Is this lens sharp enough?

Peano - thank you for your input!

On some cameras, and actually most cameras, a shutter speed of 1/25 will provide the worst mirror slap vibration.

See this good article by Bob Atkins:

http://www.bobatkins.c​om …graphy/tutorial​s/mlu.html

With a good tripod, you can actually get sharper images at slower shutter speeds. Of course, using mirror lockup or shooting in live view solves the problem.

So here's a sample image from this morning outside (100% crop, ISO 64, f/1.4, 1/4000). Again, ignore that it's not fine tuned - I'm just trying to decide if this is a good copy of the lens based on the sharpness. What do you think?

If your trying to assess the sharpness of the lens alone and not the AF performance, shoot a ISO12233 chart and eliminate all variables. Shoot as you did on the second test, lots of light, high shutter speed, tripod mounted, but shoot a flat target and use LV zoomed in to manually focus. This will insure that you have the focus as perfect as you can get it and the ISO chart will clearly show where things start to fall apart. I would try and shoot at several apertures and compare. f/1.4 will look the softest and it should continue to sharpen to about f/5.6 or f/8 at which time diffraction takes over and the images gets softer again.

Below is a shot I took to micro-focus a lens but it does show what a soft image looks like and what a sharp one looks like. On the left site the lens can only resolve at 6 but is capable when much better.

How are these images being processed?

Left Handed Brisket wrote in post #18503311
How are these images being processed?

Into LR as RAW and right back out as JPEG. No editing.

I went through the calibration gymnastics this morning. Here is a "real world" pic of my daughter at f/1.4 - full pic and 100% crop. The next is at f/2.2. Both taken approx. 10 ft away. No processing except to convert to JPEG.

2.2

I would be very happy with that sharpness wide open. Apply a little PP sharpening to it and it will be outstanding.

Thank you jra!

Here's a side by side of 1.4 and 2.2.

Thank you to all who care to give their thoughts. I've heard this lens is supposed to be sharp, sharp, sharp even at wide open. I'm just trying to determine if I have a copy that exhibits that claim.

daystar wrote in post #18503400
I've heard this lens is supposed to be sharp, sharp, sharp even at wide open.

Hosted photo: posted by daystar in
./showthread.php?p=185​03400&i=i6109996
forum: Nikon Lenses

My eyes says it failed.

I don't have the Nikon kit to allow me to give you a really well informed response. I shoot Canon.

But:

Is this lens copy sharp compared against my Canon 85L f/1.2? ... No, it is grievously soft.

Is this lens copy sharp compared against my Canon 135L f/2.0? ... No, it is grievously soft.


I don't for, even for one nanosecond, want to turn this into a Nikon vs. Canon thing. Pushing all that baggage out of the way and over to the side, I'd say "return this lens" ... it falls short of sharp.

It's a sigma lens.

:P

As for image processing, while you are not making any specific edits, Lr has to be applying some basic settings. I use capture one, so I am unsure of what adobe is doing these days, but sharpening has always seemed to be something adobe under-applied as default. All raw files need sharpening.

That said, I'm leaning to it being a not so good copy.

I believe I agree that this isn't all I hoped it would be in the area of sharpness. It may just be this copy. I don't know. I think I will probably send it back but not sure if I'll replace it. Honestly, having to go through all that micro/fine tune adjusting was a pain. Probably if you have an excellent copy it's worth it but I'm undecided at this point.

My humble little Nikkor 85mm 1.8G does a MUCH better job at 1.8.

Thank you all very, very much for all the input and advice - greatly appreciated!