Position:Home>Visual Arts> What does the lens type have to do with the sharpness of the picture?

Nowdays most lens are pretty good and will give sharp results!. Your 50mm f1!.8 will be very good and give very sharp results, its not excellent, there is always something better but it is very good in general terms!.

To explain, the better quality lens have better quality coatings, are put together better and therefore give a clearer sharper image with true colours landing on the sensor or film plane!.

That said, if you used cheap outdated incorrectly exposed film, even with the best of lens, it wouldnt make the best of prints!. The same applies to image sensors and file management!.

If you want images with sharpness and true colours you have to use the best of light, set the camera up to maximize the sensors capablity and then manage the file in such a way to get the best results!.

In laymans terms that means make sure the subject is in focus the exposure- white balance is correct for the lighting and the sensor is set to the lowest iso!. Shoot in RAW and process the image on the computer to get the best image!.

That way you will get the best out of the lens you currently have!.

To go further into this and explain why some images appear sharper than others shot on the same lens!. and how to get better images yourself!.

Its more to do with contrast than sharpness!. A hard sun light will give a sharper impression of the paws on your face because there is more contrast, where as the softer cloud covered light will appear less sharp because the light is filling the shadows in the paws!.

Thus by increasing the contrast slightly you can make an image appear sharper!. Too much contrast and the image breaks into blocks of light and dark!. burning out or blocking in all detail!.

Sharpness is only about edges, increasing the sharpness too much and the edge almost begins to blur again into seperate colours, try it in photoshop and see what i mean!.

Clarity is the combination of sharpness and contrast to give a pleasing result!.

Lens makers aim to get the best clarity over a wide range of lighting/subject matter!. from portraits in soft lighting to landscapes in hard lighting!. they use the coatings to do this!. if the light and subject matter was always the same they would invent a lens to give perfect results for that subject/lighting!.

you can improve an image by either adjusting the contrast and sharpness after it has been taken in photoshop or by adjust the light when taking an image!.

On a portrait say the edge of the hair will often be light by a hard backlight giving greater contrast between the hair and the background and thus appearing sharper!. however the skin tones of the face will be light by a softer light like a softbox, this fills the paws and makes a more smooth softer skin tone!.

On a landscape where you want the maximun detail contrast would be increased with the use of a polarizing filter knocking out the fill light of unpolarised light!. exposure and thus contrast of the clouds in the sky might be decreased relative to the rest of the landscape with the use of a graduated natural desity filter!.

Your lens is more than capable of producing the results in sharpness and contrast you want if you learn and understand how to controll the contrast and light!. and its pointless buying more expessive lenses if you dont understand!.

Years ago before we had the quality of lens and photoshop we have now it was all done with the aid of filters and printing skills!.

If you want to understand this more on this my advise would be to read about and look at the images of ansel adams who was producing images which appeared sharper and more vivid back in the 1920 and 30's when lens quality and coatings were much less understood!.

Good luck and have funWww@QuestionHome@Com

---

---

First you have to use the sharpest part of the lens!.

Most amateurs and even quite a few professional think to get max sharpness out of a lens then one should stop down to F/16 or more!. This is 100 percent false!!!!

This is precisely the opposite of what needs to be done!. when one stops down one only gets more depth of field!. This will lead to greater APPARENT sharpness as more is in focus!.

That said one loses ACTUAL sharpness for every stop they stop down after max sharpness which is usually around 1-2 and very rarely three stops off of wide open!.

This is also why fast lens are sharper than slow ones!.

So how do you know where max sharpness is for your lens!?
They make resolution targets!. Put you camera on a Tripod!.

Frame the chart so it is full frame!. Take a picture at each Fstop!. Then print the center of the chart very large!. You will see what F stop is the sharpest by seeing which tiny bars remain sharp!. Ie which one are resolved the best!.

Now this is over kill!. If you want just follow the rule of stopping down one to two stops off wide open UNLESS you specifically want or need the depth of field!. Sometimes you just can't get around that!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

---

---

I can't say "lens type", but a good lens, when used properly, is quite sharp!. For example, Canon 100 mm f 2!.8 Macro is known to be a sharp macro lens, and it can be a very good portrait lens (at least for a full frame camera), too, like this!. I manual focused this photo!. The cropped photo is from the full sized one (same photo)!. http://www!.flickr!.com/photos/little_pook!.!.!.

I have tried Canon's $60 lens (35-80 mm I think)--and I did note that the contrast is not as high as the Canon 24-70 mm f 2!.8!. But the big one does cost 20 (times) more!. So I do think you would get what you pay for when it comes to a lens!.

Here is another-same lens http://www!.flickr!.com/photos/little_pook!.!.!.

This is Canon 100-400 mm zoom!. It's known to be sharp, too!. http://www!.flickr!.com/photos/little_pook!.!.!.

The Canon 135 mm f 2 is supposed to be Canon's sharpest lens!. http://www!.flickr!.com/photos/little_pook!.!.!.

http://www!.flickr!.com/photos/little_pook!.!.!.

http://www!.flickr!.com/photos/little_pook!.!.!.

Canon 17-40 mm f 4 is also sharp http://www!.flickr!.com/photos/little_pook!.!.!.

To me, the Canon 24-70 mm f 2!.8 is very sharp!. Some people say theirs is not!. http://www!.flickr!.com/photos/little_pook!.!.!.

The 16-35 mm f 2!.8 is very sharp to me!.

http://www!.flickr!.com/photos/little_pook!.!.!.

I am not sure if I am answering your question!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

---

---