Sharpness is still overrated

I’ve posted before about how sharpness in images isn’t necessarily a thing to strive for.  It’s often not great for portraits, sometimes not needed for landscapes, and not even compulsory for macro.

Deliberately low sharpness can be achieved through various means, depending on whether the subject is stationary or moving.  One great way to remove sharpness is to move your camera during the exposure.  Intentional Camera Movement (ICM) can give impressionistic effects.

These bamboo plants at Kingston Lacy house in Dorset were perfect for an ICM image.  The stems had a strong structure in one direction, so that’s the direction I moved the camera.  It was pretty gloomy in the bamboo grove, so I used a shutter speed of around half a second.  That gave me plenty of time to move the camera quite a bit.

Sometimes it’s the subject that’s moving rather then the camera.

This wave crashing into rocks on the Guernsey coast is a good example of a moving subject.  Like the bamboo image I used a shutter speed of around half a second, and in broad daylight without a Neutral Density (ND) filter!  The OM Systems OM-1 camera I use has a feature that simulates the use of an ND filter; it’s called Live ND.  It’s allowed me to show the movement of the water over time rather than using a short shutter speed to show all the detail of the wave’s structure.

Both of those images are unsharp but in focus.  You can also get deliberately soft images by defocusing the lens.

Back at Kingston Lacy I’ve shot upwards into the sun under the canopy of a fabulous Japanese Maple tree.  The gaps between the leaves allow a bit of the sun to peep through, so there are mini “sunstars”.  I defocused the lens to create interesting softness and “bokeh”.  You still get the idea of maple leaves, but there’s nothing sharp anywhere.

As I said, “Sharpness is still overrated”.