History of The Religion of Cropping ?

[RSL]

Big zooms are *not* carried around a lot by a lot of photographers, 24/7.

Depends on the photographers. Yes, if you're in the grocery store with your point and shoot hanging in a bag off your shoulder and the building catches fire you're going to have to make do with what you have on hand, but that's not what we've been talking about. At least I don't think that's what we've been talking about. If you set out to shoot pictures you ought to know what kind of pictures you're after and be appropriately equipped.

[Jonathan Wienke]

So you think that budget for the "appropriate" equipment is the reigning factor in the take? For example, when on an evening walk not specifically or primarily for photography, and I capture a bird with the ZS3 pocket camera, and crop 50 percent, it would have been preferable to haul the DSLR and big heavy zoom for that shot?

Or maybe you're saying don't bother with the small camera - just wait for the photo walk to snap those birds?

If the ultimate purpose is to get a decent shot of the birds, then absolutely yes. The DSLR + telephoto lens is obviously going to be heavier and less convenient to carry than the digicam with the shorter lens. But the DSLR is equally obviously going to  get you a better capture than the digicam because of the longer lens (and less need for cropping) and the overall higher image quality. Assuming it is competently operated of course. If you want to pound screws into concrete with a block of moldy cheese, feel free to do so. But don't be surprised when others fail to be convinced of the persuasiveness of your arguments for doing so.

Carrying a smaller, lighter, less capable camera may be a convenient compromise but you're wasting your time to try to argue it's the superior photographic option. You're compromising the final result for the sake of personal convenience. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that; I've done it myself--I took an Olympus digicam with me to Iraq instead of my Canon DSLR gear for exactly that reason. 40lbs of camera gear on top of 60lbs of body armor, weapon, ammunition, aid bag, and other miscellaneous gear is just a bit too much. But I've never tried to kid myself that I got better photos from the digicam than I would have from the Canons, I just got something in circumstances where I would have gotten nothing otherwise. Half a loaf is better than none, but not as good as the whole loaf.

"No it's always a bad thing" is so absolutist I can't imagine you can continue to defend it against all situations.

You are being quite obtuse. Cropping is sometimes necessary, but that doesn't mean that having to do it is ever a good thing. It's simply the least undesirable thing. It's always best to get the composition as close to the final print as possible in-camera. A cropped image is never as good as an uncropped image shot with the same camera having the same exposure, focus, and composition as the cropped image. Ergo, a competent photographer will always strive to compose in-camera so that cropping is unnecessary or only needed in smallest possible doses.

[dalethorn]

You're compromising the final result for the sake of personal convenience.

I've done it myself--I took an Olympus digicam with me to Iraq instead of my Canon DSLR gear.....

Not carrying a big DSLR and huge telephoto lens everywhere(!) is merely personal convenience?  You are so far out on a limb with that one you're not even funny any more.

And of course you did it yourself, and now you want to flog the rest of us as your penance, I suppose.

[John Camp]

We all agree. Cropping is a bad thing if you don't have to do it. If you do have to do it (for many, many possible reasons) then it's not a bad thing, but it's not as good as if you didn't have to do it -- but, you might have to do it.

I've always been tolerant of cropping because any serious work I was doing was going to be printed in a newspaper, where resolution isn't the main thing, since the picture is being printed on toilet paper run through a high speed press.

But further, in a newspaper, the photographer doesn't make the final decision on how a photo will be used. How a photo looks will almost always be affected by its surroundings. For example, the most important column in a newspaper usually is the rightmost one, where the story would drop out of the headline. If you have a shot of a guy looking to the right, he's looking right out of the newspaper. A much better shot would be to have that guy (the principal subject) on the left edge of that photo, looking AT something further right, which acts as a block so that he's no longer looking out of the newspaper. On the other hand, if it turns out that the story is the second most important, that would be in the far left column, and having him look to the right is fine, so you want the largest possible picture of his head... Since the USE of a photo is being determined by the the news of the day, and not by a photographer, the photographer will tend to take photos with space around them, to be cropped to the best possible use given the placement in the paper. If he doesn't do that, if he goes for a final in-camera crop, giving the editors no options, it's possible that the photo won't be used at all, and he'll be dealing with pissed-off editors who consider him incompetent.

Rather than attacking cropping, I think a better general statement to make would be that...

"It always best to have available the largest possible number of pixels to generate the final print."

Then you're not trying to force a natural 2x3 composition into a 6x7 box. Instead of focusing on an artificial constraint (the aspect ratio of the sensor or film), you first see the composition, and then figure out how to get the most pixels in it.

JC

[Jonathan Wienke]

And of course you did it yourself, and now you want to flog the rest of us as your penance, I suppose.

You are being intentionally stupid now. If you want to use less-than-optimal gear or techniques for convenience' sake or due to budget constraints or whatever reason, that's fine. You aren't breaking any laws or harming anyone, except possibly yourself. Not everyone can afford a DSLR kit, and even fewer can afford a MFDB. And given the advance of technology, even if you do get the absolute best camera, in a few months something better will come along. Everyone has to live with constraints on their time, their budget, and how much camera stuff they want to carry around. There's nothing wrong with that; it's just how the universe works.

I'm just calling bullshit on your attempt to present your obviously-less-than-optimal technique as somehow being technically or creatively superior to the notion of getting things as right as possible in-camera when the shutter releases. Consistently having to chop off 40% of your images should be a giant neon red flag with flashing lights and sirens that you have a problem, the same as if you were constantly having to set the exposure slider in the RAW converter to +2 stops. If you are consistently chopping off 40% of your images, you are either using the wrong tool for the job, or your composition skills are pathetically lacking. Either way, you should be looking at the hack job you're perpetrating on your images as something unfortunate to be reduced or avoided whenever possible, not as a sign of your creative genius in seeing new compositional possibilities after the fact.

Shit happens. Underexposure happens. Misfocus happens. So does cropping. But that doesn't mean you should stick your finger in it, swirl it around, lick it off, and tell everyone it's chocolate ice cream.

[Jonathan Wienke]

Rather than attacking cropping, I think a better general statement to make would be that...

"It always best to have available the largest possible number of pixels to generate the final print."

Then you're not trying to force a natural 2x3 composition into a 6x7 box. Instead of focusing on an artificial constraint (the aspect ratio of the sensor or film), you first see the composition, and then figure out how to get the most pixels in it.

JC

I have never denigrated the notion of cropping for the sake of converting from the camera aspect ratio to the print aspect ratio. I've stated several times now that that is NOT the kind of cropping I object to. Every image has an optimal aspect ratio, which generally is not the same as the camera's. When they are not the same, then you simply can't use all of the original capture's pixels in the final print. All I have ever said (though in somewhat different terms) is that one of the goals of a competent photographer is to get as many pixels as possible from the original capture into the final print.

Dale Thorn seems to be taking a very different view; that consistently throwing away ~40% of the original capture is not a problem to be solved, but a sign of superior creative vision being able to discover many different alternate/preferable compositions after the fact. I disagree; I think that a competent photographer should be able to consistently compose the image sufficiently well at the time of shutter release that little or no cropping (other than the bare minimum required to change aspect ratio) is needed later. Stated differently, visualization of the composition of the final print should happen before shutter release, not after.

Your example of shooting for a newspaper is a bit of a special case; when you have no control over the aspect ratio of the final print then of course you can't frame as tightly. The key difference is that you made a conscious decision to leave extra room around the edges to accommodate the needs of the client.

[pegelli]

Dale Thorn seems to be taking a very different view; that consistently throwing away ~40% of the original capture is not a problem to be solved, but a sign of superior creative vision being able to discover many different alternate/preferable compositions after the fact. I disagree; I think that a competent photographer should be able to consistently compose the image sufficiently well at the time of shutter release that little or no cropping (other than the bare minimum required to change aspect ratio) is needed later. Stated differently, visualization of the composition of the final print should happen before shutter release, not after.

I think I'm somewhere in the middle (and we can probably talk till the cows come home, since in essence we agree). Obviously if you can compose "right" in the viewfinder w/o the need to do any serious cropping that is preferred and delivers the theoretically best IQ picture, but to picture people who crop most their images as "picture bangers without foresight" and thereby looking down on them as photographers is too much of a generalisation for me. I have no problem with someone "seeing" a picture, framing not fully accurate and getting the final crop "just right" in the darkroom or on the computer. I do not see why the value of the end product would be influenced by this process choice if the resulting quality is only impacted theoretically, but invisible.

[pegelli]

But you missed my point, which is this: when you underexpose, you can compensate by making the appropriate adjustments in the RAW converter, but underexposing always has a negative effect on the final print. In the same way, if you fail to compose properly, you can compensate by cropping, but the result of doing so is always inferior to shooting with the best possible framing in the first place.

Don't think I missed your point, obviously underexposre as well as cropping both theoretically degrade image quality and both should be avoided if possible. However you missed my point. With exposure you always have all degrees of freedom available to get it right. As you point out sometimes you don't have the time to do it (or lose the shot) but theoretically it is always possible to get the right exposure since the camera can be dialed there.

Getting the right crop in the viewfinder certainly has lower degrees of freedom like lens available and freedom to move around both hamper getting it right.

[Jonathan Wienke]

Getting the right crop in the viewfinder certainly has lower degrees of freedom like lens available and freedom to move around both hamper getting it right.

OK, I agree with that. Sometimes the "perfect" POV is impossible to get to, like inside a mountain or way over the edge of a cliff, etc. But given sufficient time, you can always dial in optimum exposure.

[dalethorn]

You are being intentionally stupid now. If you want to use less-than-optimal gear or techniques for convenience' sake or due to budget constraints or whatever reason, that's fine.

You make valid points on a purely technical basis, but those are points we already clearly understand. In fact, we understood those years ago. What you've avoided admitting is that the right tool for the "job" (more about that later) is the tool you have here and now, not the tool you claim you're going to have when you come back for the "real" shoot. I've been in thousands of places and situations where better tools than I had would have been preferable, yet I captured things that no one else did, because they didn't have anything better, or most often, they didn't have a camera handy at all. I get out there with the big camera and big lens as much as anyone, but I often find that I'm getting more, and more interesting photos when all I have is the little camera along. And there, cropping is just a technical matter - how much is needed -vs- how much can I get away with. As far as the "job" is concerned, sure, I go prepared. But I don't think that's particularly newsworthy, since I'm not publishing a journal like LLVJ. And I never suggested I would go into people's offices with a Leica M6 and take portraits, then scan the film and crop it to death. There's obviously no point in that. My original point, which is as valid as ever, is I take the photo with whatever I have handy at the time, and crop it as needed. If little or no crop is needed, all the better, but I'm not going to get paranoid about it.

[Chris_T]

In other words, "My photos never need cropping, but everybody else's does." Yes, Ray, I think I've met a couple of photographers who think that way.  

Eric, thanks for remembering me.

Yes, I do try to compose precisely in the viewfinder, and crop minimally if at for my prints, almost all of which have the same aspect ratio. But I arrive at this practice not for "artistic" reasons, but for "pragmatic" reasons.

1. In the traditional darkroom, I quickly realized that the IQ of an enlarged print from a small crop would suffer. The same holds true for digital images.

2. I am frugal (or a cheap skate), and do not want a square micron of film or sensor going to waste.

3. During my days in a camera club, the slide competition judges had nothing better to pick on than minor blemishes along the borders that could have been easily cropped in prints. (Although my precisely composed slides didn't have this problem, it was one of the many reasons I left camera clubs.)

4. When I started showing my prints, all my images fit nicely in the same aspect ratio mat windows/frames. This makes it easier/less costly to purchase and cut the same materials, and to remat and reframe with the different prints.

Precise composing in the viewfinder forces me to slow down before releasing the shutter. It also forces me to try different compositions by varying angles of view, distances, etc. With digital, I relax my compositions somewhat, keeping the possibility (or intent) of PS cloning/transforming/merging, etc. later in mind. I definitely do not belong to the school of "shoot now, ask questions later."

Once I get into this grove, there are only rare occasions that I would need major cropping. Not trying to convince others this is anything better, just my way.

[Jonathan Wienke]

What you've avoided admitting is that the right tool for the "job" (more about that later) is the tool you have here and now, not the tool you claim you're going to have when you come back for the "real" shoot.

You're raising a strawman argument here. I've never argued against that point; I freely admitted to doing exactly that when I went to Iraq and took a digicam instead of my DSLRs. Everyone has limits to their budget and how much stuff they can or desire to carry; what you choose to shoot with is your choice.

My original point, which is as valid as ever, is I take the photo with whatever I have handy at the time, and crop it as needed. If little or no crop is needed, all the better, but I'm not going to get paranoid about it.

No, your original point was:

Cropping is very valuable because I can spend much more time in the field looking for possible images and capturing "around" them a dozen different ways, then be concerned about rotation (that comes first) and cropping when I'm back in the lab.

and

Those who crop regularly are probably taking a lot more photos of a bigger variety of subjects.

i.e. the inverse of the quoted statement is: "People who rarely crop are usually concentrating on getting that "one good shot" and miss many opportunities that other photographers are taking advantage of."

Your first statement can be reworded as "I shoot around the subject and figure out the composition later via cropping." The second statement is basically "If you don't do as I do, then you will miss many opportunities to capture a great image." That is what I'm arguing against, not the red herring issue of shooting with the convenient camera in hand vs. the better camera at home in the closet. It is not necessary for a competent photographer to "shoot loose and crop later" to avoid missing opportunities; a good photographer can simultaneously capture the moment consistently and compose precisely enough that minimal cropping is necessary later.

[Tim Gray]

FWIW, I don't care one way or the other whether I crop in pp or not, AS LONG AS I had visualized and intended the crop when initially framing the image.  Usually it is an aspect ratio issue, but every now and then there's crap on one edge such that framing in the other direction puts worse crap in the image.  Maybe that's aspect ratio as well.  But when I look at the image when editing and decide to crop then because I notice something I didn't in the field, I go "ooops".  

[Tim Gray]

Having just posted a comment that's reasonably in keeping with the topic, I though I'd ask in a separate post: Has anyone reading this thread changed their behavior, or gained any new insight based on the discussion?  No?   Hmmm, didn't think so.

[Dick Roadnight]

One of the joys of using a 5*4 sheet film camera or a 50Mpx DSLR is that you can crop and still get a good A3.

Particularly if you use primes, you often have the option of shooting knowing that you might need to crop, or missing the shot.

If you shoot a wedding group with a 50 or 160 Mpx camera, can you produce a decent portrait of everyone in the picture?

Instead of using very long lenses e.g. for wildlife, you an use the camera remotely, with or without a power head, with live view, or unmanned with a shutter beam... if you are not there to compose the shot...

As I am currently limited to 50 Mpx, and want to print 24 * 34" @240 camera pixels per print inch, I try to avoid cropping.

With commercial (advertising) photography I would be unlikely to crop, as "they" often need space for text... you can increase the size of the pic and paint it in!

For a panoramic landscape I would prefer to stitch and increase res rather than crop and loose res.

[DarkPenguin]

I've cropped this one down to the bare essence.  I'm shamed to admit I didn't see this in the field.  But I am happy with how it prints at pretty much any size.  Just need to use the proper enlarging technique.

Right here >>>>>
[attachment=13692:EffectiveCrop.jpg]
<<<<<

[Rob C]

I've cropped this one down to the bare essence.  I'm shamed to admit I didn't see this in the field.  But I am happy with how it prints at pretty much any size.  Just need to use the proper enlarging technique.

Right here >>>>>
[attachment=13692:EffectiveCrop.jpg]
<<<<<

Love the expressions on those faces, Mr P; puts me in mind of the time I

Funny how old HC-B gets roped into these circular arguments: has nobody ever seen reproductions of his contact sheets? So many decisive moments, one right after the other!

Regarding the main topic - I thought - of cropping, there is no sin there at all. I have done this a hell of lot and have no regrets whatsoever. Far from thinking the worse of myself for it, I know perfectly well that it does, in reality, signify the absolute opposite of the negative scenario that many here would paint. What it shows to me, actually, is that my work with les girls has been a damn sight better than I had previously imagined it to be, in that I was able to get them to work with me well enough to provide situations where more than just one element came to its peak.

I shall attempt to explain. I have a particular shot from the Bahamas where the girl is playing the hoary old chestnut of holding a conch shell to her ear. Her boobs are magnificently lit by the sun, her head is tilited up and her eyes closed. This is framed horizontal from around crotch level upwards and the framing is just beautiful - I would not change a thing. Shooting as many exposures on Kodachrome as it took to get that shot, why should I want to change anything? I´ll tell you why - looking at it on the screen a couple of nights ago, entirely and solely from the point of view of wondering how well it or any similar shot coped at 100% compared to a digital frame at 100% (the Kodachrome, for my money, came tops) it suddenly struck me that the close-up of the face, the shell and the shoulders (above the boobs, nothing overtly sexy in crop) made a lovely image all of its own, one I had never noticed before.

No, I have no present intention of making that into a print; but it could be done and might work very well indeed. Since the original framing was great, where the cropping-as-sin?

A further example, from another location - Lindos, Rhodes - and another girl next to a small boat. The original shot was not used at all by the client, if only because he never saw it as I felt it wasn´t good enough to grace a full page on his calendar and I don´t like taking those sorts of risks! However, I didn´t throw it away, just let it lie in the file for the past twenty-five years or so. Then, after the entry of scanners and digital printing into my life, I thought about it again and played with it. I ended up getting a rather pleasing (to me) narrow vertical shot which cuts out the boat entirely. I also cropped most of her face out, leaving in only from about half-way down the bridge of her nose. She was beautiful so no physical problems, just an artistic idea on my part, and a particularly beautiful mouth; the girl, that is. If that were not enough, I then decided that the light on the boob on the left was so good that it made a shot of its own. I blew this up and added grain in the form of noise (all this, by the way, is on b/w conversions from the Kodachrome originals - I never feel like printing girls in colour for myself) and it now sits, as a square within a full A3+ sheet of Hahnemuehle Rag on the wall in the spare bedroom. Happy dreams, somebody.

This is something I find myself doing more and more. Partly because as a retired person I have no intention of shelling out that sort of money to any model and, secondly, because it gives my old stuff an entirely new phase of life.

I reject out of hand any suggestions that cropping after the fact indicates failure at the moment of shooting. Why assume there has to be something wrong with the original shot? In many cases, as with the latter example, even cropping to extreme can make a far more engaging image. Why ever not take advantage of the material you already have? I thought photography was supposed to be for the enjoyment of free spirits, not the following of somebody else´s rules! Just as in the camera-club example somebody posted earlier on. Best quitting that lot!

One thing: I am happy playing this game with film. Imagine trying to play it with digital capture... no, best not.

Rob C

[Jonathan Wienke]

I reject out of hand any suggestions that cropping after the fact indicates failure at the moment of shooting. Why assume there has to be something wrong with the original shot? In many cases, as with the latter example, even cropping to extreme can make a far more engaging image.

I think it's safe to say you failed to recognize those image opportunities at the time of the shoot. If you had, would you have been content to crop them out of what you'd already shot as you describe, or would you have moved in and exposed a few more frames? I suspect that you'd be even happier with your example images if you'd seen them during the shoot and devoted an entire frame* to them.


*Within the constraints of camera aspect ratio vs. image aspect ratio...

[RSL]

Funny how old HC-B gets roped into these circular arguments: has nobody ever seen reproductions of his contact sheets? So many decisive moments, one right after the other!

Yes, I have seen a few, and you're right, it's one perfectly or almost perfectly composed shot after another. That's because he knew exactly what he was after before he raised his camera.

I think Jonathan just explained what's wrong with your argument, Rob. Perhaps what you're saying works best if you're shooting "hoary old chestnuts" in a studio setting. (And I'd consider shooting boobs on a beach with paid models a studio setting.) And though I loved film, I think that with digital you're able to shoot faster and you're able to make the extra exposures Jonathan suggested you ought to have made.

[pegelli]

I think it's safe to say you failed to recognize those image opportunities at the time of the shoot. If you had, would you have been content to crop them out of what you'd already shot as you describe, or would you have moved in and exposed a few more frames? I suspect that you'd be even happier with your example images if you'd seen them during the shoot and devoted an entire frame* to them.


*Within the constraints of camera aspect ratio vs. image aspect ratio...

Why do you "by definition" look down so much on people's results when they crop later in their creative process. I think in this thread the theoretical image resolution reduction is established but besides that I have not found evidence that everybody who crops later doesn't know what they're doing, didn't recognise a good shot beforehand, are just lucky to have even produced a picture. I can even agree there are some people like that but I simply do not believe that people who crop later in their creative process are "by definition" all like that. You keep saying so but other than "believe me" I have found no evidence.

Another remark (technical now) : moving in changes perspective, so "zooming with your feet" gives different images vs. zooming with your lens (or changing to a different focal length)

To answer Tim Gray's question: this thread isn't old enough to have changed my habits, but thinking about it will probably lead me to framing more accurately in the future, however not in a rigid/dogmatic way and with an open mind to both myself and others who do use a crop to produce a better image.