Originally posted by throndor I sometimes come upon some photos that i can not believe the sharpness..
A couple of examples could be
photoSIG » The shoemaker
and
photoSIG » A character from the old city of Jerusalem
What do these photos share in common (besides men with beards).
Is it the sharpness , is it the contrast or is it good post-processing..
And i wonder; sharpness is an attribute of image quality, and not of the subject.. So theorically i should be able to shoot anyones portrait in a nicely lit environment and get that sharp look... But surely i can not..
What is the reason for this dramatic sharpness?
I don't really see anything so out-of-this-world sharp in those photos. First one is regular shot, with some unsharp mask or something applied in post-processing, and second one is also post-processed quite a bit, plus hair with backlight gives appearence of really sharp images. Then again, all photos with lots of contrast appear sharper.
Most of "it's tack sharp" or "it's quite soft" talk is reserved just for pixel-peeping, and mostly people who complain about their "soft" images just lack experience with processing 'em. Usually after resizeing. So, considering all things mentioned above, after you finish all your post-processing and downsize your images to let's say 1000px, save one as it is, and then save another one with Unsharp mask applied, amount 300-500% and size 0,125-0,2. Then compare results, I guess you'll see improvement no matter which body+lens combination used. Using 18-55 can give really good results, just not in the 18-20mm area, and at 55mm, but you should get really good stuff around 30-45mm, and f/5,6-8...