Lens Sharpness 4/30/23, 11)41 PM

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Lens Sharpness
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Nikon Micro-NIKKOR 105mm f/2.8 AI-s. This free website's biggest source of
support is when you use these links to get your stuff from the same places I do when
you get anything, regardless of the country in which you live. Thanks! Ken.

May 2008 Nikon Lenses Canon Lenses LEICA Lenses All Lenses

Introduction
Sharpness is the most overrated aspect of lens performance.

Lens sharpness seems like it ought to be related to making sharp

photos, but it isn't.

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Sales and marketing departments fuel this misconception because

it scares people into buying new lenses. Sharpness is easy to test
and analyze, so magazines oblige less experienced photographers
with reams of colorful charts and graphs. People would make far
better pictures if they spent time learning how to make great
photos with what they already own instead of worrying about their
tools.

Photographic lenses, used properly, have always been sharp,

even at the dawn of photography in the 1840s. Optical design is a
much older science than photography. The reasons some photos
aren't sharp rarely have anything to do with the lens.

"Any good modern lens is corrected for maximum definition at the

larger stops. Using a small stop only increases depth..." Ansel
Adams, June 3, 1937, in a reply to Edward Weston's request for
lens suggestions, page 244 of Ansel's autobiography. Ansel was
telling him to stop worrying about lens sharpness, since all the
ones he was considering were sharp. This was the 1930s. Today
even crappy lenses, including plastic lenses on most disposable
cameras, are sharp when used properly.

In 2008, sharpness is the last thing about which you need to worry
when selecting a lens. Even the cheapest SLR and compact
cameras lenses are sharper than expensive lenses used to be,
and all are sharper than most digital camera's ability to resolve fine
details.
I use Adorama,
I'm writing this page because I'm embarrassed at how I have to Amazon, eBay, Ritz,
use a lens improperly just to show its limitations in a lens review. I Calumet, J&R and
know how to make almost any lens or product look bad by using it ScanCafe. I can't
incorrectly and then enlarging the results for all to see. I'm vouch for ads below.
embarrassed because this isn't the correct way to write a useful
review, but it's the sort of thing that people who read reviews like to
read.

Lens sharpness has little to do with anything. It gets too much

coverage because it's easy to test and analyze.

If you want impressive interactive 3-D color graphics, all anyone

has to do is buy some software, shoot a target or two, and the
software generates tons of impressive charts and graphs based on
whatever it's fed. That's the problem: the charts don't tell as much
as an actual series of many images says to an experienced
observer, and the charts only can show what little is seen with the
few controlled images fed to the software.

Testing lens sharpness is less relevant today than it was in the

1950s! In the 1950s, a lens was just an optical tube with no
communication to the camera body. Even the diaphragm had to be
opened and closed manually for each photo! "Automatic"

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 GIS GmbH
Lens Sharpness 4/30/23, 11)41 PM

diaphragms that opened and closed for each shot didn't become
common until the 1960s. This is why old manual lenses often say

BEGIS GmbH
"Auto," because automatic diaphragms were a big deal in the
1960s. In the 1950s and before, testing a lens' optics in the sterility Personalakten
of a lab made as much sense as anything. digitalisieren
Today the optics are only a small part of any camera system, and
the optics are so good that they render lab testing irrelevant unless BEGIS GmbH
you're a lens designer. We need to worry about how a lens works
as part of a much larger system of live tracking autofocus, aperture
and exposure control, distance information fed to the metering
system, vibration reduction, zooming, and more.

Because most lenses won't work today unless they have a camera
body for shore power and life support, testing the optics alone in a
lab no longer means anything to photographers. Testing lenses
with the cameras on which they are used means much more,
which throws magazines into a tizzy since they no longer can run a
lens through a solitary lab test and have anyone care.

Know Your Limits top

I need to know the limits of each part of my system so that I can

work around them. If I know a lens is softer wide-open, then duh, I
know how far to stop it down to get fantastic results. It's the great
results I seek; finding the limits is merely a means to getting great
results.

The first thing I've always done when I've bought a new camera or
lens is to push it to its limits. I find the limits, make a note of it
(which is what started this website), and then go out and shoot. I Weitere Infos
don't worry about it again.

Sadly, many people try to test their lenses, but get disappointed and think they have
a defective product when all they've found is its limits, or more often, limitations in
their own technique. Let me assure you, every product has its limits, and with digital
cameras today, anyone can find them.

Only idiots find something's limits, and let themselves get stuck there complaining
about it. It's every artist's duty to find his tools' limitations so he can work around
them. Americans didn't walk on the moon in 1969 by sitting around complaining
about all the reasons we couldn't get there.

Why Lens Sharpness Doesn't Matter Anyway top

Even with film, most people considered small 8x12" (20x30cm) prints as
"enlargements." People often thought they were testing sharpness by looking at 4x6"
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(10x15cm) "jumbo" prints. This was always ridiculous, because even the crappiest
35mm camera can easily make sharp 8x12" prints. Even when I started with 35mm
as a kid in the 1970s, I knew that you had to print at 20 x30" (50x75cm) in order to
see any lens limitations. It was easy for me to see things on my transparencies
under my microscope or with my slide projector that simply didn't make it to 8x12"
prints.

Most gear has always been much better than people's abilities to use it. Making big
prints usually lost more sharpness from sloppy enlarging technique than any
limitation of the taking lens. Most people still have no idea of just how good even the
simplest of equipment is today.

In the old days, we went blind staring at film with loupes (usually 8x ~ 22x) and
microscopes (30x and up). Today, anyone can look at digital images at 100% on
their computer or camera's LCD, which is at least 30x magnification from even the
lowest resolution DSLR. Likewise, anyone can share all these greatly magnified
images across the Internet. (30x means how much larger the on-screen image is
compared to the original image formed by the lens.)

The afternoon I got my first Canon 16-35mm f/2.8 L II, it looked pretty nasty shooting
brick walls. I got over it, and headed out the next morning to shoot it in Yosemite,
and got some of my best shots ever. Why? Simple: walls have nothing to do with
real subjects, and no one shoots at f/2.8 in decent light. Stop down and the lens is
marvelous, even in the corners at 16mm. In dim light, where you might use f/2.8,
corner sharpness doesn't matter because the subject is usually dark there!

When I spoke with the folks at Canon in person, we all had a good laugh at how
Canon had to re-do an already excellent lens just so people who weren't using it
properly would be happy. No one complained in film days when only pros owned
Canon's exotic 16-35mm f/2.8. Of course Canon is more than happy to offer a newer
and more expensive lens, but we still scratch our heads as to why some people,
other than lens designers, worry so much about this.

In real-world photography, natural factors do more to screw up a picture than any

lack of lens sharpness. Sharpness tests are unlike real photos because a test does
everything possible to eliminate any source of unsharpness. In a lab, nothing moves
and the target is usually flat. Only corn dogs use cameras to photograph flat test
charts; smarter people stick flat charts in a $50 scanner for better results!

In reality, everything moves, and nothing is flat. If nothing is flat, then only one point
is in perfect focus while the rest isn't.

Therefore, there may be no real plane of perfect focus, because most lenses have
saggital and meridional (imaginary) planes of perfect focus which diverge. Planes of
perfect focus are usually different for different colors, all this gobbledygook meaning
that there is no single real plane of perfect focus anyway.

Most lens makers' sharpest lenses are their 300mm f/2.8, 400mm f/2.8, 500mm f/4
and 600mm f/4 ED and L series lenses. Look at their MTF graphs, and they really do
have virtually perfect performance. Unfortunately, long lenses have even more
stacked between them and a sharp picture. Not only do long lenses have paper-thin

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depths of field, but their biggest barrier to sharpness is our atmosphere! Even at
reasonable distances, heat shimmer is so magnified by long tele lenses that it's often
a big barrier to sharpness. Fog and haze at long distances doesn't help, either. Long
teles are subject to the same things that vex astronomers, which are called "seeing
conditions."

A sharp photo needs good lighting, clear air, getting the subjects to sit in the plane of
best focus, and an imaginative photographer. Depth-of-field, imperfect focus and
subject and camera motion are the major reasons photos are rarely as sharp as they
could be. Lens imperfections almost never matter in real photography.

Who Cares? top

Artists and good photographers avoid putting sharp, contrasty and important image
elements along the edges of an image because these details draw our eyes out of
the image. Photographers especially avoid putting anything in the far corners. An
effective image keeps viewers' eyes glued to the subject and inside the picture.
Details at the periphery pull eyes away from the subject which weakens images.

When lenses get softer in the corners or sides, it's usually way out of the area in
which you'd want to have something sharp anyway.

With long and normal lenses, it's unlikely anything in the corners is at the same
distance and in focus anyway.

No matter how sharp a lens, as soon as you move the smallest amount away from
the plane of best focus, it gets softer. No mater how sharp someone's eye may be,
their ears and tip of their nose will be in poorer focus than the eyes. These will be as
out-of-focus regardless of the lens you use.

How to Use Your Lens Properly top

Know your gear's limitations, and work within them. This is the basis of everything
people do.

For most lenses, this means stop down two stops from maximum to eliminate any
residual aberrations and vignetting, and don't use the last two smaller apertures due
to diffraction.

Some people freak out when a lens won't do something for which it was never
intended. Some people will think that they have a defective sample of lens, where in
fact all they're doing is looking too hard and finding that lens' limits.

The only lenses designed for shooting flat test charts are macro (and Nikon's micro)
lenses. Every other photographic lens is designed for taking pictures of living,
moving three-dimensional objects. Waste too much time worrying about corner
sharpness and you'll die young.

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Normal and telephoto lenses rarely have limitations, but even in 2008 zooms and
ultra-wides still can be soft if you look too closely in the corners at too high a
magnification.

It's normal for ultra-wide zooms to be horribly soft in the corners shot wide-open. The
only ultra-wide zoom anyone's ever tested that is sharp in the corners at f/2.8 at the
widest end is Nikon's 14-24mm f/2.8 AF-S. So what, when you shoot a wide lens
wide-open, it's because it's dark, and the corners of your composition are probably
unlit anyway.

Know your lenses' limitations and work around them. The real difference in
sharpness between lenses is the range of conditions over which a lens works well.
Know the conditions over which your system works well, and use it there for great
results.

You know how important focus is to getting sharp pictures. Some camera and lens
combinations, like the Nikon D300 and 60mm AF-S micro, get hung up and refuse to
focus in some conditions. Yes, the 60mm is super-sharp for shooting test charts, but
could be awful if it didn't focus and you missed your shot.

This is the reason real photographers may pay more for expensive gear. It's not
because it works any better, in fact often cheap lenses are sharper under ideal
conditions than more expensive lenses. Photographers pay more for some gear
because it allows them to get great results over a broader range of conditions, not
because it works any better in a lab under ideal conditions.

Use the Right Tools top

Within any format (35mm, DSLR, 120, 4x5, etc.), the sharpness of any image is
limited mostly by the format. No matter how sharp your 35mm Leica might be, even
a crummy medium format camera is much sharper.

This was never more apparent to me than when I got my first 4x5" camera in 1991.
Holy guacamole, the results from the beat-up, scratched crummy lens I got on my
Graflex was a zillion times sharper than any of my classic "sharpest lens ever made"
manual-focus Nikkors like the 55mm f/2.8, 105mm f/2.8 AI-s Micro at the top of this
page or 180mm f/2.8 ED.

If sharpness is your concern, be sure you're shooting the biggest format you can
bear. If you shoot digital, shoot Canon full-frame or Nikon FX, if not medium format
like the Mamiya ZD, or pop a Phase One P45 on your 4x5 camera. Don't expect that
new lenses are going to make any difference with the same camera you've been
using.

I kid you not: we in media were amused when the EXIF data of Nikon's press images
of the D3 told us that they were shot on a P45 back. (These are the product shots
you've seen everywhere in publicity and reviews of the D3). Nikon's not stupid, so
why should you be? Nikon had a photographer who used the proper tools for a
studio shot, not a news, sports and action camera like the D3.

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All because common cameras like Nikon and Canon have huge marketing budgets
doesn't mean you should be using them if you're shooting landscapes on a tripod.
Getting a larger format camera is the way to go, and you can do it for under $2,000.

How to Check Sharpness top

The only lenses for which it makes sense to shoot charts are macro lenses. Most
lenses are used at larger distances. Shooting a chart a few feet (meters) away has
nothing to do with its sharpness at longer distances.

Even the slightest misalignment in most people's test setups causes more loss of
sharpness than the lenses they are trying to test. Planes of best focus are very, very
thin — much thinner than any depth-of-field.

For photographic purposes, you have to climb a mountain and shoot down. You
have to do this when the seeing conditions are clear, and for longer lenses, when
heat shimmer isn't happening, typically in the early morning, dusk, and at night.

By shooting from a mountain, all of the subject is at infinity over all of the frame, and
there are tons of fine fractal detail everywhere, like vegetation. Your subject's
alignment doesn't matter, since everything is at infinity all over the frame. Few
people have access to mountains on clear days, which is why so many tests aren't
done correctly and create apparent problems which don't exist.

Ansel Adams suggested using lines of trees along a distant mountain ridge as a
target. I can't do that here in Southern California because all we have are rocks on
the tops of our mountains. Ansel knew about fractals before Mandelbrot ever wrote
about them. Fractals means that there are similar levels of detail at every
magnification, so that regardless of how close or how far you are away from trees,
complete forests or individual leaves, there is always detail to be seen. Buildings,
newspaper classifieds, cars and signs don't have this quality: they have only sharp
edges, but no textures, and if they have texture, it's at about only one level of detail.

Appropriate natural objects have detail at every magnification, and detail in every
direction.

Focus needs to be perfect. Even the slightest error in your AF system or manual
focus will cause unsharpness. With longer lenses, you have to choose your
mountain carefully since objects closer than a mile start becoming a significant
amount closer than infinity.

What Really Matters top

Just go take pictures. I know how to make lenses look awful in order to find their
limits when testing them, but they always look a zillion times better when actually
taken out and used to make real pictures. Only idiots shoot wide-open in daylight.
(Fashion photographers shoot long teles wide-open, which look great.)

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What really matters is how the lens feels in your hands. How well does it focus? Is
there too much distortion for you? Does it zoom well, or does the zoom ring bunch
some focal lengths too close together? Do you have to move switches to get into
manual focus mode? (Some Nikon lenses take two switches!) Does the autofocus
grab accurate focus, and if it does, does it do it every time? (Some Canon cameras
and lenses completely "miss" a significant percentage of the time.)

Does VR or IS work well? Does the VR or IS system make too much chatter or
hissing noise? Does the lens have VR or IS, without which it will be much less sharp
in real shots at longer focal lengths?

Is the lens too big or heavy? Are the controls in comfortable positions? Is the focus
ring in a place likely to get knocked by accident, as it is on the Nikon 24-70mm AFS?

Will your filters fit, and will they cause any vignetting? Are there ghosts if pointed into
the sun?

Is it built to last, or will it fall apart?

Will the lens and all its features work on your camera?

Sharpness is the least of our worries.

Why Some People Worry About Sharpness top

News and media has always played on people's fears to get more readers and
viewers. When I was a budding photographer and tried to sell car crash photos to
the local paper, the first thing they asked me was if anyone died. If not, they didn't
care. As we say in TV news, "if it bleeds, it leads."

Some men (never women) worry themselves silly about lens sharpness. When I
started serious photography in the 1970s, I was warned that there is a segment of
the hobby where all people do is take pictures of brick walls and newspaper
classifieds, but never make any photos of anything worthwhile.

The people who worry the most are those with the least experience. Don't let this
happen to you. Check each piece of new gear as it arrives, but then get out and
shoot.

And Again, Who Cares? top

All this has been presuming you want a sharp photo. Being sharp has little to do with
being a good photo, unless you're doing forensic work. Many great photos use
deliberate unsharpness to express their points, and if you look at sales and auction
prices of photos as art you'll see that the fuzzier ones sell for much more.

Sharp photos are boring. Photos that are sharp all over are usually amateur

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attempts, which glaringly show too much detail for many unrelated, confusing and
distracting elements. A good photo has impact and a punch line. The fewer things a
photo tries to say, the more powerfully it says them. Things need to stand out.
Having everything sharp edge-to-edge rarely makes for a strong photo.

Have a look at PDN's May 2008 Photo Annual, where there are at least 400 hand-
picked examples of the best professional photography from every category from
advertising to journalism to sports to stock. Look in the corners, and every single
shot has fuzzy corners, or more likely, deliberately darkened, white or otherwise
detail-free corners.

You don't put details in your corners. It distracts the viewer and weakens your image.

Some people think I'm a decent photographer. Do you know what limits the
sharpness of most of my photos, even those made with crappy equipment? It's the
same things I mention elsewhere: imperfect focus, limited depth-of-field, and subject
and camera motion.

Your creative input to a photo makes far more of an imprint on the image than any
small, and often invisible, difference in sharpness from one lens to another.

Sharpness. Just get over it.

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The biggest help is when you use any of these links when you get anything,
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If you find this page as helpful as a book you might have had to buy or a workshop
you may have had to take, feel free to help me continue helping everyone.

If you've gotten your gear through one of my links or helped otherwise, you're family.
It's great people like you who allow me to keep adding to this site full-time. Thanks!

If you haven't helped yet, please do, and consider helping me with a gift of $5.00.

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Thanks for reading!

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