R.G. Loc: Scotland

Perhaps the real question has always been "When (if ever) are the criticisms of pixel-peepers relevant?"

(But it's still nice to have sharpness and microdetail as an option).

Manglesphoto Loc: 70 miles south of St.Louis

As long as my images are "tack sharp" I don't give a Rotund Rodents Rectum of who says one lens is sharper than the other.
After read a test of a lens 65 years ago I came to the conclusion the testing went to such extremes that the human eye would not notice!!
I Have my lenses and I'm sticking to them !!!

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

This is where perception comes in. Find one of those 50 year old National Geographics and compare it to a recent issue. I remember when I first got a VGA monitor. That 640x480 display was amazing. We were blown away how good those graphics were. Now we’d look at them and think they’re crap.

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

You can get the framing right in camera and still need to crop. Sometimes you just can’t get close enough to fill the frame. Or I might be filling the frame with an eagle and I sense it’s getting ready to take off. I’ll probably back of the zoom to allow for spread wings and to allow for room to keep it in frame.

R.G. Loc: Scotland

That's an example of the sort of photography that will benefit from higher resolution/sharpness, but it's still only occasionally that you need the extra benefits.

Anybody can get what they thought was optimal framing only to decide later that a crop would be better, but if you're shooting at 24MP, there's still a lot of room for cropping. And if the required cropping is extreme it's time to develop your "eye" for framing, or alternatively it may be time to consider getting optics with more reach.

User ID

Hooduh thunket ??!!?

(Download)

User ID

Then we should discuss needle sharpness rather than just tack sharpness so as to specify the very sharpest species of tack.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Sharpness is really nice, but I'm not obsessed with or consumed by it.

I'm DEFINITELY NOT a pixel peeper

I'm happy.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Then, can it be made even sharper?

petercbrandt Loc: New York City, Manhattan

Its all relative to what you need. How sharp do you really need it ? Are you counting the bricks in a building facade?

epd1947

To the original header question “how sharp is sharp enough?” - my take is that it depends heavily on how a photo is being viewed. Are we talking about viewing a photo in a “normal” manner (and in the case of a physical print at a normal viewing distance) - or are we talking about sharpness when evaluated through extreme “pixel peeping” or the print equivalent of approaching a gallery sized print and examining it through a magnifying glass - neither of which fall into the category of normal viewing.

I have used several of my vintage manual focus “Nikkor” lenses on several of my mirrorless cameras and the images rendered are more that acceptably sharp in any normal (as defined above) usage. They were considered top grade lenses back in the day and they still perform well. Would they stand up in a side by side pixel peeping contest - perhaps not (and I have never actually tried to do such an evaluation) - but very frankly I don’t care - they perform quite well in realistic use and I have yet to have anyone comment negatively about the optical performance evident in any of my vintage lens images.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Or the non-conformities in each brick? Mortar joints?

Timmers Loc: San Antonio Texas.

What a bazar post by you. I have the E. Leitz f1.5 8.5cm lens made for the German Military prior to WW II and during. The lens was reintroduced after the Second World War by Leica and sold to the public, the production models that were sold to the German Military were never available to anyone until after WW II. Thus lens works equally well on the older pre M cameras (Leica IIIc and IIId bodies), and on mu Leica M4 and on a Leica M5. At close range wide open, the camera must be able to focus perfectly on say the eye such that the front of the eye lashes will begin falling out of focus, attesting to the critical precision of Leica rangefinder cameras to achieve focus at demanding conditions.

It is important to note that many of the modern makers of ultra fast 85mm lenses use the basics of this lens's design for their starting point. Are they as sharp? I could not say.

I do know that 'sharpness' in a photograph has at it's base many factors. Is the contact print from an 8X10 image sharp? Of coarse not. It appears sharp to most any viewers eyes, but almost all contact prints are not sharp. Making a sharp contact print from any image is close to imposable, but with some vary sophisticated set ups it can be achieved when compared to most average enlarged images using simple condensed enlargers.

In the practical world one can find decent responses to this question without the need to resort to all the technical issues. Back when Kodak introduced the new improved Kodachrome films and made them available in 120 size and for a limited time as sheet films, some fashion photographer tried to use the new roll film Kodachrome with complete disaster. The standard for the industry was the Hasselblad camera, and the current lens were the Zeiss T* optics. The problem simply was that no matter how good the model's skin and no matter how great the MUA (Make Up Artist) was, the Zeiss Optics saw ever tiny flaw that were there to be seen. So, the world of practicality dictated that the new improved sharper, clearer Kodachrome coupled with the ultra-sharp optics from Carl Zeiss were a poor combination. Sometimes sharp is not what is desirable.

One can not get an answer to such a question. Or as the old saw goes "The devil is in the detail". I know you are not really asking this question as a simple question, but rather you have a larger agenda.

Boris77

My images are Old Fart sharp, good enough for me and the people I print them for.
Which part of the image is the sharpEST is more important than how many hairs you can count on the rat's .... eyelid.
That said - it is fun to pixel peep at the cityscape windows on Hedgehog to see wazup?
Boris

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

OFS, now there's a new acronym.