Features

Why 100% Sharpness Will Never Outdo Capturing the Moment

Chris Gampat
No Comments
11/19/2014
2 Mins read

Last Updated on 11/19/2014 by Julius Motal

Pro Tip: Despite the fact that we all love bokeh, don't ever let it get in the way of good composition and an even better vision for the end result.
Pro Tip: Despite the fact that we all love bokeh, don’t ever let it get in the way of good composition and an even better vision for the end result.

At the moment of publishing this piece, there is a little phenomenon going around the internet. Actually, it’s a pretty big phenomenon. It’s one that has, “Broke the internet.” You know what we’re talking about. The image of Kim Kardashian’s bare butt on a magazine cover is making its rounds. And this image is the absolute perfect example for what we’re about to talk about: moment vs 100% sharpness.

The other day I was in a cafe chatting with another photographer. He was rushing out edits to a magazine and I was editing photos for a review before trying to upload them to our site. We both occasionally peered over to one another’s monitors and started a conversation about gear, which then turned into a conversation about business, editing, and imagery in general.

We talked about how crappy images are crappy images because they don’t elicit an emotion or appeal to a sense of any sort. Imagery is sensual–it’s primarily visual but a good image should be more than that. A great image of sushi for example should entice you, make you hungry, make you want some of that sushi. It should get you excited or elicit some sort of emotion. If it doesn’t elicit any emotion, it should move you in some way that appeals to the human senses or psyche.

We got to a point where we talked about one of the images and color tweaking. Then we talked a bit about sharpness, and on one of his images he said something that we’ve been preaching on this site since day 1.

“Who cares if it isn’t 100% sharp, it’s going online and will probably be no larger than 1000 pixels anyway.”

And he’s absolutely, completely right.

Who the heck cares if your image of the amazing mac and cheese that you just made isn’t 100% sharp. Is it sharp enough so that when someone looks at the image as a whole that they can see the details? If that’s the answer, then you’re golden.

Who the heck cared a single bit about looking at the image of Kim Kardashian’s rear at 100%? Was anyone really wondering if there was chromatic aberration or purple fringing or if they could see the pores? Not a single person was–and instead they cared about the entire image.

And so when someone says that an image isn’t 100% sharp, if it’s sharp enough then that’s all that matters. If your focusing is a bit off but not so much that you can’t tell, then who cares? Focus on captivating people instead with a moment.


100% sharpness camera details food kim kardashian moment
Shares
Written by

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.