Many of the photos I see on this site are indeed spectacular. A primary trait I've noticed is sharpness, ultra-sharpness. After all, everyone loves a super sharp photo, right? I've been messing around with an old Nikon 35mm f/1.4 AIS lens known for being soft when used wide open. Here is a recent example. I kind of like how it turned out, but am interested in what others think. Does this work? Is the primary subject too soft? Any thoughts/critique appreciated.
Thanks,
Tom
Coming from a Nikon family myself, I never did like any of the f/1.4 lenses as there wasn't enough light being allowed into the camera and tend not to have sharp edges. Perhaps moving to a f/1.8 would have been your next best solution. The idea is there and as you've said it is a bit soft. However, you didn't say what camera the lens was mounted on. I'll be the first to say that there is going to be a resurgence with older lenses on newer digital camera bodies as these old lenses have a far superior image quality than todays plastics. My suggestion, if you haven't thought about a smalled digital camera, may be it time to do so. merge the old lens with the new mirrorless and see if the results are any better. I'd like to think they will be.
Thanks for your comments. The lens was mounted on a Df body, The lens is new to me, and I was using it wide open intentionally to see what kind of effects were possible. I took many shots at different apertures, but this one stood out to me. This was taken handheld, so the next thing to try might be a tripod with live view to maximize the center sharpness.
It depends. If my subject is in the distance, then yes, I'll shoot as sharp front to back as I possibly can. If it is close to the camera then I sometimes blur the background out, but still trying to keep my subject sharp. So in a nutshell, I always try to get maximum sharpness from the front element of my lens up to and including my subject.
Hi Tom,
About sharpness, I'm sure you yourself can see that the subject of your photograph is not particularly sharp. Which is fine, as long as you want to highlight one specific part of it, and bring that to full sharpness. The flower is bigger than the depth of field you get at f/1.4, so parts of it are a little blurry. However, I would have liked to see more sharpness in the centre of the flower, with the insect sitting on it. Not always easy to do with an old AIs lens (I have the 28 mm AIs and I absolutely love it), when you have to manually focus on a tiny subject at a wide open aperture, probably with a gentle breeze moving the subject back and forth. In general I've found that f/1.4 isn't a very good choice for landscapes and nature. I prefer f/2.8 and smaller apertures. You still get a narrow enough depth of field without the loss of sharpness or focus.
About composition, I would have liked a little more subject isolation. There is a line of flowers extending behind the subject, all of which add a white background that takes away from the focus on the subject. Perhaps you could have readjusted your field of view to see which one provides best isolation of the flower you're focusing on. Also, try not to put it front and centre. Have it 2/3 of the way to one side (the side that the flower is leaning AWAY from; if it's leaning slightly left, position it on the right 2/3 of the frame).
Hope this helps, and that I haven't been too critical.
Sid
Thanks for your comments Sid. Constructive criticism is always welcome! The lens is a recent purchase after reading about its unique characteristics of being quite soft wide open, yet very sharp when closed just 1 or 2 stops. This was a bit of an experiment to see if I could use the softness to my advantage. Kind of like a "Field of Dreams". I took many shots that day, but this is the one that stood out to me despite it violating the "rule of thirds".
I also have the 28/2.8 along with many other MF AIS primes. I find them all to be outstanding when used on the Df.
The 28/2.8 is an absolute beauty. It's my favourite in my kit bag. A total joy to hold and use. I wrote a blog article about it on my website, in case you feel up to reading it (just follow the link on my profile page). Happy shooting.