Digital BW, The Print

Ross, 

Here are the sharpest canon lenses I know about. I own the first four in
the list.

#1 The 50mm Macro Canon
#2 The 100mm Macro Canon
#3 The 24mm Canon
#4 The 17-35mm Canon L

Lenses I KNOW to be top quality lenses (I have friends who have them).

The 50mm 1.4 Canon
The 70-200mm Canon L IS
The 300mm F4 L IS
The 300mm F2.8 L
The Canon 28-135mm IS is an excellent all around lens, but not in the
above class of lenses. It isn't as sharp as I would want in the close up modes.

> Jerry Olson seems to be quite happy with the
> sharpness of his prints from his recently acquired
> D60. The resolution/sharpness debate that has
> ensued has been interesting. The math seems to
> come down to the fact that the lack of resolution/
> detail that can reside in a 6MP file cannot possibly
> match that of film. 

I never argued anything different. On PAPER this is certainly true.  I
invite skeptics to examine actual prints side by side and then tell me
that an 11x14 Canon D60 print isn't as sharp as a Darkroom color print
shot on a film like Provia. I almost always shoot at ISO 100, and almost
always use a tripod. This helps significantly.

> Anyone have any opinions on the newer Sigmas or
> Tokinas.

I have a sigma 70-300mm Apochromatic that is very sharp. I had a Tokina
28-80 Pro 2.6-2.8 lens that I would rank up there with the canon L
lenses. It was outstanding,
but REALLY heavy.

You can't get a true ultra wide zoom for the current pro bodies, except
the Contax Digital camera. Your 17-35mm will only be about 27mm - 55mm
or so.

Remember. After you get your 18 megabyte image on screen, to upsample it
using either Fred Miranda's stairstep filter, or genuine fractals, to a
file size that will be 300 DPI at the print size you want. 

These filters cannot add any detail or sharpness, but neither do they
take any away. I can see no loss in quality at all with these two
filters, when enlarged to 13x19 inches at 300 DPI. 

Then AFTER you have enlarged the image to the size you want, run Fred
Miranda's dedicated D60 Sharpen filter. It will sharpen your image as
sharp as it can be, without introducing any visible artifacts, at 100
percent view size on screen.  

Then make your print and tell me it isn't sharp!

The Canon EF 28-70 is exceptionally sharp, huge, and expensive! But not
very heavy.

 Hope this helps. 

Jerry