Mike wrote: >Provided to me by Bob Walkden: > >"I am constantly amused by the notion that some people have about >photographic technique--a notion which reveals itself in an >insatiable craving for sharpness of images. Is this the passion of an >obsession? Or do these people hope, by this _trompe l'oeuil_ technique, >to get to closer grips with reality? In either case, they are just as >far away from the real problem as those of that other generation which >used to endow all its photographic anecdotes with an intentional >unsharpness such as was deemed to be 'artistic.'" > > --Henri Cartier-Bresson snip >--Mike >"Sharpness is a shibboleth." Gosh Mike, when manufacturers tout lens sharpness as proof of the quality of their product, when writers and editors at photo magazines praise sharpness where they find it and pan it where they don't, when book authors and respected photographers stress the importance of using items like tripods, remote releases, and mirror lockup in order to maintain sharpness, and "scientific" lens tests score sharpness highly and lack of sharpness poorly, why be surprised that the bulk of the market for lenses has come to believe sharpness is an important characteristic for a lens to possess? Granted, a painfully sharp photo of a turd is still just an accurate image of a piece of crap, but until the camera industry figures out a way to package skill, taste, and vision, I think most consumers are going to obsess or focus on what they've been 'educated' to value. And, as several people on the list have been quick to point out in the past, making blurry photos with a sharp lens doesn't take much thought or effort, but pulling a sharp photo from an unsharp lens is pretty damn hard (or something to that effect). :-) Personally, I like to see photos of the sort I would like to take, taken with a lens I'm interested in, as a means of judging the performance of a lens. That's why I always ask people who mention an interest in the type of photos I want to take or ownership of a lens I'm interested in, if they have any photos they'd like to share. Dan Scott "HCB is a shibboleth." [EMAIL PROTECTED] - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
