Is sharpness overrated on this site?

I put this here as it relates to lens sharpness. If anyone thinks it belongs somewhere else feel free to move.

One of the first things I noticed when joining this site is that first critique of every photo is the sharpness of the photo. The sharpness is often judged before the composition and lighting. When I was reading up on photography as I learned I saw many great shots that were considered soft. I think sharpness is important but not all the time. And the degree to which it is sharp is over scrutinized also. Pixel peepers will take a shot that would look sharp on a small poster and zoom into 100% and deem it crap because it isn't sharp enough.

I see so many comments after a C&C is asked for such as: not sharp, next or way too soft.

Do you guys think this site overrates sharpness in general? Gear today is better than ever at giving sharp images so how were photos of yesteryear considered any good? By many of this forums standards all shots with any noise or softness are no good because they aren't razor sharp.

I just think composition and lighting are more important than razor sharpness and many are focusing their efforts mainly on getting something as sharp as possible.

Maybe it's just me and the fact that I haven't had a cup of coffee today yet!


Edit: I posted this because my grandfather who's 87 and been into photography his whole life saw me using a focus test sheet. He pretty much told me that I should worry about what I'm taking photos of and why I'm wasting my time taking photos of a piece of paper. He said he could produce sharp enough photos with 50 year old equipment and I'm worried about the wrong thing! haha

We need to distinguish the difference between a photo being "sharp", as a qualitative factor (versus "Not sharp"), from quantitative measuring of sharpness or comparisons of sharpness ("measurebating" and pixel peeping)

Regarding the first point, for a photo to be soft when displayed on this forum means that the photo has been seriously fudged, either due to user choice or user error or equipment error or malfunction.

There are some photos that sharpness is not a high priority, e.g. an abstract "arty farty" type photo, or "dreamy" type photos. But for most photos, a sharp subject is indicative of a competent capture.

Regarding the second point, can you post up some examples where photos have been deemed crap because someone zoomed into 100% and said it wasn't sharp enough? Because I highly doubt you will find many examples - I don't mean this as a jibe, but sometimes, I feel that we sub-consciously overstate the level of measurebating that truly occurs in the image critique domain. In gear discussions, yes, measurebating can get crazy (e.g. "What is the sharpest aperture of XXXX lens") - but I don't recall seeing it much in image critique posts. It's generally "This shot is soft/out of focus/motion blur" - which is a reasonable critique.

The other reason why you may think sharpness is overemphasised is because it is a relatively objective measure that people can comment on. It's harder to criticise lighting and composition because they are far more subjective. What may be "soft lighting" for one person is "bland" or "flat" for someone else. What may be "dramatic" lighting for me, may be "Harsh" for you.

Yes! The digital file is much easier to pick apart. Zoom in to 200% and people start seeing issues. Back in the darkroom days I hardly ever zoomed past how big I was going to print. Use a Grain focusing aid to check the most important part of my picture, expose the paper and process. Printing is much more forgiving than the computer screen.

My feeling is that the OP is not clear in the original question. Are we talking about sharpness in photos (vs. lighting, composition, subject matter) or are we talking about sharpness of lenses (vs. other features like flare, coma, contrast, vignetting, distortion and color)?

I have not seen too much obsession about the former. If you post a photo on web size that appears soft, then I sure hope that was the intent. As smorter noted, if I can see 'soft' in a web image then the image is really soft.

Sharpness is important to me when I spend thousands on lenses. It is not everything, but for me it is a big part. And a big reason I moved to an SLR, clarity and detail.

Bazinga wrote in post #13667270
Gear today is better than ever at giving sharp images so how were photos of yesteryear considered any good? By many of this forums standards all shots with any noise or softness are no good because they aren't razor sharp.

Because, as you point out, the gear wasn't as good and so softer images, and more grain, were normal. As with anything you judge it by the quality of the day. They were considered good (from a technical standpoint) because at the time, that was what "good" looked like. Given another 50 years of techical development, I would expect that, technically, even the most perfect of images of today will look somewhat lacking to the viewer of 2062.

I do agree with you however, that composition and lighting are more important. I have seen some amazing images (from the current era) that weren't technically perfect, but still had a wow factor. Equally, I have seen huge numbers of technically perfect shots where you wonder why they bothered taking the shot in the first place, because it is so boring.

Creating an interesting shot is the prime consideration, but getting the technical side correct is important to. The ideal is to have both. This is particularly important if you plan on selling your work, as buyers (especially stock agencies, such as Alamy) have stringent technical standards and will pixel peep your work and reject it for any slight technical issue. Well, unless you are the only person to have captured an especially newsworthy event of course, when newspapers will buy the image, (almost) regardless of quality.

So, I agree with you in principal, it is subject, composition and lighting that comes first, but in practice getting images sharp is still quite important. This being a photography forum, such matters are going to be commented on.

I would agree with you.
I don't think the issue really comes out in the critique forum as much as it does in the equipment forum. There are some people whom I'm certain must take photos where the subject and lighting make absolutely no difference (because they are going to blow it up so big on a computer screen that it wouldn't be recognized anyways) so that they can admire just how sharp the photo is. Of course, I say that "tongue in cheek"....but just barely

For me it comes down to the fact that I can always soften an image but there is no substitute for inherent sharpness of a lens.

gonzogolf wrote in post #13667373
For me it comes down to the fact that I can always soften an image but there is no substitute for inherent sharpness of a lens.

It is possible to simulate better lenses by downsizing and sharpening. This can make the crappest lens as sharp as a Canon 300 f/2.8L IS, but at the heavy cost of resolution.

e.g. 100% crop of full resolution photo (out of focus/soft):

impressive, but still not really a route most of us want to take to get sharp images.

No. Next.

gonzogolf wrote in post #13667486
impressive, but still not really a route most of us want to take to get sharp images.

Fair enough

Yes, it's overrated.

Anyone can tell if the photo is sharp. It takes artistic perception of things to judge other aspects of the photo - light, composition, color. Hence sharpness comments will dominate on public forums. (Mind you, I consider myself being more in the former than the latter category, and often find myself overly obsessed with photo sharpness.)

Part of it comes down to HOW people look at photos these days. For me, I enjoy viewing slide shows in full screen with my 21" monitor, looking at 4x6 shots on crappy paper is boring. Of course I'd like my 21" images to be as sharp as possible!

That being said it is true that gear today is much much better than the past (you can even tell by 4x6 shots). I don't have any "L" lenses anymore (had a 70-200 f/4 and it was very sharp, but I didn't use it anymore) I would consider my lenses to be sharp enough for what I need them to do, especially on the 5D which makes a difference over the crop bodies I've used. I don't generally sharpen that much in PP if I did I'm sure I'd get images as sharp as I could ever need.