Over the years, I’ve noticed some photographers post insanely sharp images. Primarily portraits of people. Like everything is perfectly crisp even when they post to Facebook and social media programs that generally destroy resolution.
I wouldn’t get similar sharpness even if I boosted my shots 100%.
Are they using crazy expensive lenses or do the newer mirrorless cameras just capture more of a crisp look? It’s almost as if the resolution is 2-3x what I shoot in. All I’ve ever shot with is the 5D series.
The only time I’ve obtained similar sharpness was using art lenses up-close, but those are super heavy so I can’t imagine photographers are using them often.
Is this all software related? Are they using some specialized program that perfectly sharpens each image? If so, what are they using? I’m not talking about focus. Specifically sharpness.
Never use crappy glass! Cheap glass gets you cheap results. Remember, it’s not the camera, it’s the lens. If you have a great camera but an ok lens, you will get an ok image. The light that hits the film/sensor is coming from the lens. No lens, no good image, always. Prime lenses are always going to be sharper than zoom lenses. There are some great prime lenses out there, but the best and sharpest ones I have seen for digital are the Zeiss Otis and the G master lenses, excellent and sharp. Some of making images look “sharp” also comes from editing properly with contrast and proper exposure as well. Straight out of camera though, those lenses are really the sharpest I have seen. Proper formatting and size is important when editing your final jpeg for export on platforms such as Facebook or Flickr.