[tuggie76]

Freezing rain all day today, but some good photo ops!

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Last edited by tuggie76; 05-25-2019 at 02:42 PM.

[Doundounba]

And another flake-on-a-tuque:

[csa]

K3 with recently acquired Tamron 70-200 F2.8 (from member here!) Taken thru a window.

[normhead]

K3 with recently acquired Tamron 70-200 F2.8 (from member here!) Taken thru a window.

There are times when a good lens actually does up your game.

Man that's sharp.

It's scratching my eyeballs.... ow ow, it hurts.

[csa]

I was amazed at the sharpness, thru 2 panes of glass! He has a little bead of water dripping off his lower beak.

This lens has certainly spoiled me!

[labidas]

how can you guys talk about sharpness when the image is 640 x 439?

[csa]

how can you guys talk about sharpness when the image is 640 x 439?

Well, sorry; but I guess we feel it is a sharp photo, even though it was resized for the forum. Nice to be a downer.

[normhead]

how can you guys talk about sharpness when the image is 640 x 439?

Because we've seen enough images from various lenses and various sizes to make that call. An editor friend once told me he can evaluate images from the thumbnails. It's like anything else.You get better at it the more you do it. Your eye just learns what to look for. Hang in there, someday you'll get it.

Or better yet, as an exercise, take a few soft photos, reduce them in size, see if you can get them to look that good. Contrary to this reduced size thing, you can make an image look acceptable reducing it in size, but a sharp image that has been reduced in size still always looks better than a soft image reduced to the same size. This notion that reducing an image in size levels out the qualities of the images is simply untrue. The better image always looks better.

But feel free to get out there and take some images to prove me wrong. (That's how people learn, by doing stuff.) My opinions are always subject to being changed by new evidence. And I'm not even sure you are committed to your point of view, unless you've done some work to verify it. Talk is cheap, I believe that your opinion has been formed by noticing that an image that fails at full size can become acceptable by reducing the size. What you need to prove is that you can't tell the difference between that image, and an image that was originally sharp.

A good photographer's images look good large or small, a poor photographer's images looks bad large or small. It's not that hard to tell the difference. And there's a difference between you can't tell the difference, and nobody else can tell the difference either.

[rayallen]

Because we've seen enough images from various lenses and various sizes to make that call. An editor friend once told me he can evaluate images from the thumbnails. It's like anything else.You get better at it the more you do it. Your eye just learns what to look for. Hang in there, someday you'll get it.

Or better yet, as an exercise, take a few soft photos, reduce them in size, see if you can get them to look that good. Contrary to this reduced size thing, you can make an image look acceptable reducing it in size, but a sharp image that has been reduced in size still always looks better than a soft image reduced to the same size. This notion that reducing an image in size levels out the qualities of the images is simply untrue. The better image always looks better.

But feel free to get out there and take some images to prove me wrong. (That's how people learn, by doing stuff.) My opinions are always subject to being changed by new evidence. And I'm not even sure you are committed to your point of view, unless you've done some work to verify it. Talk is cheap, I believe that your opinion has been formed by noticing that an image that fails at full size can become acceptable by reducing the size. What you need to prove is that you can't tell the difference between that image, and an image that was originally sharp.

A good photographer's images look good large or small, a poor photographer's images looks bad large or small. It's not that hard to tell the difference. And there's a difference between you can't tell the difference, and nobody else can tell the difference either.

Very eloquently stated, Norm. It had to be said.

[labidas]

Okay, a fun test, pick out the soft/blurry images.
And while we are at it, tell me which was shot with an softer lens(kit) and which with an sharper lens. (which was the point of my comment - you can't tell whether a lens is sharp or not at these resolutions. But you can try.)

*EXIF is deleted.
**I've added two obvious images in there that are very easy to pick out as oof/blurry.
let's just name them like that:
1-2-3-4 etc.

Good luck!

[normhead]

Could we have two images of the same subject, side by side?I'm just going to talk about the bottom two images, wit the clock tower
On the clock face #1 appears sharper, it appears you used different focal points for the two images and the illumination is different which may make#1 appear to be sharper even though the focus isn't as good. The roof of the second slightly sharper than that of the first, providing better contrast, #2 looks washed out. So, you asking me to decide between two images where the determination, which is sharper is made more difficult by other factors, the appearance of sharpness is masked. However the being said, I believe the clock face could be better on both images. Just based on the clock face, the 1st is the better images.

The duck is nice and sharp as is the lead duck in the group shot.. The furrowed fields look soft so soft as to be unusable in my opinion. The office tower tower the middle one is acceptably sharp, barely, the other two are not. Parts of the thistle are very sharp, but like the duck on the river not enough to save the image. If that's your shooting style. images with blown out highlights and shadows with no detail, then ya, it's really hard to tell the difference. But then, I'm not sure that style depends on sharpness for it's effectiveness.

The black and white appears to be soft, but you've made up for that by blasting the contrast. With high contrast images, the effect of sharpness can be mimicked. There is enough wrong with the beetle image, I would just pass on the commentary.

The close up of the christmas tree, detail is obliterated by high contrast processing or lighting cources. The roof of the building appears sharp, the rest appears to be soft, possibly motion blur, possible lighting or processing.

There's nothing there the quality of the image that started the challenge.

So my point would be, yes you can make it very difficult to evaluate sharpness, and you did, but that's not the type of image that prompted your comment.

[labidas]

Answers:

1: kit lens - soft
2: kit lens - sharp
3: 50/1.8 - sharp
4: kit lens - soft
5: kit lens - soft/blurry
6: DA* - focus is behind the first duck
7: DA* - sharp
8: DA* - out of focus
9: DA* - slight motion blur
10: DA* - sharp
11: DA* - blurry
12: DA* - sharp

[csa]

Well, this type of response to a photo I was proud of, certainly makes me not wish to post any more here; since my photo has caused the thread to be hijacked by a person that couldn't care less.

[Erictator]

Well, this type of response to a photo I was proud of, certainly makes me not wish to post any more here; since my photo has caused the thread to be hijacked by a person that couldn't care less.

Don't let people dissuade you sharing, there are far more of us that aren't as vocal, but still enjoy seeing work like yours and don't want to pick it apart. You just have to understand, people that are drawn to photography are usually very visual, and a bit OCD. So please keep that in mind and bear with us as we sort ourselves out.

I also own that lens, and they are truly a giant killer, sharpness wise. Many shoot-out reviews had it right up there with the Nikon 70-200, saying it only lacked VR, which isn't an issue with Pentax and IBIS.
My Tamron 70-200 F2.8 only took a back seat to my DA*300mm once I got my K-1 because of the added reach needed for Full Frame and had zero to do with lack of sharpness.

I can well imagine that even shooting through a window and cropped down, that there was plenty of detail to start with.
Keep on Keep'in on!
Eric

[normhead]

Answers:

1: kit lens - soft
2: kit lens - sharp
3: 50/1.8 - sharp
4: kit lens - soft
5: kit lens - soft/blurry
6: DA* - focus is behind the first duck
7: DA* - sharp
8: DA* - out of focus
9: DA* - slight motion blur
10: DA* - sharp
11: DA* - blurry
12: DA* - sharp

You haven't changed my mind here. I can evaluate from small images. Not one of the posted images equals the one CSA posted in sharpness. The best you did was the duck. But really, it's not close. I guess I need to rephrase though. I can't tell the difference between one image I would discard and another image I would discard, because I don't care. But with the images I would consider keepers I can tell. CSA's was a keeper. None of what you posted is close.

If anything you've proved my point, reducing the size doesn't hide the deficiencies of photo. The one exception being the ducks on the water, where the subject is so small the loss of detail is hard to pick up. So if you have tiny subject in a huge FoV, you need to enlarge to check the sharpness... but that has nothing to do with your assertion that I could not tell CSA's photo was sharp from the reduced size photo. In fact it's the exact opposite. A very small subject that is less than 5% of the frame compared to a large subject filling 25% or more of the frame. IMHO, you're long way from proving your point.

By the way, in 11 and 12 look at the clock towers. Even though you say #12 is sharper, it's debatable. Sharpness is about capturing detail. If one image is less detailed than the other it's not sharper. Maybe on your computer #12 is sharper, but not as presented in the small images. Perhaps a more skilled processor could have maintained detail better in #12, I have no way of knowing.