Are you a pixel peeper obsessed with sharpness? I’m not, although I can admit to being a bit more concerned with it than I should.
Alex Kilbee brings up the issue of sharpness in one of his videos (below). He makes some excellent points, even going through the history of photography, showing how the perception of what constitutes great photography has changed over the years.
Today, Kilbee says, there is a preoccupation by many for sharpness in photography, and I would agree. I would also say that I am just as guilty as others.
Browse YouTube for photography topics and you’ll see that sharpness is a very common topic. Either sharpness of the hardware, mainly lenses, or how you can make your photos as sharp as possible in post-production.
The quest for sharpness is never ending, exhausting and expensive. And I will never have enough money to buy gear that will allow me to take the sharpest photos possible. But I try to buy gear that will let me shoot photos that are as sharp as possible for what I can afford.
Related to this is the focus of so many on gear rather than photos. And I’m just as guilty of that as the next guy, but more on that another time.
Look at a photographer like Olga Karlovac. Her photos are always burry, and you won’t find much of the classical sharpness in them.
But I love them!
Or look at ICM (intentional camera movement) that has become popular in recent years. Those photos are inherently not sharp.
Some of my favorite photos I’ve shot with a plastic Holga, like the one below.
So what is the conclusion? Not sure there is one conclusive one.
Sharpness in a technical sense, looking at lenses and editing, is easy.
Even though I now have equipment that can produce the sharpest photos I’ve ever been able to produce, I will try to focus less on the technical sharpness in my work, and more on the meaning or the feeling in them.
That’s a promise I make to myself.
But watch Kilbee below, and think about how you approach this issue.
It’s well worth it.
