F70EXR -- Is It Sharp?

Why, yes. I shot a 3 and 1/2 hour styling session today during a Crombie McNeill photo shoot for portrait lighting. I'll blog that separately. But during this session, I had occasion to use the F70EXR off and on. The lighting was rather difficult, to say the least. Orange halogens against the walls, and sprinkled through the ceiling. A huge north window casting light onto her face most of the time (onto her left side -- image right -- for these images.) And a photo session with continuous lighting that bled a little 5000k light my way from camera left.

So ... I was shooting at 800 or 1600 with this cam (it's choice in P mode) and at 5mp. The shutter speeds were nothing to write home about ... 1/35s I believe. This means that critical sharpness relies upon her not moving and the F70's sensor-based IS.

Well ... it did the job twice in a row. I captured two images that I show here. They have been processed to mitigate the damage caused by the lighting and to enhance the existing sharpness. I like both, but one had sharp eyes and one had sharp hair. Neither had both -- at least not critically sharp. The kind that gives you a visceral reaction.

Here are those two images ... it is unlikely that you will be able to tell the difference between them just from the web sized images. So I will also include crops at the end. The F70EXR is critically sharp all right ... but when shooting this close, depth of field is razor thin so you'd better make sure you capture several images.