[Leica] Why sharpen?

[mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)]

In the film world there is unsharp mask which is a mask you make to sandwich
with your film to make it look sharper. Two pieces of film back to back in a
sandwich. Hold the mustard. You could call that "sharpening".
But a more real way of "sharpening" in film use is more direct.
There is the use of better than typical glass.
Leica glass
Or the use of primes instead of zooms.
The use of tripods and proper shutter speeds;
Flash with high sync speeds.

But more to the point is film.
Sharper film is slower film.
But not if you're going to use slower than realistic shutter speeds and hand
hold it.

More directly to the point in black and white is development.
Instead of a standard solvent developers like D76 1:1 or heaven forbid
straight one could an acutance developer like Beutlers or nephin blue.
Rodinal is a class or two above D76 and Xtol even but there is a class of
developers or two above Rodinal.
Like Beutlers or nephin blue and others.
Pyro maybe.

So when you think "sharpening" you could think that.
Informed and proper technique.

Little point in spending thousands instead of hundreds on glass and then
melt your film down in 100 grams of sulfite per liter.
That's not all that sharpening unmasked.

There seems to be an inference here that people shooting RAW are geeks.
People shooting RAW are people of normal photographic concerns.
People shooting jpegs are such people shooting huge amounts of work on
instantaneous deadlines.
Or Dilettantes.
People who bottom line could just not ever be bothered.
Photographic sociopaths - psychopaths.


Mark William Rabiner



> From: Clive Moss <clive.moss at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org>
> Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 11:50:16 -0500
> To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org>
> Subject: Re: [Leica] Why sharpen?
> 
> The ubergeeks that inhabit this list of course do it - because they shoot
> RAW, and thus they had to be concerned with it.
> A test: of those on the list who shoot JPG, who have ever moved the
> sharpening off "Standard" on the M8, or done the equivalent on another
> camera?
> 
> In the film world, sharpening is inherent in the edge effects to the extent
> that they exist in the development process. Most users are not concerned
> about it very much.
> In the digital world, sharpening is inherent in the process of converting a
> RAW image to a JPG. Most users are not concerned about it very much.
> --