To crop or not to crop.....

[SJP]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

If you are serious about your photography, about the craft and about the energyyou put into it: Never crop.

 

If you're shooting around with no vision, then cropping is a part of a sloppy workflow.

If you are serious about your photography and want to get the shot you made in your mind then crop as neccesary or intended.

 

If you're shooting around with no vision no amount of cropping will save you.

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[azzo]

If you are serious about your photography and want to get the shot you made in your mind then crop as neccesary or intended.

 

If you're shooting around with no vision no amount of cropping will save you.

 

 

Indeed !

[jplomley]

I shoot a lot of 4x5, which dictates careful optimization of composition and plane of focus. At roughly $6.00 per sheet, this economy of scale keeps you well disciplined to "get it right" the first time. As a result, I find the same careful principles I adopt for 4x5 spill over into 35mm (film and digital) as well as MF. So I do try to get it right in camera as much as possible, but also realize that some shots are only attainable "from the hip", and as such a certain degree of tolerance in final manipulation must be accepted.

[delander †]

Surely a crop is just part of a photograph, nothing more?

 

Jeff

[SJP]

Surely a crop is just part of a photograph, nothing more?

 

Jeff

No sometimes the crop is the photograph.

[NB23]

Practice what you preach !

 

 

azzo, the man who relies on heavy photoshopping techniques and various digital artefacts to enhance mundane images of old people doing nothing, Can you point some of my images that I have cropped? Show them. Let's have fun.

 

I am also very curious now: Have you seen all my work? All my darkroom prints that are exclusively printed with the film edges? Have you seen all my Kodachrome scans that will eventually appear in a book I am preparing? Have you ever attended one of my exhibitions?

No, of course.

 

My work is 99.9% uncropped and unbutchered by digital enhancements. There are no gimmicks and tricks to make an old meaningless guy sitting on a bench as dramatic as a horror film, as opposed to you-know-who. Therefore I practice what I preach, thank you very much.

[delander †]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

No sometimes the crop is the photograph.

 

That cant be I'm afraid, a crop might be the good part of a photograph but it is not the photograph.

 

Jeff

[azzo]

Now that you mention benches and old people, here's one of yours ! .. And .... this is cropped btw ! ..

 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

 

 

.. Stupid.

[SJP]

That cant be I'm afraid, a crop might be the good part of a photograph but it is not the photograph.

 

Jeff

Exactly! This is the point of contention and I strongly disagree with this point of view. The photograph is in my eye and in my brain and might be an intentional crop of the original exposure. What I see or intend is not necessarily predefined by my camera or my film or incidental things that got in the way.

[SJP]

Now that you mention benches and old people, here's one of yours ! .. And .... this is cropped btw ! <snip>

Indeed:D

[jaapv]

Coming to think about it, the most famous painting in the world, Rembrandt's "Nachtwacht" (Nightwatch) is cropped - it was cut down to fit a room...

[delander †]

Exactly! This is the point of contention and I strongly disagree with this point of view. The photograph is in my eye and in my brain and might be an intentional crop of the original exposure. What I see or intend is not predefined by my camera or my film or incidental things that got in the way.

 

Well if you pre-visualise a crop when you take the photograph then you are a cleverer photographer than I. For me it is hard enough to take it all in during the instant that I press the shutter, let alone start thinking ahead about cropping.

 

A camera is not the human eye, any camera imposes a frame and I like to use the camera's view to make the complete photograph, the best that I can do at the point of pressing the shutter button.

 

I do crop but it generally annoys me because I know that I could have framed it better.

 

Jeff

[SJP]

Well if you pre-visualise a crop when you take the photograph then you are a cleverer photographer than I. For me it is hard enough to take it all in during the instant that I press the shutter, let alone start thinking ahead about cropping.

 

A camera is not the human eye, any camera imposes a frame and I like to use the camera's view to make the complete photograph, the best that I can do at the point of pressing the shutter button.

 

I do crop but it generally annoys me because I know that I could have framed it better.

 

Jeff

So in fact we all agree? I prefer not to crop, but I will when necessary or intended.

[azzo]

Indeed:D

 

Indeed indeed !

 

 

. . . . . . .

[Jeff S]

Well if you pre-visualise a crop when you take the photograph then you are a cleverer photographer than I.

 

Can't help but reentering the discussion. No disrespect, Jeff D, but after a couple of hundred posts, I hope you understand that many of the prior posts (including many of mine) are about this very issue, i.e., cropping in our minds before taking the photo. If this seems unusual to you, it's no wonder that you seem to have been on a different wavelength.

 

Being able to see a scene, without aid of the viewfinder, is part of the essence of photography to me. This is why cropping, especially when done with intent, is as valid as filling the frame. It's just a choice, like dozens of others, when making a photograph. And, according to you, even more difficult than filling the frame. How ironic.

 

Jeff S

[delander †]

To my mind very little 'cropping' is pre-visualised, it is a very minor reason for cropping.

 

As I wrote earlier a cropped photograph is simply part of a photograph.

 

I think we will just have to agree to differ.

 

Jeff

[Jeff S]

To my mind very little 'cropping' is pre-visualised, it is a very minor reason for cropping.

 

Huh? If you visualize a full frame shot, you've just cropped the scene in your mind in order to do it. The rest is just further cropping. Or, do you just go around with the VF to your eye searching for something to shoot?

 

I think I was right to exit earlier.

 

Jeff

[Guest mc_k]

I think the argument is over two different STYLES, like jazz, vs. other kinds of music that completely revolve around editing.

 

Cropping is just editing, and a photographic style that involves editing is no less artistic because of it.

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[Guest]

Coming to think about it, the most famous painting in the world, Rembrandt's "Nachtwacht" (Nightwatch) is cropped - it was cut down to fit a room...

 

Luckily the silver medalled Monalisa is not cropped .

 

Serious Jaap, if there were only one painter's (or photographer's) work I would be allowed to look at from now on my choice would instantly be Rembrandt's.

I would lighten them up in LR a bit in rainy days like today, though.

 

Cheers!

[Guest mc_k]

Shallow DOF is important to many. Isn't it, that when you stand further than you could - because you are afraid of cutting something due to paralax - it increases unintentionally DOF?

 

For me it is not a problem, but reading the forum, I see a lot of people paying money for fast lenses, because they want to make pictures in natural light AND they want to achieve shallow DOF.

 

And I think - due to longer distance and later cropping - we loose that shallow DOF, but no-one mentiones that.

Does above bothers you, or it doesn't matter?

 

I don't think it matters--you move the camera laterally to best use the compensation, and even if you backed up 5% to be safe, that would add about 10% to the DOF. (DOF proportional to the square of the distance.)