sharp, soft & noisy pics; your style

[alex2131]

I have noticed many post regarding the sharpness of a photo, specially everytime someone post a pic where the eyes are soft, but then I also notice some photographers jobs that almost all of their work are in the soft and noisy side. Great compositions, IMO perfect shots but soft or noisy. This makes me think then if this subject is a matter of taste or style more than the capacity, experience, knowledge or "state of the art" equipment the photographer may have.

I'm a relatively new in the Photo world, still experimenting and looking for that style I wish, and far away to consider myself as a Pro photographer (no matter how many Prime lenses I have).
I would like to know your input on this subject. Is sharpness, soft or noisy pictures just a matter of style and personal taste? What do you think?
For obvious reasons I'm not going to mention anyone's name or sites, this is not intended to offend no one.

Inputs appreciated.
Alex

[DStanic]

I think it also has alot to do with the content you are shooting. If I was shooting sports (say cycling for example) I'd like to have everything tack sharp and vivid. If you were doing portraits of a bride you may want to have a softer look to them. When I take pictures of my cats, I've gotten positive feedback on pics where I have sharpened them (especially the eyes).

[JeffreyG]

Portraits of old people = soft

Sports, landscapes = sharp

[airfrogusmc]

For me unless its a "COMMERCIAL" portrait, old people, SHARP, VERY SHARP to show all of the character and every moment of a long life...

I've always tended to lean more towards sharp for just about everything and for me low noise.

In my opinion in all portraits the eyes need to be sharp. Everything else can be a bit soft but the eyes are the widows to the soul and need to be sharp in my opinion.

[S.Horton]

Except for sports -- I am definitely moving towards a bit softer result with good tone, color and contrast overall.

[dryfire]

While it is probably not a consideration for most people, softer edges compress better.

[bacchanal]

If you plan on doing processing to the image it is nice to have a sharp, well exposed file to start with. You can take detail away, but you can't add it back in.

On the other hand, for candids and certain types of shots, 100% sharpness isn't a huge issue. However, there are different kinds of "soft". To me, a photo with obviously missed focus (subject is soft, but other parts of the image are sharp) is much less appealing than a photo that has motion blur or maybe a little bit of camera shake. A lot of old school photographs are a bit soft due to camera or subject motion, and this is in part due to film speed, aperture value and lack of autofocus. Back in the day, candid shooters would sometimes shoot with a narrow aperture, so they didn't have to be as precise with the focus, and this slowed down the shutter speed. Shooting at f/1.4 all the time seems to be a relatively modern trend, but it introduces it's own problems obviously.

I am pretty tolerant of noise in my shots, and almost always prefer noise to blur for what I shoot. However, I do my best to minimize noise out of the camera. A noisy/underexposed file out of the camera is much less tolerant of processing.

[alex2131]

Thank you everyone for taking time to respond.
There is always something new to learn.
Thanks again.