Do you crop a lot or not so much?

[farnz]

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5 hours ago, adan said:

If I pay for 24 (or 40, or 64) megapixels - I'd like to get what I paid for.

While I agree with the sentiment my maxim is: If I pay for 24 (or 40, or 64) megapixels - I can use what I paid for how I wish. 

I prefer to get the scene correct in the camera bit despite having cut my teeth on medium format chromes for about 15 years I am not precious about cropping.  The image matters to me and if cropping is needed to communicate the mood, emotion, or message then I'll crop.  I prefer to retain a familiar aspect ratio because abandoning that is the fastest way to make people uneasy about a picture although they don't understand why.  Then it's too late and the picture hasn't fulfilled its purpose of engaging the viewer.

Pete.

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[farnz]

Here's one out of left field for the panel:

If during processing you, say, rotate to straighten the horizon line but instead of cropping use one of the PS tools such as the Heal brush or Content-Aware Fill etc to fill the resulting triangular voids does that count as "cropping"?

Or 'reverse-cropping'?

Or something far worse?

Pete.

[Dr No]

No. You crop with your camera and you edit with your shutter finger.

Edited July 24, 2020 by Dr No

[Mikep996]

I find the "looks like a crop" comment interesting.  Frankly it sounds to me like most people crop photos to some extent.  So at what point does a photo 'look like a crop?'  I could not tell that the photo in #14 was a crop just by looking at the pic but admittedly, that may be due to my lack of "learning" to see that.  I just looked and saw a photo I liked!

I totally agree about "getting the scene right in the camera," but, of course, that may not be possible depending on what you want to show as a final result.  I doubt if anybody did (or currently does) more post processing than Adams or less than Bresson.  Yet both are highly praised for their work.  Most (all?) of Adams' best known/admired images are unrecognizable when viewing the original contact print; his many hours of post processing MADE the final image.  OTOH, what came out of Bresson's camera WAS the final image.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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vor 46 Minuten schrieb Mikep996:

I could not tell that the photo in #14 was a crop just by looking at the pic

The most tell-tale sign (for me) are the colored borders at the edges, most visible on the arm of the gentleman in the foreground, but equally present at the upper edge of her left arm against his dark jacket. The fine details (i.e. of the skin and the clothes) are not as crisp as they could be. Those "defects" would not be as visible at smaller magnifications.

I rather think you can see that the lens is out of its depth. It does not matter as the cropped picture serves its purpose.

vor 46 Minuten schrieb Mikep996:

what came out of Bresson's camera WAS the final image

I don't think so. Cartier-Bresson (as is his name) heavily relied on his lab to make his image look they way he had envisioned them. Small matter, again, as even Rembrandt etc had their employees who painted large parts of their works. The grand masters signed much of their work as having been executed by their offices.

Edited July 25, 2020 by pop

[Mikep996]

Hmmm...thanks for the info re Cartier-B.  Back when I was doing a lot of darkroom work, reading about the famous photographers/their methods, I had read somewhere - or thought I did - that he didn't do anything at all, not even cropping.  But I may be misremembering OR the material I read may not have been factually correct.  

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There are quite a few decisions you take before, during and after the taking of a picture which determine how the picture looks and how close it comes to expectations. There's the quality of the lenses and of the camera you brought along, in earlier times the kind of quality of the film, the exposure parameters such as sensitivity (or gain), aperture, time, the focusing distance, the post processing, perhaps beginning with the algorithm for the de-mosaicing.

I can remember the time when the more expensive version of a camera offered faster shutter speeds than the more frugal ones. Nevertheless, it never occurred to me to take all my shots at the faster speeds just because I had the more expensive camera. The speed was always chosen for a particular set of reasons, and each decision could also lead to negative consequences: at the faster speeds you reduced the depth of field and you risked the artifacts of fast moving things in the picture.

You can, of course, limit yourself to a subset of all possible choices, if it pleases you to do so. You can use one focal length only, take only pictures in landscape mode or square ones, you can use only even and whole-numbered aperture values or set the aperture only to click stops or only between such, you can also shoot with both eyes open or always stand on the left leg while taking the photograph.

I don't think there are any painters who restrict themselves to one canvas size or aspect ratio for their entire bodies of work. Rather, the format of the work to be created is one of its most prominent decisions. The photographer has many more options in this respect. It does not sound reasonable to me to reduce the number of options available for mere dogma. 

Choose all parameters for your picture, and choose wisely, so that the picture will be the one you wanted or needed. That's all there is.

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Gerade eben schrieb Mikep996:

that he didn't do anything at all

He didn't. His lab did. If I remember that correctly, he strongly detested working in the lab.

[lct]

33 minutes ago, pop said:

I don't think so. Cartier-Bresson (as is his name) heavily relied on his lab to make his image look they way he had envisioned them. Small matter, again, as even Rembrandt etc had their employees who painted large parts of their works. The grand masters signed much of their work as having been executed by their offices.

From the grand master's mouth:
« We photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing, and when they have vanished, there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again. We cannot develop and print a memory. The writer has time to reflect. He can accept and reject, accept again; and before committing his thoughts to paper he is able to tie the several relevant elements together. There is also a period when his brain "forgets", and his subconscious works on classifying his thoughts. But for photographers, what has gone, has gone forever (...). Our task is to perceive reality, almost simultaneously recording it in the sketchbook which is our camera. We must neither try to manipulate reality while we are shooting, nor must we manipulate the results in a darkroom. These tricks are patently discernible to those who have eyes to see. »
Henri Cartier-Bresson
The Decisive Moment
Foreword, page 5
July 22, 1952

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[FlashGordonPhotography]

Here is was ready to jump headlong into the *I never crop group*. Get it right in camera I was thinking. As I read the comments I realised, "Gordon you ass. You crop heaps of files.". So I am a cropper, it seems.

I can't get a horizon straight. My brain must be at a 4 degree angle. So I crop to straighten. I crop to change aspect ratio. Sometimes I stitch but often I crop, now I have the resolution. And shooting an M, perfect composition isn't possible so cropping a bit is inevatable.

I do print big, so I tend to crop as little as possible. I do change lenses rather than crop. I carry more lenses so I need to crop less.

But a cropper I am...

Gordon

 

[Michael Markey]

23 hours ago, Mikep996 said:

One of the items that is often discussed in all digital camera forums is the ability of a higher MP and/or larger sensor to provide a greater capacity for cropping/enlarging.  I have pretty much always shot digital as I shot slide film...I get what I shot and that's that.  As a consequence, I haven't personally seen the need for a great number of MP's since I usually don't crop much.  As an example, below is a pic I shot in front of the Royal Crescent in Bath yesterday.  The first is straight out of the camera,  an unmodified DNG though reduced to 1600 pixel width/converted to JPG to be able to post here.  The second pic is about as much cropping as I would normally do with same DNG converted to B/W (since I've been fooling with B/W lately) also at 1600 width/Jpg.  

So just curious, do many folks typically crop "extensively?"  Obviously, as has been discussed, the ability to do so can reduce the number of prime lenses needed depending on the subject/intent of the pic.  

Though not part of the point of the post, FWIW, lens was the 21mm f3.4  Super Elmar shot wide open at 1/4000 sec, ISO 200.  No aux finder used, just estimating the field of view using the rangefinder.  I find that if I "look around" in the rangefinder I can determine the FOV pretty much as accurately as my Voight 21/25 VF can.  But most of the time I just look in the RF and 'estimate' how much more I'll get in the pic.

 

 

 

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Where necessary and provided that it doesn`t lead to a loss of picture quality .

Thanks for the shots of Royal Crescent .

I was a regular visitor to Bath throughout the seventies  .... happy memories .

[pippy]

14 hours ago, farnz said:

...If during processing you, say, rotate to straighten the horizon line but instead of cropping use one of the PS tools such as the Heal brush or Content-Aware Fill etc to fill the resulting triangular voids does that count as "cropping"?...Or 'reverse-cropping'?...Or something far worse?...

Oddly enough that IS something I do without hesitation if needs serves. I consider it to be a just another type of "retouching".

There does seem to be an element who believe that even a slight amount of cropping is somehow a 'Bad Thing'. Why? Can someone please explain why 'refining' an image is beyond the pale? And in which case do all of these snappers who decry 'adjustment' always only ever show images sooc?

A few years ago as part of a retrospective of a very well-known fashion snapper from the Golden Era of 'Style' there were, on display, the original prints of some EXTREMELY famous images. These images were the actual prints used by Vogue / Harpers / etc...magazine's reprographic dept's for use in various editions of their magazines. All of these prints had, to a lesser or greater extent, been painted over using black, gray and white gouache to remove blemishes and to make the images more 'stylish'; such as slimming down the models' profiles and so on. Yet Horst P. Horst still seems to be considered by pretty much everyone to have been a master photographer - myself included.

So; Why Is Cropping / Retouching a Bad Thing?

Philip.

Edited July 25, 2020 by pippy

[pippy]

3 hours ago, Mikep996 said:

...I doubt if anybody did (or currently does) more post processing than Adams or less than Bresson...

I go along with Ansel Adams' view that, in comparing photography to music;

"The Negative is like the musical score; the Print is the performance of that score.".

Philip.

[T25UFO]

Technique moves with the times.  I shot thousands of Kodachrom 25 and 64, and the photo you took was there on the slide.  But now we have very high quality digital files and the darkroom has become the Lightroom.  Cropping is no different from horizon straightening, is no different from spot healing, is no different from cloning out some distracting item you just didn't notice when taking the photo.

Unlike @Boojay I crop more with the rangefinder than I did with my SL.  Why?  Because the frame lines in the rangefinder are not as precise as viewing the image off the sensor in an EVF.  

My longest rangefinder lens is now 50mm (my son borrowed my 90mm and I doubt I will see that again!) so I often crop portraits to the equivalent of 75mm.  Here is an example, a quick shot taken with the M10-Mono.  First the original, then the same image cropped and cleaned up.  There was no point in asking Fliss to move from the chair - she doesn't do posing - so I just grabbed the shot.  

Cropping and slight retouching has made what would otherwise be a discarded photo worth keeping.

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[Tailwagger]

Photography is difficult enough before you introduce religious zealotry.  I'm not Ansel Adams, not lugging around an 8x10, not staying in situ for hours, days, weeks, not doing contact prints, etc.  There is no nobility, achievement or badge of honor for avoiding cropping. The only reward is potentially added acuity, which may or may not be necessary depending on the scene, the severity of the crop and the size of the print, which, let's face it, not many people do.  Like any other technique or control, it can be overused and abused... saturation and clarity sliders, Im looking at you... but there are many reasons why it is an essential technique.

First, since when is 2x3 God's holy ratio? It's not the golden mean, merely a step along the path to it. It's not the most efficient use of the lens either. When folks talk of wasting pixels, they conveniently ignore wasting 1/3 of the vertical potential of the lens. How many times have you visualized a shot only to find that to include the lovely cloud you see, you must step back, but when you do so, there's a half a trash can in the shot?  How often are we forced, given there is no reasonable TS solution nor level in the OVF of an M, having to correct to the geometry, as to include the top of a tree meant tilting the camera?  How many times have you shot crowds or street with wide prime only to find that you would have something incredibly special if only you had a 50mm attached instead? When composing, unless armed with an excess of time or very good luck, it's necessary to favor one axis over the other. Is the essence of the shot in the 2 or in the 3?

There are other reasons to crop in the age of mega pixels. The shot below is my canonical reminder. It demonstrates a couple of the above as well as another one of them, increased DoF in 'telephoto' shots. This image was taken in portrait with the top portion cropped back to landscape at 5.5k x 4.8k. The top edge is as shot, just allowing for inclusion of the golden weather vane atop the steeple. It was made with the S2/SL35mm at f8. The cropping was dictated by both the geometry of the shot and the fact that there was an iron fence several feet behind so movement rearward was limited. The desire was to include all of the church and the wish to be as detailed as possible with the foreground headstones framing it.  I wanted some falloff, but not the amount that I would have had to entertain had I used the only alternative in my bag at the time, the SL75. For the background, I didn't want a blob of a church nor splotches of trees, I wanted the sense of a gentle impressionist painting. The random verticals and blackness of the foreground headstones juxtaposed against the idyllic optimism of the background. The portion dropped added nothing of consequence. Had it all been left in, it would have compromised the shot's impact as well is upset the compositional balance.

In the end, it's not whether or you crop or don't. It's whether or not you approach the scene and consider up front how you need to take the shot in order to properly exploit it in post. And of course, framing is only one aspect of that.

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[fotografr]

I've don't like rules in photography. Always do this, never do that. The only thing that matters is the final image. That's not to say I support manipulating an image and representing it as a documentation of reality. Manipulated images should not be referred to as photographs, but rather as digital or photo illustrations. Cropping is not, in my opinion, manipulation. It's just akin to selecting a longer lens, but doing it in post.

Edited July 25, 2020 by fotografr

[Fontan]

25 minutes ago, fotografr said:

I've don't like rules in photography. Always do this, never do that. The only thing that matters is the final image. That's not to say I support manipulating an image and representing it as a documentation of reality. Manipulated images should not be referred to as photographs, but rather as digital or photo illustrations. Cropping is not, in my opinion, manipulation. It's just akin to selecting a longer lens, but doing it in post.

I don't like rules either. At the same time, if a photographer likes to not crop, then I have no objection. Like you say, how you arrived to that final product does not matter to me one bit. I look at pictures for what they are. I don't care what camera you shot it with. I have no need to know who took it. What matters to me as an observer is how the picture makes me feel. As a photographer, all I care is what my picture makes you feel. 

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[evikne]

The most common reason why I crop an image is to remove something unwanted in one of the outer edges, or that a pattern must be allowed to "finish" in a natural way: If a movement goes up and down, it must be allowed to go down again before it reaches the outer edge of the image, e.g. on distant mountains, a row of treetops or a picket fence.

[Guest]

15 hours ago, T25UFO said:

Technique moves with the times.  I shot thousands of Kodachrom 25 and 64, and the photo you took was there on the slide.  But now we have very high quality digital files and the darkroom has become the Lightroom.  Cropping is no different from horizon straightening, is no different from spot healing, is no different from cloning out some distracting item you just didn't notice when taking the photo.

Unlike @Boojay I crop more with the rangefinder than I did with my SL.  Why?  Because the frame lines in the rangefinder are not as precise as viewing the image off the sensor in an EVF.  

My longest rangefinder lens is now 50mm (my son borrowed my 90mm and I doubt I will see that again!) so I often crop portraits to the equivalent of 75mm.  Here is an example, a quick shot taken with the M10-Mono.  First the original, then the same image cropped and cleaned up.  There was no point in asking Fliss to move from the chair - she doesn't do posing - so I just grabbed the shot.  

Cropping and slight retouching has made what would otherwise be a discarded photo worth keeping.

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I like both pictures but much prefer the version that is not cropped,it gives me more information and context.