Experiment in extreme cropping

[David Eckels]

Saw these trees off in the distance of one of my other images. Cropped in close and played with it to try and emphasize the trees on the ridgeline. If you can see it, there is a fair degree (9%) of uniform monochromatic noise added to create grain. Might be a better way. I'd appreciate any reactions to this, one way or the other.

[nemo295]

The image works for me. I don't care if it's been cropped or not.

[David Eckels]

Realized 900 pixels is a little tight. Here it is a bit bigger.

[nemo295]

Also very nice, and yes, I agree it's a better version.

[Chris Calohan]

Me likes

[wolfnowl]

Well, SOMEONE has to dissent!  I think maybe a little less or a little finer grain and it could suggest itself as part of the fog.  I find this a little too obvious.  OTOH, maybe you could tell people it was snowing...

Mike.

[RSL]

Or, to put it a another way: if you can't frame it in the camera, forget it.

[nemo295]

Or, to put it a another way: if you can't frame it in the camera, forget it.

Perhaps he did frame it in the camera. Nature doesn't always cooperate with photographers and sometimes you shoot knowing that you're going to crop afterwards. So you frame it for the crop.

[David Eckels]

Or, to put it a another way: if you can't frame it in the camera, forget it.

Appreciate the responses. Honestly Russ, I was doing an exercise suggested by another photographer, looking for images within an image and was curious how far I could push the crop. But as I think back to this shot and also about your comment in another thread "the first glance that brings the camera to your eye," I did see these trees off in the distance but I knew I didn't have the lens reach and wished I had. Seems I can get something reasonable with an extreme crop with caveats.

Well, SOMEONE has to dissent!  I think maybe a little less or a little finer grain and it could suggest itself as part of the fog.  I find this a little too obvious.  OTOH, maybe you could tell people it was snowing...

Agree, Mike. I did redo it with a somewhat smoother look.

[sdwilsonsct]

Very nice, Dave.

[RSL]

Perhaps he did frame it in the camera. Nature doesn't always cooperate with photographers and sometimes you shoot knowing that you're going to crop afterwards. So you frame it for the crop.

You're right, Doug. But there are limits. For instance, it's pretty hard to get a good picture of a moon landing from your back yard with a 50mm lens, no matter what your cropping intentions may be. I think that most of us, when we're walking around with a 50mm, are looking for 50mm subjects. It's sort of like this: you don't carry a rifle when you're after pheasants, and you don't carry a 12 gauge shotgun with birdshot when you're after bear.

[amolitor]

This has a very interesting look, almost as if it was made with an extremely expensive portrait lens. It has a sense of softness, but not of lost detail.

[nemo295]

You're right, Doug. But there are limits. For instance, it's pretty hard to get a good picture of a moon landing from your back yard with a 50mm lens, no matter what your cropping intentions may be. I think that most of us, when we're walking around with a 50mm, are looking for 50mm subjects. It's sort of like this: you don't carry a rifle when you're after pheasants, and you don't carry a 12 gauge shotgun with birdshot when you're after bear.

Point well taken, Russ. For myself, if I were going to set up for a shot with a really extreme crop like this I'd want at least a 4x5 view camera with a suitably long lens with me.

[Harald L]

I really like it.

In times where most of our pictures are presented on a computer-screen only we have a lot of opportunities to discover pictures in our pictures we've not seen before. OK, in most cases you can't enlarge them but who cares? So I'm an advocate of relentless recycling of old pictures in the way you've done it.

Harald