Tag Archives: observation

Photographs: England, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

London Eye

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London Eye
“London Eye” — Looking upwards at the London Eye on a cloudy day.

I usually have a good sense of direction, and I can often navigate without maps. But I also have an occasional directional problem. When arriving in a new place I sometimes make an incorrect assumption about the compass directions. Once I do, it is darned near impossible for me to fix it. London is one of the places. For some reason, the first time I visited I reversed north and south, and I’ve struggled since then to get it right. I’ve gotten a lot better — when I look north across the River Thames these days it looks like it is north. But this photograph came about due to the residue of my prior confusion.

When we set out from our lodgings to walk to the nearby Borough Market, I went with my gut instead of logic and headed out confidently in the wrong direction. (To her credit, Patty suspected that I was going the wrong way, but went along.) We walked and walked and instead of finding the Market we were (or I was) surprised to walk up to the London Eye, which is in exactly the opposite direction!

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Commentary, Ideas, Tongue in Cheek

Regarding Sharpness. And Obsession.

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We have all seen the lengthy discussions about “which lens is sharpest.” While the ability of a lens to resolve detail is certainly important, it is not the only thing that is important. And in many cases, knowing which is the sharpest lens is not as important as know which among a number of sharp alternatives best suits your needs. I stumbled into another discussion of this topic online today and posted the following as my contribution. (Slightly edited here from the original post.)

Folks sometimes allow themselves to become completely distracted by “sharpness” to the point that they overlook a whole bunch of other important issues in their quest to find the holy grail of “sharp.” This can become the equivalent to realizing that good tires are important on a car, and then deciding to buy a particular car because it comes with the “best” tires… but is too big to fit in your garage, costs twice your annual income, has a terrible repair record, needs a tune-up every 750 miles, and only comes in a color your spouse hates.

For a few people doing certain types of very critical work, printing very large, working slowly and methodically, and willing to forego the compensatory advantages of other lens options, lenses like the excellent TS models, lenses from another manufacturer that only work with adapters, classic primes, and so forth might make some sense.

But just because a lens might measure a bit better to some extent in one of the areas that is measurable (e. g. “sharpness”), it does not necessarily follow that it is a better lens, nor that alternatives that may measure differently in sharpness – but are very nearly as good – will not also be excellent performers. It is also not true that these specialized lenses are required to produce large and effective prints.

It is interesting to watch people go through a process that may look something like the following at times, as they…

1. decide they need a sharper kens.
2. research lens sharpness.
3. consider only sharpness and overlook or dismiss other issues, including those mentioned in the sources analyzing sharpness.
4. decide that some lens is the “sharpest” – frequently some expensive prime, the most expensive zoom they can find, an alternative brand, a specialized TS, etc.
4.5. lust after said lens for some period. The excitement builds…
5. purchase the aforementioned Really Really Sharp Lens.
6. use the new lens and glory in it’s pure Divinely Sharp Wonderfulness, thereby confirming their wise choice.
7. share their wonder with others.
8. make more photographs, and eventually come to find out that a) in real photography the sharpness difference is rarely visible, b) there are downsides to using the sharper lens, c) the downsides sometimes compromise or lose the shot, and d) in many cases their previous “less sharp” lens proves just as useful and effective.
9. note that the new super Super Lens, while useful, begins to spend more time in the bag, and…
10. learn an important lesson or two about Lens Lust… or else repeat the cycle with a different WonderLens. :-)

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that sharpness is unimportant. I’m just encouraging people to keep things in perspective.

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