Many of us have been there and struggled to capture tad-sharp photos for one reason or another. In my early years of running around with a camera and snapping photos, I haven’t really been paying attention if my shots were sharp. But with my goals to progress, I have learned through a slow but steady process what to do in order to have my photographs sharp. Below is a list of six points that helped me with creating sharp photographs, and perhaps you will find these tips valuable.
Use a (Sturdy) Tripod
I have been neglecting using a tripod for so many years, and when I think about that in retrospective I simply cannot believe myself it took me so long to get a sturdy tripod. This was by far one of my best investments ever. Nowadays, I use Benro TMA48CXL Mach3 with the G3 ball head.
Use Self-Timer
Simple putting your camera on a tripod may not be enough, especially if you are shooting long-ish exposure frames. Every time you hit the shutter button, you also introduce a shake that may result in blurry images. For that reason, setting a 3, 5 or 10-second self-timer may be necessary. Alternatively, using a remote shutter release can be helpful.
Go for a Low ISO
In many photography genres, ISO is considered a photographer’s enemy—unless you deliberately go for having noise in your shots. Keeping ISO at your camera’s lowest or base setting will drastically improve the sharpness of your photos.
Pick Your Lens’ Sharpest Aperture
Every lens does have the aperture value at which it yields sharpest photos. For majority of lenses it’s in the range between f/8 an f/13.
Turn off Image Stabilization on Lens
When shooting handheld image stabilization is definitely your ally, but when your camera is on a tripod this otherwise fine feature can actually do you no good. When image stabilization is turned on, the motors found in lenses actually look for any vibrations and shakes and try to reduce them. So in case when your camera is on a tripod, there naturally shouldn’t be any vibrations, but the image stabilization can actually introduce it.
Focus Stack
Focus stacking can be very useful for increasing sharpness in your photos. As its name suggests, focus stacking means that you are taking a number of photos by focusing on the elements that are found in the foreground, mid-ground and background. The number of shots depends on how “complicated” is the scene you shoot, but in general this is somewhere between three and seven photos. Stacking is done in Photoshop or similar software.