P3D Re: Optimum sharpness

["William J. Carter, Ph.D." <wc@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 09:17 AM 9/22/98 -0600, Ken Luker wrote:

>...  Can someone explain how 
>one can see the difference between un-sharpness due to wide aperture 
>(loss of depth of field) and un-sharpness due to TOO SMALL an 
>aperture which has caused diffraction?  How do these differ in 
>appearance, and how can one determine the optimum f-stop?  
The circle-of-confusion becomes more noticeable at the near and far image
points with a wide aperture, while an overall lack of sharpness results from
too small an aperture. Though, except for real-life lens aberrations, your
film's resolution at about f/16 or above will be the limiting factor.

>Seems to me that in 3-d, we want sharpness throughout.  

A lot of people seem to feel that way, though I'm not one of them :-)


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