To Crop Or Not To Crop, that is the question

Haych

Haych

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Brian
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Searching cropping or crop in the forum isn't yielding what I am wanting to discuss, or see discussed already, so apologies if this has already been covered.

Okay, so when I shoot I generally try to "fill the frame" which is something that was instilled from shooting film. Was cropping ever a thing with 35mm? When I say cropping, I am talking about slicing the whole length of the bottom of a frame which with digital cameras creates a letterbox view and widens the image.

I like to see the native frame, so a slight crop which keeps the same aspect ratio doesn't look too out of place.

So how much crop is just right, or too much, when slicing a large part lengthways. I will of course include 3 images that I exposed today - the original composition, then 2 crops. I shot this at 100mm to get closer in to the subject, which gave a lot of "empty space" on the river.

The original composition:

IMG_5206_uncropped-rs.jpg


The medium crop:


IMG_5206_Crop2_rs.jpg


And the more severe crop:


IMG_5206_rs.jpg


I hate cropping! But.... I am not that keen on letter box style panorama looking images from a brutal crop. Just wondering what everyone's thoughts are on the subject of cropping?

I did also shoot this at a shorter focal length from this position to fill the frame properly and "provide some kind of interest" in the foreground.... but when you are shooting with a prime lens and topography prevents you from choosing a different composition, then a crop is maybe acceptable? And cropping when using a zoom lens is lazy? I'd really like to hear thoughts on this.
 
Haych said:
Searching cropping or crop in the forum isn't yielding what I am wanting to discuss, or see discussed already, so apologies if this has already been covered.

Okay, so when I shoot I generally try to "fill the frame" which is something that was instilled from shooting film. Was cropping ever a thing with 35mm? When I say cropping, I am talking about slicing the whole length of the bottom of a frame which with digital cameras creates a letterbox view and widens the image.

I like to see the native frame, so a slight crop which keeps the same aspect ratio doesn't look too out of place.

So how much crop is just right, or too much, when slicing a large part lengthways. I will of course include 3 images that I exposed today - the original composition, then 2 crops. I shot this at 100mm to get closer in to the subject, which gave a lot of "empty space" on the river.

The original composition:

View attachment 415602


The medium crop:


View attachment 415603


And the more severe crop:


View attachment 415604


I hate cropping! But.... I am not that keen on letter box style panorama looking images from a brutal crop. Just wondering what everyone's thoughts are on the subject of cropping?

I did also shoot this at a shorter focal length from this position to fill the frame properly and "provide some kind of interest" in the foreground.... but when you are shooting with a prime lens and topography prevents you from choosing a different composition, then a crop is maybe acceptable? And cropping when using a zoom lens is lazy? I'd really like to hear thoughts on this.
Click to expand...

Perhaps if you had placed the bridge on the lower third when you took the photograph you would have had a much better image to start with. The sky is far more interesting than the water.
 
Eucris said:
Perhaps if you had placed the bridge on the lower third when you took the photograph you would have had a much better image to start with. The sky is far more interesting than the water.
Click to expand...

So then to achieve that would be a compromise as the original composition was to make sure the bridge looked level on the vertical plane for the uprights, that would probably not look so appealing with a camera pointed more towards the sky?

I think this could turn into quite an interesting discussion, as we are all aware photography is a subject that is completely subjective, and sometimes certain rules can be thrown in the bin and sometimes they need to be completely adhered to.. What a conundrum eh!
 
Nothing looks sharp to me but that could I suppose be due to the posting process.

Apart from that... Brian, it's your picture so whatever works for you is the way to go but I think I lean towards Eucris in thinking that more sky might have made a better picture if the uprights could be upright enough not to annoy you either with or without post capture adjustment.

I tend to like 3:2 for landscape orientation and perhaps 4:3 for portrait orientation but something more letter box style might be nice if it suits the subject and these days when many only view on screens perhaps whatever fills the screen might be the thing to go for?
 
In film days, cropping was done if desired in the darkroom, by raising or lowering the enlarger head and/or masking - at least that's what I did.
I think this is where the rule of thirds has a role as mentioned above, placing the bridge in the centre doesn't make the best of the image, and at the longer focal length and vertical convergence shouldn't be very obvious I'd have thought, from changing the ratio of sky to water, and could be resolved in post. The sky is definitely more interesting.
 
woof woof said:
Nothing looks sharp to me but that could I suppose be due to the posting process.

Apart from that... Brian, it's your picture so whatever works for you is the way to go but I think I lean towards Eucris in thinking that more sky might have made a better picture if the uprights could be upright enough not to annoy you either with or without post capture adjustment.

I tend to like 3:2 for landscape orientation and perhaps 4:3 for portrait orientation but something more letter box style might be nice if it suits the subject and these days when many only view on screens perhaps whatever fills the screen might be the thing to go for?
Click to expand...

When I first offered the images, I had a box pop up saying OOPS there was a problem and I was guessing it was because it was full file res, so I reduced the file size to post it on the forum.... and I guess in the process some of the detail was lost. Likely due to web server bandwidth not allowing full res images posted. That's why I like Flickr, you can share images full res, but I don't want to use it as a web host for general discussion here...
 
lindsay said:
In film days, cropping was done if desired in the darkroom, by raising or lowering the enlarger head and/or masking - at least that's what I did.
I think this is where the rule of thirds has a role as mentioned above, placing the bridge in the centre doesn't make the best of the image, and at the longer focal length and vertical convergence shouldn't be very obvious I'd have thought, from changing the ratio of sky to water, and could be resolved in post. The sky is definitely more interesting.
Click to expand...
I will have to have a look at shooting higher up at longer focal length. Usually I shoot at 24 - 35mm for landscape.... I have a 100 prime for macro that is sometimes useful out in the field, normally I try to shoot straight vertically and horizontally with a wide angle and I guess I take that ethos to longer focal lengths where it may be less necessary... I will endeavour to take the 100mm out and shoot a few a subjects while trying to allow a bit more freedom into my ethos.

I think a revisit to the site some time soon to try a few skyward angles at longer length to see how it looks will be an education.
 
Definitely worth experimenting, that's for sure.
 
Marino said:
I never thought about it because there’s no cropping rule in my head.
It could potentially be an issue if printing a really akward size.
My most extreme crops below:
Second one was shot portrait but the composition wasn’t that interesting, only later i realised i should have composed differently.
https://flic.kr/p/2neoTki
View: https://flic.kr/p/2neoTki

https://flic.kr/p/2nHoCUs
View: https://flic.kr/p/2nHoCUs
Click to expand...
Sometimes a square crop works well though giving a medium format feel to an image.... but I do still try to fill the frame!
 
Most of my images will benefit from cropping. It is not a fault in the capture but that the critical part of the image is unlikely to always match a 3:2 aspect ratio. Also in the dark room era, I would often crop using a guillotine.

Dave
 
To be honest, at the camera/subject distance the image looks to be, I would already be thinking of a panoramic crop & actually shooting a panorama with a longer focal length if it were me in your shoes. But then I'm quite a fan of shooting like that rather than 'wide angle' anyway.
 
I've always cropped tight around the subject and if my enlarger's head was right at the top of the column, to get the layout I wanted, so be it.

To me, that's the great strength of digital photography: it's so easy to throw away everything you don't want and present just what you found interesting.

Workman directing traffic Innsbruck G2 1180120.JPG
 
The world doesn’t always fit into a 3:2 format (or whatever your sensor format is). Best advice I ever got on cropping is this: cover up the area of the photo you want to keep; and then just look at the areas you are thinking of cropping. If they aren’t adding anything to the photograph then crop away.
 
My rule tends to be: for paper, crop to an aspect ratio, for digital, crop for the image.
 
The final image is what matters, how you get there is irrelevant. No matter what format I have shot I have always had in mind the final image and have "cropped" arbitarily to get that vision if it wasn't available at the full frame I was shooting at. Back in the film days we never discussed this as rarely did anyone see the original negative just the print. It only really mattered if one shot slide which made composition much more critical. Today's modern zoom lenses make getting the composition right in camear a lot easier than in the early days where zoom lens quality was not good. In the OP example I would have been thinking panoramic so would have shot with that in mind (even on film) then produced my final image from the area of the frame that I had intended to be the final image.
 
Really useful input from members so far.
To add something that just hit me.
Another reason not to crop is for losing quality.
Usually by cropping you end up with a smaller image.
Most of the time i try to work around my camera’s size format. Either it’s square, 3x2 or even whatever size of panorama.
Of course there’s no need to state the obvious, sometimes you just have to crop for various reasons.
 
Topsy said:
It only really mattered if one shot slide which made composition much more critical.
Click to expand...

I've got 2 rolls of Velvia 50 that I still need to shoot! I love slides, they look fantastic on a projector.
 
I'm a great believer in cropping. For me it's usually the last stage in the whole picture taking process. In the past there were film cameras for which a panoramic image was the full-frame result, and a lot of the best landscape photographers used them. I suppose there is a setting in most digital cameras for panoramic format but why not give yourself the maximum amount of flexibility by cropping the full frame image during PP?

Also wildlife photographs tend to need cropping because the subject is usually quite small in the frame.

(edited to make sense.....)
 
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jerry12953 said:
I'm a great believer in cropping. For me it's usually the last stage in the whole picture taking process. In the past there were film cameras for which a panoramic image was the full-frame result, and a lot of the best landscape photographers used them. I suppose there is a setting in most digital cameras for landscape format but why not give yourself the maximum amount of flexibility by cropping a full frame image during PP?

Also wildlife photographs tend to need cropping because the subject is usually quite small in the frame.
Click to expand...

I shoot a variety of horizontal 3:2 & 4:3 mainly - I might do the occasional set of images at 5:4.

I never do vertical images as 3:2 - they just look too long & tall imo so they are 4:3 usually......

So for me, cropping is the first stage of the picture taking process :) As I am composing.
 
LeeRatters said:
I shoot a variety of horizontal 3:2 & 4:3 mainly - I might do the occasional set of images at 5:4.

I never do vertical images as 3:2 - they just look too long & tall imo so they are 4:3 usually......

So for me, cropping is the first stage of the picture taking process :) As I am composing.
Click to expand...


Well, yes....... but do you have a 6:17 setting on your camera? :) Like the Fuji 617 or the Hasselblad XPAN?
 
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jerry12953 said:
Well, yes....... but do you have a 6:17 setting on your camera? :) Like the Fuji 617 or the Hasselblad XPAN?
Click to expand...
Yes if you have one of the Fuji GFX System, they have a 65x24 aspect ratio which is seen in the VF and the JPG is exactly what you composed, the RAW however contains the full sensor image but LR loads the crop initially.
 
I like your medium crop best, and I agree with the comments about the original image.

I often crop, as I did on film.

I am not one to usually alter an image, but the powerlines would come out :)

"as the original composition was to make sure the bridge looked level on the vertical plane for the uprights" I fully agree with the idea, I hate cockeyed verticals in particular, but easy to correct, along with the perspective and any distortion caused by shooting up or down.
 
To return to the original image, yes the river is dull so definitely crop it off. Your 3rd image is the best. But what does the photograph actually say? With the bridge and especially those electricity cables running across it, it hardly celebrates the natural world.

(I await a torrent of disagreement......)
 
I crop even more now than I did in the darkroom, very necessary with my street and moving subjects but possibly less so with landscapes or posed sessions. Thank god for digital I've still got the full darkroom in the loft but hope never to see it again.
 
velocette said:
I crop even more now than I did in the darkroom, very necessary with my street and moving subjects but possibly less so with landscapes or posed sessions. Thank god for digital I've still got the full darkroom in the loft but hope never to see it again.
Click to expand...

I thought about developing silver halide a few years ago using a dark bag and Paterson tank. You don't necessarily need a dark room any more. But I'd bet it is a much nicer environment to develop film.
 
velocette said:
Thank god for digital I've still got the full darkroom in the loft but hope never to see it again.
Click to expand...
Amen, brother.

Since I bought my first digital camera, more than 20 years ago, I've been a fan of the electronic viewfinder. Even the early ones were a vast leap forward, in my opinion, from ground glass. Later ones have been even better. That first Coolpix 990 was a revelation, when it came to composing a picture in the camera...

Nikon Coolpix 990 with Fisheye and viewfinder GX7 P1140680.JPG
 
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