what is sharp?

I'm sure we all have different ideas of what sharp is. These two pics below are they ‘sharp’? Both were taken apprx 4 feet away.
I ask, because I am trying different settings on my 7d, and from everything I see and read, it seems to come down to everyone has a different take on what ‘sharp’ means.
I’ll post some pics of buildings when I get some time off work, these are from my sleeping area.
Thanks for any comments,

james

7d
2.8
1/50
iso 640
55mm
spot
flash

There's a discussion here, trying to answer the exact same question:

Link

LV Moose wrote in post #17029093
There's a discussion here, trying to answer the exact same question:

Link

thank you for the link, admins, please close/lock/delete.

Cheese is sharp.

Sharp many times is overrated. I quite often add a bit of fuzziness to my prints to add atmosphere. All my portraits are de-sharpened.

What is sharp? Sharp is something for geeks & gearheads to argue about on the internet. To justify to themselves how spending thousands & thousands of $$$ is worthwhile.

Personally, I prefer an interesting subject, nicely exposed, in focus & nicely saturated. But that's just me.

Hogloff wrote in post #17029767
Sharp many times is overrated. I quite often add a bit of fuzziness to my prints to add atmosphere. All my portraits are de-sharpened.

interesting

speedync wrote in post #17029842
Personally, I prefer an interesting subject, nicely exposed, in focus & nicely saturated. But that's just me.

i like this answer, thank you

as for your images, it's really difficult to judge sharpness on that size of pic...see this for example:
http://www.juzaphoto.c​om/article.php?l=en&ar​ticle=10

'sharp' to me is good enough to be usable if i'm just shooting for fun

that definition changes when I shoot for clients

bk2life wrote in post #17029062
what is sharp?

In the first image, the buck's eye & face are sharp.

In the 2nd image, the eye & face are not sharp.

I really very much prefer for my images to be sharp. In fact, it is hard for me to understand why people say that they don't care about sharpness . . . the sharp photos just look so much better and more lifelike. Soft photos make me feel like I'm looking thru a pair of dirty, greasy eyeglasses . . . yuk!

i feel like if you can tell the difference at that size though, it's not a discussion between sharp, and unsharp...it's in focus, or out of focus...

DreDaze wrote in post #17032697
i feel like if you can tell the difference at that size though, it's not a discussion between sharp, and unsharp...it's in focus, or out of focus...

Yes, but in focus is sharp, and out of focus is not sharp. Same with camera movement - when you have camera shake, you have an image that is not sharp, and when you keep the camera still (all other factors being equal) you have a sharp image.

Sharpness, or the lack thereof, is caused by several factors. Just because you can identify what factor caused the unsharpness does not mean that the image isn't really unsharp. It means that the image is indeed unsharp, because of that factor.

I prefer my images to be sharp, meaning that I prefer them to be in perfect focus, I prefer them to be taken from a rock-solid camera/lens, I prefer them to be taken with sufficient shutter speed so as to freeze subject movement, I prefer them to not have noise grain that interferes with the clear resolution of fine detail, and I need them to be taken with optics that resolve fine detail in a clear, distinct fashion.

It blows my mind that people spend tens of thousands of pounds on their kit and then say they want fuzzy pictures, or accept out of focus lenses as superior to sharp lenses as they prefer the Bokeh of the softer lens that happen to own. Utterly insane, what normal person has ever looked at a photo and said 'Ohh nice Bokeh, I didn't even notice the picture was blurry!'. Tosh, utter tosh, if you want blurry photo's, but a cheap camera, spend the money saved on booze or hookers or something, and stay off internet photography forums.

Rant over

If you take sharp pics, you can always fuzz them as desired up in PP. The opposite is a lot tougher