They say that it isn’t the camera it’s the photographer that takes the photo. It is true but in some respect and to give a nod to technology, the camera does play a vital role in how the actual image is going to come out. No way around it. Especially in digital too. Aside from composition and lighting if one is going to manipulate a photo, it would be ideal to have the best possible image with great pixel output (some lenience in cropping), great colour space, and the physical part of it: good optics if not the best optics. I’m not going to get all technical so don’t look for any tech advice, that’s just what I see in my ideal world of photography (which is nothing but subjectiveness).
Recently, I got in the habit of exploring old photos and applying new editing techniques. But I have noticed lots of problems (I have noticed them before) with focus and sharpness in many images. I advocate auto focus for dSLRs, why? Because there’s no damn split prism! I solely relied on my Pentax’s AF system. It was one big failure in my opinion. Not only did its system not tell me where it was exactly focusing itself but the screen to check if my focusing was okay had such a low pixel count that checking was near useless. The only way to find out if focusing was correct was after the shoot and then being led to a huge upset. Pentax, you were a cool camera in theory but in practice, was absolute shit. Your optics sucked a big one too.
So going through some older photos, I did manage to salvage some. The ones with perfect sharpness were gems. Here is one that I am proud of with great sharpness. Though it’s actual exposure and colour was a little bizarre to work with (the Pentax never really gave a great colour space), I still dig it:
That photo is so remarkable- I love the way you bring out the color of her eyes.