Producing Ultra-Sharp Images

A few months ago, I bought a Zeiss 50mm f/2.0 Makro-Planar T* ZE Lens. This lens is hailed as one of the sharpest lenses in the world, and it's strictly a manual focus lens (no automatic focus).

Over the past year or so, I've taken 1,000+ pics of the jewelry that Sheley makes and sells. It's a learning experience, but clearly it's desirable to take pics that are incredibly clear and sharp.

So, with my new lens, and my side-hobby task of taking pics for Sheley, I was lead to the quest to produce what I'll call "ultra-sharp" images. I use this technique whenever I can; not just for jewelry photos.

My approach is to:

• use a really sturdy tripod (my Benro A-1690)
• use my manual focus Zeiss 50mm lens
• I replaced my camera's internal focusing screen with the Eg-s screen, which assists my vision through the viewfinder by making the in-focus area appear very crisp and everything else really blurry
• use the LCD screen at 10x magnification to view the subject, to help focus
• use a remote shutter release (or put it on a 2-second timer) so that my pressing the shutter button doesn't shake the camera at all

Basically, it's an exciting process and requires much deliberation, patience, and carefulness for each shot. It's the closest I'll ever come to performing surgery.

Sample 1 -- The Penny

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The viewfinder is so sensitive that moving the camera's focusing ring the slightest amount I possibly can is the difference between "In God We Trust" being in focus versus "2010" being in focus.

Sample 2 -- Boston Skyline 1/2 mile away

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Notice how you can see each window with at least some detail. Pretty crazy considering the windows are half a mile away.

Sample 3 -- huge panorama of Boston from .8 miles away

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Sample 4 -- Sheley's Jewelry

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Unfortunately, images displayed on the web are rarely greater than 900 pixels in length, and are compressed greatly; thus, the increase in sharpness may often not even be discernible for images posted to the web. Oh well, it's been really fun for me to discover how to push my camera and lens to their limits.

In the meantime, I've become a huge fan of Zeiss, and I can easily understand why they're considered a world leader and pioneer for producing world-class optical equipment, from medical lenses, microscopes, camera lenses, etc.