Useful Photography Tip

The Secret to Sharper Photos That You Forgot About

Chris Gampat
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05/11/2022
3 Mins read
Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Tamron 35-150mm f2-2.8 review saimple images Sony a1 2.51-400s400 1

Last Updated on 05/11/2022 by Mark Beckenbach

Here at The Phoblographer, we’re not about getting sharper photos. We think modern lenses are way too sharp. But we know and understand that a lot of you want sharper lenses. It’s wonderful that you do. However, we think if you just want to buy a new lens or spend a lot of time in post-production that you’re doing yourself an injustice. And you’re probably forgetting about this one important trick to getting sharper photos. So we’re going to talk about it and a little bonus tip, too!

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Use a Flash to Get Sharper Photos

Seriously, we can’t tell you how important this is. When you shoot a photo, you get what’s there. But more details come out when there’s the same light as on a bright, sunny day. Add a flash and you’ll get things called specular highlights. Suddenly, an old lens will look as sharp as it does on the day you bought it. That’s because the flash is working with the camera to provide details that otherwise weren’t there.

Example photo shot with an octabank softbox

And here’s a bigger secret: a flash can do this while LED lights or constant lights won’t necessarily be able to. That’s because of how flash works. With a studio strobe or a really good flash, there’s a little thing called flash duration, which acts as a second-shutter speed sort of. With that said, the faster the flash duration, the sharper the image. Just think about it; you can get a sharper photo at 1/8000th of a second than you can at 1/30th. 

If you really just use a flash, you won’t need to mess with a clarity or sharpness slider for the rest of your life. There’s no excuse not to use a flash except for being afraid of it or shoot landscapes. If you’re shooting landscapes, then you can’t really use a flash. However, in-camera you can add the clarity effect. It will be added to your RAW files; we’ve seen this across the board with various manufacturers.

Truly, this is the single most underrated trick. Today, The Phoblographer’s staff looked at images from an influencer who reviewed a lens. We couldn’t help but notice the coloring and the hours of Photoshop put into the images. We could tell there was a lot of retouching to make the eyes super white and very sharp. But it could’ve been fixed with simply knowing how to light in the first place.

Deepen the Black Levels and Create Natural Contrast

Sufficient and bright light. When using a manual flash, your aperture controls how much of the flash output affects the scene. If we shot at a lower ISO or stopped the lens down a bit more, then this image would be much darker.

Here’s another trick: the black levels. No, you don’t need to spend time editing in post-production to get deeper black levels. Instead, you can use contrast in your lighting to deepen the darker areas. Higher contrast tricks the eye into not paying attention to the black areas. Because that’s happening, folks will think your photos are sharper. It’s a pretty brilliant hack, if not disingenuous. However, the only people that will truly care are photographers. And in the end, who cares what some photographer thinks about your work on the internet.

To recap here, keep in mind what a flash can do you for and how much easier it can make life. It delivers specular highlights in your photos that otherwise wouldn’t be possible. That’s because the details are there, but they technically don’t exist to your camera. Then create higher-contrast lighting when you can. Happy shooting!

black levels contrast flash photos post production Sharper Photos specular highlights
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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.