NZPhotographer Issue 23, September 2019

SUMMIT OF MT NGAURUHOE
F8, 1/30s, ISO 100
How important is sharpness? Well, that
depends on the end-use of your image.
If you are only ever going to display your
image at a maximum size of 1200 pixels on
Instagram, Facebook or a website, I would say not
very. If however, you intend to make large scale
prints of an image, sharpness can make or break
the end quality of that print.
As a landscape photographer that often
produces prints as large as 1.2 meters wide,
sharpness in my original files is paramount for
me. I would not consider myself a “pixel peeper”
though and I am not interested in spending all my
time testing the latest sharpness lens at a different
setting (there are websites to use for that!).
Where having the right equipment for the job and
some knowledge of its limitations are important,
I feel that equipment is not the main reason
that people don’t get sharp shots. The one thing
I consistently see when teaching on workshops is
bad shooting techniques, and I would say this is
the biggest reason for ending up with soft images.
Let’s consider some of the things that can lead to
a soft image and how to minimise these.
EQUIPMENT QUALITY & KNOWLEDGE
I see people blaming the quality of their shots on
the quality of their equipment all the time. Though
gear can make a difference, I feel that this is not
the main reason people don’t get sharp images.
If used correctly any camera setup can capture a
reasonably sharp image.
Camera – I think we have all been sold on the
“megapixel dream” by camera (& phone)
manufacturers. My current phone even has a 40MP
sensor in it! In reality, this whole megapixel race has
become a joke, as the files from my 40MP phone
would never withstand the enlargement needed to
print to the size that I do from my “real” camera due
to other factors like the quality of these pixels and the
optics in front of them.
For my landscape photography, I shoot with a
Nikon D850. One of the reasons I use this camera
is its resolution of 45MP which helps me to make
large scale prints of my images. However, most
photographers do not print to this scale, if they even
print their work at all, so do not require this sort of
file size. Anything over 14MP produces an image of
about the quality of traditional 35mm film. So for most
photographers, if left uncropped this would be more
50 NZPhotographer