which programming language is the best for image processing?
Most image processing code in image signal processors 
(ISP) in the industry are written in C++ and assembly, which I would say have more syntax and language gibberish than MATLAB. 

So if you are considering to write code for educational purposes than MATLAB and python have good libraries and easier to code.

Else if you are writing code to be run on real HW, C++ and assembly mostly.

Open CV is a good cross platform library with C++ and other languages supported as well