[Mihai]

Hi everyone!

I just want to know which is the sharpest wide lens for Aps-c Canon camera and for full frame Canon camera, based on your studies here. In fact, I wish to know which combination gives the sharpest image ( body and lens ) ( ex .Sony full frame canera with Zeiss Distogon T* 24mm f/2 ZA SSM lens).

I am thinking about landscape photography shot with focal beetween 10- 35 mm lens or equivalent in full frame camera.

Ps. I was shocked to see that a landcape shot with a samsung galaxy mobile phone was more sharper that the same landscape shot with a canon and nikon crop sensor cameras with kit lens on them.I really don't understand this.

Best regards !

[Scythels]

The Zeiss 21/2.8 and 25/2 wide primes are pretty phenomenal.  Canon's 24L is also fantastic.  The sigma 24A does a bit less well at closed apertures. 

 

Phone lenses are quite phenomenal - they need to be for the sensors, but they can produce e.g 5M pieces in a year, where a camera lens may see 100,000 pieces in its lifetime.  Economics of scale is huge there...

[popo]

Be careful how you compare images. I have a Galaxy 6 as my work phone, and the camera on that is surprisingly good. But being critical I wouldn't say it was DSLR good. As standard, the phones apply a lot of processing to the image to make it look good. DSLRs by default are a lot more conservative so do have a go at cooking the images some more to make it a fair comparison.

[Brightcolours]

If you like shapness even if it is fake sharpness (with false detail), get a camera without AA-filter. Some people don't seem to mind fake sharpness, as long as it looks sharp.

 

For the rest... Saying you want to shoot anywhere between 10 to 35mm on full frame, is a bit odd. That is a huge range, and 10mm corrected on full frame? I can't think of a lens right away to be honest.

 

There are MANY lenses sharp enough for really sharp results when stopped down, so it is more a case of choosing a certain focal length and then look which lenses do a good job.

 

Or I could give silly advice and tell you to go for a 5DS®, with the new Canon EF 35mm f1.4 L USM II. That lens is sharp wide open, but most lenses are sharp when stopped down and f1.4 is not that useful for landscape (at least, traditional landscape with lots of sharpness and DOF). At least the 5DS® has the highest resolution, so you can get sharper prints.

 

But even the Voigtlander 20mm f3.5 SL II N, when stopped down to f7.1 or f8, on my 6D, gives pretty sharp "landscape" results. As long as you get a RAW converter which can correct its CA.

[toni-a]

It seems when we are saying"sharpness" we are not talking about sharpness=more details but about a certain appearance: The picture looks sharp.

For this you don't need a high resolution camera nor a good lens. All you need is some good software for the job. There are plenty of PhotoShop plugins that are made to do just that.

[JJ_SO]

In that case I'm looking forward to the bark of our expert for fake sharpness, who says the elimination of Anti-Aliasing filter would lead to fake sharpness. That's great. Why waste money on lenses or sensors, at the end of the day those buggers are only faking sharpness.

 

:lol:

[Brightcolours]

In that case I'm looking forward to the bark of our expert for fake sharpness, who says the elimination of Anti-Aliasing filter would lead to fake sharpness. That's great. Why waste money on lenses or sensors, at the end of the day those buggers are only faking sharpness.

 

:lol:

Again you are trolling. Did you read up on sampling theory yet? It may help you understand why AA-filterless shooting will by definition result in fake sharpness and false detail. I would appreciate it if you would stop mocking me.

[toni-a]

Let me clarify concepts : When we talk about sharpness what we mean is the amount of details in the picture, not how much a picture looks sharp.

Obviously the more details the more the picture will look sharp. However you can make the picture look sharp however plenty of software have algorithms for detecting edges and apply local adjustments so the picture looks sharper to your eyes.

Typically all lower end cameras and phone cameras apply very aggressive sharpening pro cameras do much less.

Sharpening is like adding salt to food, it makes it better however you can't take out salt but you can add as much as you want. If you overdo it, you ruin your picture. That's why pro cameras are more conservative about applying software sharpening however they yield plenty of details far more than Lower end cameras

[JJ_SO]

When we talk about sharpness, we do not talk about details, we do not talk about resolution - sharpness is a term of it's own no matter what you try to define it with and also no matter what you "think" we're talking about   speak for yourself, but "we" as a number of people and me included are not confusing details with sharpness, even if we categorize a high resolving lens as "sharp".

 

Anyway, it is logically clear that a high resolution lens will appear sharper on a sharp edge - if there are sharp edges in a picture of sand, stone, grass or other highly detailed and structured scenes. But even if there's only one edge in a picture and no more details, we're still talking about sharpness. Imagine one single guitar string made of nylon, a couple of meters away from the lens - and nothing else but a flat, dark background with no visible structure: See? No details, but maybe sharpness.

 

Also, "sharpness" on a lens testing site has absolutely nothing to do with software algorithms, otherwise we would talk about applications. We take it for granted the lenses are tested in equal surroundments and with equal software parameters - boom, that's it. If the influence of software is the same, you can subtract it from the equation. For sharpness you need glass, light and a sensor and all of that of decent quality and mounted on something quite stable.

[davidmanze]

When we talk about sharpness, we do not talk about details, we do not talk about resolution - sharpness is a term of it's own no matter what you try to define it with and also no matter what you "think" we're talking about   speak for yourself, but "we" as a number of people and me included are not confusing details with sharpness, even if we categorize a high resolving lens as "sharp".

 

Anyway, it is logically clear that a high resolution lens will appear sharper on a sharp edge - if there are sharp edges in a picture of sand, stone, grass or other highly detailed and structured scenes. But even if there's only one edge in a picture and no more details, we're still talking about sharpness. Imagine one single guitar string made of nylon, a couple of meters away from the lens - and nothing else but a flat, dark background with no visible structure: See? No details, but maybe sharpness.

 

Also, "sharpness" on a lens testing site has absolutely nothing to do with software algorithms, otherwise we would talk about applications. We take it for granted the lenses are tested in equal surroundments and with equal software parameters - boom, that's it. If the influence of software is the same, you can subtract it from the equation. For sharpness you need glass, light and a sensor and all of that of decent quality and mounted on something quite stable.

I think Toni-a is right in what she/he is saying!.................................... although maybe we ought to be talking about 'apparent sharpness'!

 

       PS's sharpening increases the contrast on the edges, this in reality doesn't change the detail or resolution but it 'does' appear sharper. In the case of a high resolution image from say a Zeiss Otus lens on a good sensor not much in the way sharpening is needed because edge sharpness is there already, but when we are not looking at edges but say at mass feathers, the 'detail' will be there plain to see, whereas the heavily sharpened first lower resolution image just won't have the fine detail in the feathers. 

  One other scenario, on say, a 4Mps sensor the edge blur will only be resolved over a pixel or two, on a 36 Mps sensor this edge blur will be spread over 9-18 pixels no prizes for which of the two sensors will produce the sharper edge here! 

  Lastly all this sharpening and processing come at a price, to reduce the artifacts that have appeared from this forcing the image, the whole lot has to be denoised with all the further degradation that entails, but strangely it can produce quite a sharp image with pop, just no genuine detail! I know I've done it with the 50-500 Sigma @ 500mm, blow it up to 200% + and you can see how!