Old Photographer Series.
There is an uncomfortable truth about sharp photographs that photographers don’t always want to hear.
Sometimes it isn’t the lens.
It isn’t the autofocus.
It isn’t Nikon.
It’s us.
More specifically, it’s the person holding the bloody camera.
I’ve found this particularly noticeable with two cameras I know well: the Nikon D810 and Nikon D850. The D810 gives you 36.3 megapixels and the D850 raises that to 45.7 megapixels, both without an optical low-pass filter. These are cameras designed to record an enormous amount of fine detail.
That’s wonderful.
It also means they are very good at recording your mistakes.
When I first started examining files from these high-resolution Nikons, there was an obvious temptation when something wasn’t quite sharp.
Was the autofocus slightly out? Was the lens soft? Did the AF need fine-tuning? Perhaps I needed a better lens. Perhaps the shutter was causing vibration.
All of those things are possible.
But increasingly I’ve found that the main culprit is considerably simpler.
Camera shake.
And the more resolution you have, the easier it becomes to see.
High resolution demands something from the photographer
This is one of the peculiarities of modern digital photography. The fundamentals haven’t changed. We still have aperture, shutter speed and sensitivity. We still have to focus the lens.
And if we’re hand-holding the camera, we still have to hold it steady while the exposure is being made.
What has changed is our ability to examine the result.
Take a 45.7-megapixel D850 file and display it at 100% on a large monitor and you’re examining the photograph at a scale we rarely contemplated in the film days. Suddenly tiny movements become visible. A photograph can look perfectly respectable on the back of the camera and then appear slightly disappointing when opened on the computer.
Not horribly blurred. That’s easy to diagnose.
I’m talking about that irritating sort of softness where you think: That should be sharper.
That’s when I start looking at shutter speed and technique before blaming the equipment.
Forget blindly following the old reciprocal rule
For generations we’ve been told about the old hand-holding rule.
With a 50mm lens, use roughly 1/50 or 1/60 second.
With an 85mm, use around 1/80 or 1/100.
With a 200mm, use 1/200.
It was useful advice. It still provides a reasonable reference point. But I don’t regard it as a guarantee with the D810 or D850. Certainly not with the D850.
If I’m walking around with my D850 and Nikkor 85mm f/1.8G, I’d much rather have something around 1/200 or 1/250 second as my normal minimum for photographing people. And if I can get 1/320 or 1/500 without paying too much of a price elsewhere, I’m perfectly happy to take it.
Why gamble?
ISO performance is good enough that I’d rather increase ISO than sacrifice the photograph because I was determined to keep the camera at ISO 64 or 100. A sharp photograph at ISO 800 beats a blurred photograph at ISO 100 every time. We sometimes become so frightened of noise that we forget blur is usually far more destructive.
Noise can be reduced.
A photograph ruined by movement generally stays ruined.
There are two things moving
This becomes particularly important when photographing people.
There’s the camera. And there’s the person.
You can hold the D850 perfectly still at 1/60 second and still end up with a soft photograph because the person moved.
A head turns. A hand moves. Somebody takes a step. An expression changes.
That’s why I like a little shutter-speed insurance.
Street photography isn’t landscape photography. People don’t stand still simply because we’ve decided to photograph them. With the 85mm, especially, I want enough shutter speed to control my movement and theirs.
How you hold the camera matters
This sounds ridiculously basic. Good. Basic things matter.
The left hand belongs underneath the lens, supporting the weight. Not hanging off the side of it. The right hand grips the camera firmly but doesn’t strangle it. Elbows come towards the body rather than sticking out like wings. The camera comes gently against the face.
And your stance matters.
Feet reasonably apart. Balanced. Not leaning forward on one leg while twisting yourself into some impossible position and expecting 45 megapixels of perfection.
We’re photographers, not bloody contortionists.
If there’s a wall nearby, I’ll use it. Lamp post? Use it. Railing? Use it. Tree?
Perfect.
Anything solid that removes a little movement from the equation is useful. There’s no prize for making life unnecessarily difficult.
Then there’s the shutter finger
This one makes me smile. I’ve watched photographers spend ages carefully composing a photograph, steadying the camera, holding their breath… …and then stab the shutter button as though they’re trying to start a lawnmower.
The shutter should be squeezed. Smooth pressure. Nothing dramatic. That tiny downward jab with the index finger can move the camera just when everything else is perfectly positioned.
At fast shutter speeds it may make no difference. At marginal shutter speeds it certainly can.
The same applies to breathing. I’m not talking about turning photography into sniper training, but there’s a reason good shooting technique has traditionally involved breathing.
Get comfortable.
Compose.
Breathe normally. Let the breath out. Settle. Squeeze.
Click.
After enough years, it becomes automatic.
The D810 and D850 themselves can produce vibration
There is another complication worth mentioning because not every slightly soft photograph is caused by the photographer.
DSLRs contain moving mechanical parts. There’s a mirror and a shutter.
Nikon itself provided both the D810 and D850 with electronic front-curtain shutter options specifically to reduce blur caused by shutter movement. Nikon also recommends techniques such as mirror-up and exposure delay when maximum stability is required.
That’s significant. Even on a tripod, tiny internal vibrations can matter when you’re chasing maximum resolution.
For ordinary handheld street photography I’m not going to wander around using mirror-up and waiting two seconds for every exposure. The person I’m photographing would probably have gone home by then.
But it’s useful to understand what’s happening.
For landscapes, architecture, copying work or anything static where absolute sharpness matters, these features are worth using.
For hand-held people photography, my solution is generally simpler:
Give me more shutter speed.
Don’t be frightened of ISO
This is probably where my thinking has changed most over the years.
I used to protect low ISO. Many of us did. With film, choosing the film speed was a decision you made before taking the photograph. Put ISO 100 film in the camera and, barring some creative processing, you had ISO 100 until you finished the roll.
Digital changed that completely. Yet sometimes we still behave as though changing ISO is somehow admitting defeat. It isn’t.
ISO is a tool.
If I’m walking around and the light changes constantly, Auto ISO can be enormously useful. I’ll choose the aperture I want. I’ll establish a shutter speed below which I don’t want the camera falling. And I’ll let ISO move around within sensible limits.
With the D850 and 85mm f/1.8G, I’d rather see the ISO climb than watch the shutter speed quietly fall from 1/250 to 1/125 to 1/60 while I’m concentrating on what’s happening in front of me.
The D850 is capable of a standard sensitivity range from ISO 64 to 25,600. We have plenty of room to work with. Use it.
Sharpness isn’t everything
Now, having spent all this time talking about sharpness, I’ll contradict myself.
A photograph doesn’t have to be perfectly sharp to be a good photograph.
Some of the greatest photographs ever made wouldn’t survive five minutes in an online camera forum. There’d be somebody enlarging an eye to 400% and announcing that the photographer had missed critical focus.
Who cares?
If the photograph works, it works.
Emotion matters.
Timing matters.
Composition matters.
Light matters.
Gesture matters.
What the photograph says matters.
Technical perfection with nothing to say is still a boring photograph.
But there’s a difference between deliberately accepting movement because the photograph matters and accidentally ruining a photograph through sloppy technique.
That’s the distinction I’m interested in.
If the photograph is soft because somebody moved at exactly the right moment and that movement gives the picture life—wonderful.
If it’s soft because I couldn’t be bothered to hold the camera properly?
That’s on me.
Stop blaming the lens
Modern photographers have become slightly obsessed with lens sharpness. We read MTF charts. We watch people photograph brick walls. We worry about corner sharpness at f/1.8.
Then we go outside, shoot an 85mm lens at 1/60 second while standing badly, jab the shutter button and wonder why the £500 lens isn’t tack sharp. The lens never stood a chance.
Before deciding a lens is soft, I’d check some very ordinary things. Was the shutter speed high enough? Was the focus actually where I intended it to be? Was the subject moving? Was I moving? Was I balanced properly? Did I squeeze the shutter? Was depth of field sufficient?
Only after eliminating those would I start accusing the equipment.
The D850 teaches discipline
Perhaps this is one of the things I like about the D850. It rewards good technique. But it doesn’t hide bad technique.
The resolution is unforgiving enough to remind me that all the technological progress in the world hasn’t abolished the basic responsibilities of the photographer.
I still have to look. I still have to compose. I still have to focus.
And I still have to hold the bloody camera still.
After more than forty years of making photographs, I find something rather reassuring about that. We spend thousands on cameras capable of extraordinary resolution. We buy beautifully sharp lenses. We have autofocus systems that can follow moving subjects around the frame. We have RAW processors capable of extracting extraordinary detail.
And yet one of the most effective improvements we can make costs absolutely nothing.
Stand properly. Support the lens. Tuck the elbows in. Watch the shutter speed. Control your breathing. Squeeze rather than stab. And if the light isn’t sufficient, raise the bloody ISO.
That’s it.
No firmware update required. No new lens. No new camera. Just better technique.
The Nikon D810 and D850 are extraordinary photographic machines. But neither can repeal the laws of physics.
Forty-five megapixels don’t make the photographer steadier.
They simply make it easier to see when he wasn’t.
And perhaps that’s one of the best things a camera can do.
Make us improve.
Old Photographer Series
a world without pictures is like coffee without cream and sugar, bitter 