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Is the landscape sharp front to back, does it have to be to make good photographs, and why some alternatives can even be better!
Video edited by Ann Kristin Lindaas
Images ©Alister Benn
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44 Comments
Great topic. I like what you had to say about this.
An other great eye-opener. Thnx Allister.
Thank you for this instructive video. Sharpness often takes too much ‘technical’ focus and leads you to put less focus on other important aspects of a good photograph.
Can I ask a favour. Is it possible that you put something again into your video background. I really loved your guitars. A pure b(l)ackground is not something I like. Thank you.
I've been thinking about this very subject for some time. It has seemed a bit odd to me to sharpen to the point that the image looks surreal. Thank you Alister for a video that, once again, explains what my brain is trying to tell me:)
Great video, awesome content. Truely thought provoking. Thank you for creating what you do.
Thank you Alister. Once again interesting and inspiring points of view! Step by step you are beginning to show your funny side,
which fits well to your other competences😉. Fun to listen and I‘m looking forward to my copy of your book. Kind regards, Martin
You nailed it exactly. When a photo is over-sharpened, I sense a tension that the scene is about to explode in the next instant. That creates a rush to snap the shutter. I'm exhausted. You just explained how/why that doesn't/shouldn't need to be. Thank you.
Alister, this deeply resonated with me, on two levels:
1. Getting away from externally imposed (and often self-imposed), misunderstood perfection towards expressing your take of the scene.
2. Getting out of the darkness of depression through a creative journey.
All the very best and much of success with your book, you good person.
Awesome! I've been hoping someone would talk about this very thing.
"It needs to be sharp where it needs to be sharp" is the money quote from this video. Sometimes front to back sharpness is good. Sometimes it's too much. The artist needs to know what degree of sharpness and depth of field is appropriate for the vision one wants to create.
Sometimes I focus stack. Sometimes I don't. It depends on where I want the viewer to focus. What gets me about lens reviews sometimes are comments about corner sharpness. Who is pixel peeping in the corners?
Such a great topic. I spent a few years hearing club judges salivating about sharpness, when nature itself is not sharp. When we look at a scene, clarity reduces over distance. Also selective focus is a useful creative tool, in drawing attention to the key point of interest. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I think it's interesting that even some of the masters from over 100 years ago like Léonard Misonne would use various techniques at the printing stage to soften their images and make them look more like paintings.
I've often wondered if the many voices advocating greater or lesser amounts of deliberate sharpening to our images had sound sense at the back of their recommendations, but I haven't yet found a clear reason to follow them. Thank you for the case to let well alone!
Thank you for that – really helpful and instructive video – as an ageing amateur I find the incessant emphasis on 'tack sharp front to back sharpness ' to be counterproductive as you
eloquently point out – and unhelpful . The human eye cannot see everything in focus at the same time – enough said.
Thank you so much. I agree totally with you.
Alister, as always you provide an interesting perspective and I wouldn't disagree with anything you said in this video. In fact, I agree that sometimes to the detriment of the image, we put far too much weight on sharpness and resolution and not enough on qualities that would otherwise make a good image. Keep up the great work Alister and thanks for all the time and effort you put into making these videos.
Thanks… very useful…
Very interesting. I too agree – when it's so sharp it almost hurts the eyes somehow, it does nothing for me.
Great content. So true about the amount of focus we see in a typical scene. Can you imagine how much energy the brain would consume if 60 frames per second of its input were all crystal clear focus. Being primarily birds and wildlife my DOF is usually quite minimal. Even tailfeathers don't really have to be that sharp. Landscape scenes obviously require a greater DOF but as you pointed out, too much clarity is unnatural.
Very useful!!! 'Monkey off by back' stuff 🙂
Indeed! I've actually backed my input sharpening off to 20 and add a 40 or 50% 'unsharp mask' but will sometimes add some back selectively while processing.
Wise words Alister. Thanks as always for great content #raysimpsonphoto
Very important issue – thank you!
Very interesting points. Thanks for sharing
Excellent, learn so much!
Thank you, another informative and inspirational video!
as h-c bresson famously said : sharpness is a bourgeois concept
Watched some landscape videos today before I saw yours. Hey man, you're absolutely right about these over-the-top heroes who takes these over sharpened images, they are unnaturall. Thank you and good night.
You are right. You are the best.
Right on target as usual. The obsession with sharpness and color saturation that drove the HDR movement is still alive and ill and finds it’s expression in Ai enhanced images. It's all too easy to get hypnotized by the pixel peeping phenomena and, sadly, like many other photographers I am susceptible to the Perfectionist Predicament. My wife, on the other hand, is not a photographer and so tends to focus less on the "how" and more on the "why." While her "why" is radically different from my "why" I suspect that having her mention it has helped me improve my images more than having the latest cameras, lenses, and software.
I feel it is a matter of taste. Personally, I like pristine sharp portions of my images, such as you would get with a 135mm lens. Equally important is tonal smoothness and transitions which imparts naturalness and wholeness – so the two work together in a dynamic play.
I agree that over sharpening kills most images, or even any global sharpening – rather spot sharpening as and when needed. In this age of clarity sliders, over saturation, over sharpening – all are to get the quick response amidst many competing images on a screen, many of which only have 6 bits per color.
The print, done on fine papers to the rescue!
Thanks for the video.So true on many levels and nice to listen to your interpretation of what constitutes something meaningful in a photograph. Contrasting this, I keep thinking
that in relation to the introduction of new gear and software, it feels very much like a race to the bottom.
Off topic entirely Alistair. Please make a video about your intriguing guitars! I have not seen a guitar without the keys at the end of the neck before.
One sugestión, ¿Could you make any video how processing photos in lightroom? Thank you
I agree! This is an excellent video. There are too many YouTubers who don’t seem to understand the ideas you have presented. Perhaps because some of them learned photography very recently from other YouTubers. Great photos don’t need to be sharp.
I'm with you on this one, I just don't see the point of caring if a leaf 100 yards upstream is sharp! I pretend I'm an expressive photographer with moods and atmosphere being conveyed in my images. I can't see that well anyway.
Alister. Love the new look. I know you love your guitars, but it always looked like it was a hat sitting on your head and the red is becoming. But besides the visuals. more importantly I am amazed at how your mind is able to take a subject and talk about it in such detail. You have helped me immensely and I so appreciate all your work. I am so looking forward to my book. thank you!
I don't usually sharpen my images beyond whatever Capture One might do when I import or export to print. Pretty much all my landscapes get negative clarity applied.
Another great video Alister. Hope all is well in Scotland and Happy Holidays to you and Ann.
Excellent explanation! Completely destroys the penchant for focus stacking.
Alister, I totally agree with your thoughts here and quite enjoyed seeing this video. It's been my thoughts for a long while now when it comes to sharpness. Thank you.
There is something in every image we compose that drew our attention to begin with. When we are drawn to that with the naked eye it is naturally in focus to us. Everything that supports it in our peripheral vision is not the same level of sharpness.
Once again Alister your words have helped put my thoughts in order. Thank you so much. Looking forward to your book
Well said Alistair. Having recently returned from a trip to your gorgeous part of the world my favourite and best photos all have a softnes and roundness to them with a feeling of warmth and welcomeness using the qualities you describe. Thats not to say that sometines for effect and dramatism I dont like as sharper image but on my finer landscape shots that I have over thought in the past I can feel a serious amount of revisiting and processing comming on to remove the jarring over sharpened element.
I don't recall ever hearing this perspective. This video is invaluable. I'm glad I found it, and you. Thank you. I've subscribed to your channel.