When Sharpness Becomes an Unhealthy Obsession

Posted on 12 December 2007

Here is a small photo*:

100% crop sample

It is a tiny 100% crop from a photograph made with a Canon 5D, 70-200mm f/4 lens at f/11. (I don’t recall the shutter speed, but it was on a tripod). This image includes the head and shoulders of a person standing on an overlook above the Pacific ocean. Doesn’t look too sharp, does it?

If you viewed the entire photograph from which this portion comes at this resolution it would be five feet wide.

Make a direct print of this sample image so that it has the same dimensions you see on the screen. (If your screen displays at 72 dpi, print it at 72 dpi, etc. Or, put a ruler up to the screen, measure the image, then make a print that has the same dimensions.) The print will look awful – just as bad as it looks on the screen – but keep in mind that it is a very small bit of a much (much!) larger image.

The next time you have the opportunity to view some very large photographic prints at a show or in a museum, find one that is five feet wide. Discreetly take out your little print and compare the detail in the gallery print to the detail in this little sample image.

I think you’ll find that some very large (e.g. – five feet wide) gallery prints that look quite sharp don’t show any more detail than this. Some will show considerably less. A few – perhaps shot with LF equipment – may show a bit more.

Sharpness is a good and important thing, but it can also become an unhealthy and unproductive obsession.

* For reference, a jpg of the photograph from which this sample was taken is available here.

(This is from a message I recently posted in a long-winded and hopeless forum discussion of the “sharpness” produced by various types of equipment and in prints.)