Ricoh Sharp

Not sharp at all, but do we care ?

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My wife often comments on how fantastically sharp and detailed my images are. She relates to the time and effort I put into editing, and states that it's a great use of my time and money. She mentions how great the colour and contrast of my Zeiss lenses are, and the wonderful atmosphere and feeling my old Canon FD lenses posses, and can't wait to see what gear I purchase next from eBay.

Then I wake up from snoozing in front of the TV to the eBay notification sound playing on my phone, and piercing eyes from the other end of the couch.
 
I guess it all depends... some photographs are about sharpness (for me that's mostly macros - where you want to show some detail of a world we usually don't pay attention to).

But a lot of photographs are about the subject, about a person, about the expression on someone's face, about light, about colour, about a happy moment (or some other emotion), about a memory, ...
For those it's not really important to be razor-sharp... Sharpness can be the least important factor to convey any of these things...
 
I guess it all depends... some photographs are about sharpness (for me that's mostly macros - where you want to show some detail of a world we usually don't pay attention to).

But a lot of photographs are about the subject, about a person, about the expression on someone's face, about light, about colour, about a happy moment (or some other emotion), about a memory, ...
For those it's not really important to be razor-sharp... Sharpness can be the least important factor to convey any of these things...
And sometimes you actively DON'T want it, as in some types of portraits and other images that benefit from a bit of softness. Sharpness is one one color in the image making palette, important to use sometimes, but appropriately, and not to be over-used. It's one of those things that you want to have available to you, though, because it's really easy to soften up a sharp image, but it's basically impossible to sharpen a soft one...

-Ray
 
My wife is a good reality check for me sometimes. There are times I'll get too caught up in the weeds and worry too much about the technical and not enough about the mood, message and feeling.

It's always good to have someone not so invested in the process to give you a different perspective sometimes - save you from yourself.
 
When I have a new set of prints or images to show my wife, each time I ask her, "Am I hired, or fired?"
Most times I am lucky to keep my job.

It interesting to see that she is quite a tough critic. Keeps me trying.
 
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