When will the sharpness race stop?

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markymark

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I walked into the television department of a large British Department store chain a couple of weeks ago & to be honest was completely blown away by how sharp & clear some of the high end models were!
There was one model in particular that when I looked at the screen I just thought, it’s impossible to get any sharper & better than that, the screen I was looking at just transported you into what was being shown on the tv, it was incredible, which made me think, is photography equipment heading in the same direction?
How much sharper & clearer can you go?

Some of the images you see out there in magazines, books, social media sites etc, are at times breathtakingly sharp & faultless & sometimes I just look at some of them & think, how could you possibly make it even sharper, clearer or better than it already is?

Well I do anyway.

(PS: Steve, I was going to use some of your images as an example above, but didn’t want everyone thinking I was blowing smoke up your ass just to get a free BCG long sleeved T- Shirt in a large!!…😂🤣😂 :)
 
Just like audio digital recordings kept improving until they reached the capability of the human ear, they will keep improving displays and camera sensors until they match the capability of the human eye. They are getting closer with the resolution and contrast of the high end displays, but have a ways to go to match the color space we can see, but as you see, what the manufacturer's have achieved with OLED display technology and 60mp camera sensors is amazing. Everything I read says high end camera manufacturers will have to go to medium format sensors, like film's 120 size sensors, or about 84 x 56 mm compared to 35 mm, which is 36 x 24mm to make the next big leap forward.

Trivia: women have a 4th cone sensitive to orange that men don't have, so their color space is larger than the male color space. Males can see somewhere between 2.4 and 10 million colors. Women up to 100 million colors.
 
Just like audio digital recordings kept improving until they reached the capability of the human ear, they will keep improving displays and camera sensors until they match the capability of the human eye. They are getting closer with the resolution and contrast of the high end displays, but have a ways to go to match the color space we can see, but as you see, what the manufacturer's have achieved with OLED display technology and 60mp camera sensors is amazing. Everything I read says high end camera manufacturers will have to go to medium format sensors, like film's 120 size sensors, or about 84 x 56 mm compared to 35 mm, which is 36 x 24mm to make the next big leap forward.

Trivia: women have a 4th cone sensitive to orange that men don't have, so their color space is larger than the male color space. Males can see somewhere between 2.4 and 10 million colors. Women up to 100 million colors.
Thanks Strodav. That probably answers my question as to why my wife keeps changing her bloody mind on the colour she wants the living room! 🤬🤬:)
 
Just like audio digital recordings kept improving until they reached the capability of the human ear, they will keep improving displays and camera sensors until they match the capability of the human eye.
They will keep improving it as long as there are people who are willing to pay for the improvements, regardless of how meaningful the changes are. How much resolution you need to get high levels of sharpness depends on how large the screen it is viewed on. Example, most flagship cellphone and camera screens are already past the point that the human eye can see the difference, but you can bet that the marketing departments don't care and will push the engineers to go father anyway.
 
Interestingly, I've seen a YouTube video from a landscape photographer where he says he has started to reduce the sharpness in his images slightly to get away from what he sees as a cold/artificial and digital look to his images.

He does selectively sharpen but also goes the other way too. His objective is to get images that are nearer how you actually see a scene and that is not always with it being ultra shape all over.
 
Don't think development will stop, not even if sharpness, contrast level etc. reaches a level where it actually surpasses the average human eye capability. If some manufacturer can produce a screen that can produce an even higher level, they can also find the argument that will convince some enthusiast to shell out the cash for having top level equipment performance. This is a natural prerequisite for GAS ;)
 
I'm sure they will continue to find ways to improve lens sharpness - in fact, that's one of the reasons Nikon is using such a big mount on the Z cameras. The wider mount allows for more favorable light angles from lens to sensor.

I'm actually pretty happy with overall sharpness from most of my lenses though. Still, I'm always happy for more, especially in telephoto glass. The reason? TCs. The sharper the lens, the better it takes a TC :)
 
I started the thread as I can’t see how you can get anymore sharper images than what the latest technology is giving us already.
I agree that going forward technology will advance in many other ways such as ISO performance, bokeh, AF & in camera advancement technology, but I just think that the levels of sharpness we’re seeing in images now is as good as it can possibly be.
Everytime Nikon bring out a new lens they seem to sprinkle it with a fairy dust that seems to improve it from it’s predecessor, but IMO the sharpness fairy dust surely must be almost gone? No?
 
It’s the law of diminishing returns. Without a major change in technology, each change will only be small increments. The cost of these increases becomes disproportionately higher.
 
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