Do I have unrealistic sharpness expectations?

DJMusic wrote:

First, congratulations--macro is an amazing world!

I wouldn't say you're crazy, but you may have expectations that are somewhat misaligned.

First, at any magnification over 100%, you're going beyond the detail that was captured. At that point, your expectation should be that it will not be as sharp as 100%.

Second, while it's fun to "pixel peep", you need to remember the size at which you will view your work. If you're printing an 8x10 of the image, you probably won't touch the sharpness thresshold. If you print it in large format for a wall hanging, how close you get to the image will determine the perceived detail. And if you will be displaying your work on a monitor, it's highly unlikely you even come close to the full resolution of your sensor. All this to say, it's unlikely you'll ever see you work at 100% magnification at 1 foot in front of your eyes.

If you're happy with the overall sharpness, don't overthink the fine detail you'll never see.

Now, there are some things that can help with macro. Your depth of field can be VERY shallow.

1. Make sure your camera is square to the subject. If your camera is at an angle to the subject, it's easy to have some areas out of focus.
2. If you need to/want to shoot at an angle, or you have an object that is not flat, you'll probably end up focus stacking. There's a lot of detail about this on the forum and on the web.

Happy shooting.

Hey DJ,

That's what I thought! It seemed kinda nutty in the back of my mind as I was thinking that everything had to be hyper-sharp at such high zoom. You make a good point about the viewing method too.

I'll certainly try to keep everything on a proper angle and focus stacking could be interesting to try out.

Thanks for the tips!