Pick the Sharpest Photo

This is just for fun and a bit of learning. Going to set up a poll to find out which image appears to be the sharpest. This is not a perfect test, but thinking it will be interesting, whatever the result.

The six images are six different shots.

Edited to add: Have 18 votes, so going to stop and add info to the shots. See post # for complete EXIF and more info.

1 - 1/200 sec @ f/22


2 - 1/200 sec @ f/18


3 - 1/200 sec @ f/11


4 - 1/200 sec @ f/5.6


5 - 1/200 sec @ f/32


6 - 1/200 sec @ f/16

I must say I did find it hard since there is a slight difference in overall lightness between the shots that tends to favor the darker versions in perceived sharpness so I just went with that and ended with either 1 or 6.

I have a hard time making my mind up which of both is sharper since the one part looks sharper in the first while another part appears to look sharper in the second. It's a difficult subject to really distinguish this.

But like I said, I picked the darker versions since they automatically give a better impression.

Since both isn't possible as an option, I don't know if I should flip a coin and pick one or select "can't decide".

Hard to compare in this format.

On my ipad not a lot in it but I've chosen

Toss-up between 1 and 6, so I did just that and heads won.

I flipped a coin too and 1 won.

depending on what your viewing the pictures on, might have different results.

on the phone. 1-4 look the same, 5 and 6 look a little darker, but all sharp.

Early morning, no coffee yet and no wearing classes, #6 goes for me

I think I can add a couple tidbits without unduly influencing any additional picks.

This picking is a mix of perception and reality, so there is not really a right or correct choice as long as the one you pick is the one you perceive to be the sharpest.

Thanks to all who have made a pick so far.

It's interesting especially when shots look that similar you wonder if you start to imagine differences.

We unknowingly are often subject to suggestions we create ourselves that trigger a perceptual bias which makes us see real differences even when there are none. That's why it is very hard for us to judge something correctly the moment additional information is presented.

For my poor old eyes, 6 seems to be the winner, followed by 3.

I have no idea. :indecisiveness:

Just looked at this on my tablet, and again the same as the phone. 1-4 look the same, 5 and 6 look a little darker. But all sharp. On the PC monitor 3 looked the sharpest.

Here is the rest of the story.

All 6 shots were taken on a tripod using the AF-S DX VR Zoom-NIKKOR 55-200mm f/4-5.6G IF-ED. Common settings were 180mm, ISO 100 and 1/200 sec. The variables were aperture and flash power.

The only post processing was LR's auto tone to even the exposure some and cropped by rotating the crop tool 45° which left a 3398 x 2259 image which was resized to 1024 wide for upload to the forum. The resulting image when viewed on the average screen would be very roughly 1/4 of an 8/10 print so somewhat realistic of the proverbial view size.

I added the shutter aperture info to each of the images in post #1. But because there were some exposure differences, thought it would be interesting to post the original SOOC images. These are small and meant just to show the original exposure

1 & 2


2 & 3


5 & 6

Here are the picks as of the disclosure of settings and my observations below.



#4 was the f/5.6 shot and probably not as sharp due to narrow DOF as the focus distance was 6-8 feet (2 meters plus).

The theoretical sharpest perceptually would maybe be #3 at f/11 or #6 at f/16, but of course debatable.

The LR auto adjust made changes to exposure (-.55 to +1.95), contrast, whites and blacks.

Eyelight said:

Here are the picks as of the disclosure of settings and my observations below.

View attachment 143376

#4 was the f/5.6 shot and probably not as sharp due to narrow DOF as the focus distance was 6-8 feet (2 meters plus).

The theoretical sharpest perceptually would maybe be #3 at f/11 or #6 at f/16, but of course debatable.

The LR auto adjust made changes to exposure (-.55 to +1.95), contrast, whites and blacks.

Click to expand...

3 as sharpest matches the file size difference with the others but being slightly lighter was at its disadvantage. I ignored the sizes and went with the visual.

What about 1? I had the impression it was close it identical, if not the same as 6.

Edit: ignore the question, I see there's another reply with all details.

I think the sampling was small but the results were actually what would be expected via hindsight.

1/3 viewed as too close to call, the rest were spread around the middle ground and no one picked #4 which is likely the least sharp.

The crop size was 3398 width, so if we made prints of the full size images, I think we'd get similar results provided no one brought a magnifying glass.
@Lawrence I think mentioned the difficulty of the format, but in a way, it made it more realistic by limiting the view-ablity.

Not a perfect test, but interesting.

Thanks again for all who took a shot.

I tried it myself and took one shot I overexposed a little bit and underexposed the same and then compared. Even when knowing for sure they were all three identical, I perceived a difference in sharpness purely based on their EV difference.

J-see said:

I tried it myself and took one shot I overexposed a little bit and underexposed the same and then compared. Even when knowing for sure they were all three identical, I perceived a difference in sharpness purely based on their EV difference.

Click to expand...

Thing is the only truly identical shot is the same shot. Any setting change will affect the detail. Granted, in many many cases a small change is relatively imperceptible.

I did not make a pick, even though I had scrambled the images and had to check to see which is which, because knowing how I put it together would have influenced my choice.

I'll toss in that I really couldn't see much difference, so it was interesting to use 18 more sets of eyes.

I saved all six to my desktop and then watched them maximized. That way I could flip between two fast and I deleted the one that look less sharp and then checked the survivor against the next.

At full size 1 and 6 looked sharpest to me even while knowing that the file size of three indicated it must contain more detail or at least more diverse pixels.

Perception is a funny thing. It makes me wonder if the same shot against a different colored background would also influence perceived sharpness.