorite test chart!"?

If you put a camera on a tripod and shoot at f/8, it'll be nice and sharp. It's not rocket science.

Sorry, Dr_Q, but I had to be honest here.
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When did finalgear become an elitist photo forum?

If you don't like the thread, don't post in it. It's not a thread for me, but some will find it interesting, not to say an experiment thread for developing better technological quality in their pictures.

Let them.
 
I was well prepared for this to happen and probably have gone about this in completely the wrong way. I wasn't trying to show how great my gear is or how good or bad my photography I just wanted to put up a shot that appears to be sharper than anything else I've done. Despite the fact I've had identical setups before and after this I've never managed to get anything sharper. Now this is looking at photography under a purely technical light (which photography isn't about and I freely admit that) but I still don't know why under certain conditions some things work better than others.

Let's change the direction of this admittedly pretty shoddily thought out topic.

How much of a luck element is there in Photography? Can you honestly say some of the photographs you've taken are completely down to how you envisaged them?
 
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whats more useful, surely, is to perhaps get a little list of lenses that people have and just say which, in their experience, are the best apertures for that lens

for instance, i use my sigma 10-20mm a lot and while its a little soft at F/4, its almost pin sharp at F/5.6 with F/8 not far behind.

as for the luck aspect? im inclinded to agree that there is some luck involved with good photos..... heres some examples of shots that happened purely out of luck.

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now the first one, i was just holding my camera out the window, and shooting willy nilly..... the second, again i not even looking through the view finder i just span round with my camera at waist height as my friend walked passed me. my intentions where to just flash him in the face with the flash but as it happens the photo it took turned out rather well!

and last, but not least, probably one of my favourite photos.... using my old compact, hand held, hanging off some stairs in a dark room.... and that happened. i was amazed, that camera could only go to ISO400 which still wasnt enough for anywhere near good shutter speeds in that light, and i was hanging off a bloody banister!!!

those kinda sum up most of my favourite shots.... i.e. unintentional, not even paying attention to the view finder, just waving my camera around and ramdomly clicking.
 
How much of a luck element is there in Photography? Can you honestly say some of the photographs you've taken are completely down to how you envisaged them?
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I can yes, but I'm a different beast than a lot of the folks on this forum. I'm a fine art photographer who does a lot of staged work. If I had to guess, I'd say probably 90% of what I do boils down to how I envisioned the shot. Sometimes, I go to great trouble in planning my shots, even drawing out on paper what I want well before I even think in terms of "camera."

Especially lately, I've been starting with the emotional impact I want the image to make, then working back through the visual lines and elements, previsualizing a composition, then on to the subject, then (finally) the camera/lens combo. For me, the lens/combo is just crap I use to get to the real "heart" of the matter, which is, actually, the emotional impact I want to get.

But then, like I said, fine art photographer here. I could just as easily do it with paint, only I'm too lazy.
 
I don't think I've ever pulled off a picture I've planned like I wanted to, but generally improvise things on the spot that I like a lot, or find random things that I like the look of. I'm not sure if that's really luck, since what does work tends to be planned as well - just not pre-planned.

Like this picture:



I had intended on taking a picture from behind the video camera with it looking out on an expanse. I actually searched back roads for about a half an hour looking for a completely empty field to shoot it in, one that allowed me to use the angle I wanted.

However, I couldn't quite get the effect I wanted out of it. The camera was always too small, so it looked kind of strange in the end. Not bad pictures, necessarily, but not my favorites either.

So, while I was there and everything was set up, I decided to try to get other interesting angles on the camera. Since there was this tree in the background, I tried to center that (and forgot about my car, so that's why that is in the shot, even though I really didn't intend for it to be there. Ooops). I found previously that having it look like the lens was pointed slightly upward made the camera look more dramatic, so I set it up so it would look that way. I also did it in three exposures since I was all about HDR at the time and wanted to do that, though I've cooled on HDR since. In the end, I got that picture, and I like it a lot. It was not the image I had set out to take, but it was also not really down to luck, more an ability to improvise. Luck helps, but you could have the best luck in the world and not get much of anything unless you can figure out how to take advantage of it.

Boy I like to ramble sometimes.
 
Thinking about it I don't think I've ever taken that long to stage a shot, a tend to sort of do it on the fly. Recently I've been doing a project that turned out to be really time consuming but fun. Basically I go out when it gets really dark at night and then try to make landscapes from what little light there is with long exposures. It's really hit and miss since framing is damn near impossible but when something turns out right I have found it immensely satisfying. Unfortunately I just missed the 'optimum' time for shots to be lit by the full moon but plan to do it when the next one comes (not too long). I would recommend this type of thing to anyone, even if you don't get anything worthwhile it may help your patience :p.
 
@Dr_Q, if you want to help your patience, try bird photography. There's nothing quite like getting up before the crack of dawn, sitting outside in the cold, waiting for hours just for some little chirper to flap a wing.

I don't do much (if any) of it myself, but I know enough about it to know that it's probably best saved for priests, monks, and those sorts of people, you know, people who are so patient they can wait for the afterlife to do things like have sex or eat meat. (Now, that's what I call patience. :~)
 
The problem with that idea is A) I'm not that interesting in birds B) I fear sunrises. I'm perfectly fine with sunsets though (they occur at a much more convenient time really :D). The night stuff was also good for controlling disappointment, there's nothing like waiting for a twenty minute exposure to get done to only find out the camera moved a fraction resulting in a blurry mess (abstract genius? :p). I've considered posting some of these types of shot in Lens Flare but I'm not sure how well they would go down. I have considered making a thread documenting some of the random things I've done but as everyone can see from this topic, sometimes my judgment and wording of my own topics is pretty poor.
 
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For the record, I'm with BCS. We don't need be jizzing all over sharpness tests here. This forum is entitled "photography", not "nerdography".
 
carolsLittleWorld said:
@Dr_Q, if you want to help your patience, try bird photography. There's nothing quite like getting up before the crack of dawn, sitting outside in the cold, waiting for hours just for some little chirper to flap a wing.
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Yeah. :|

I am one of those birder type people. Nothing thrilled me more than seeing a few weeks ago that Junco's were migrating through my neighborhood.

Chickadees (or titmouses in general) are good subjects because they are virtually fearless and will come within feet of you, checking you out.

As far as the original subject of this thread, and arguments, art cannot be measured in numbers or definitions of scientific notation; it is purely subjective to the viewer, and without that subjectivity, it merely is science and mathematics illustrated.
 
BerserkerCatSplat said:
Shhhh, you don't want nomix to think you're elitist, that would be terrible.
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Not the point. I just get quite irritated when people use their manifested autorithy to tell people they shouldn't have posted.

If one were to accept that attitude from all users, this forum would become very stressing and hard to use. It hightens (generally) the level people feel they must achieve to post and so forth.

If you read my post, you'd see I wasn't very interested in this theme, and I'm really not. But I accept that some people are.

If you don't like the thread, it's a classic forum mantra to uphold. Don't post.
 
I really didn't want to cause hassle with this topic, I attempted to change the entire direction of it after I realised how it came across. I have already stated that it wasn't well thought out both in this topic and via PM but I think it would send out the wrong message if I edited it. It's all too easy for me to look clever after the event. I still think that the Photography forum here is rather dominated with the technical aspects of photography but obviously nowhere near as far as I went in my original post. I think with digital SLRs, the technology leaps forward so much that you can really notice the difference between equipment which was never so apparent with film. Stick two different digital SLRs in the same spot and it's quite likely you will get two fairly different results whereas with the film counterparts using the same film it would even out. I've really enjoyed using film this year particularly trying something new with an ancient MF camera, it just seemed more fun.
 
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