One Stop Under

Many people go to all kinds of extremes for the sake of sharpness, such as buying expensive lenses and/or high resolution digital cameras, testing their lenses by photographing resolution charts, and memorizing MTF (modulation transfer function) charts. Unfortunately, most of these people, nevertheless, will not often achieve stellar sharpness because they don’t know how — do not know the techniques to employ and the pitfalls to avoid — to handle their photo equipment toward the goal of maximum sharpness. The primary sharpness-limiting factor for most photographers is inadequate technique, not inadequate optics.

This is a very thorough exploration of all the factors that contribute to the sharpness of the final image when taking a photograph. There are obvious things like use a tripod, use a remote trigger, use the sharpest aperture for your lens, etc. But there are also less well-known techniques, like weighting down your tripod, centering the camera’s weight over the center of the tripod, removing the tripod’s center column, and using manual focus. And for those who have truly driven themselves insane in the pursuit of sharpness, there are tips like shoot at the optimum subject distance for your lens, and use your film quickly so that it lays flat at the plane of focus and doesn’t have time to develop a curl or warp inside the camera.

Filed under: Technique
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