Cropping - Yay or nay

[PistolPete]

I've been reading a bit online and there seems to be a bit of a divide here.

Personally I've never liked cropping as I'm a bit of an OCD freak and I like my photos to all be the same size (pixel wise) however I shot a gunnery display and siege at Arundel Castle this weekend with a 24-70 f2.8L and it simply didn't have the reach from where so I've cropped. I was able to get a little more creative than just cropping to the centre, including switching landscape to portrait and vice versa.

Whilst I understand the "no croppers" in that you should get it right when you take it so does that mean cropping should only be a corrective tool and not an artistic tool?
EDIT: Since working with Lightroom and the ability to have several different edits of a shot I'm seeing more of the point of cropping artistically.

What are your thoughts??

 

[Nexus]

I think there are many times where you simply can't avoid cropping. For example anything like events or sports shooting you are always going to get unwanted things in the shot, especially when you are perhaps shooting burst to not miss the moment.

Doing studio, portrait work or landscapes perhaps gives you more time to compose, so it's less likely that you may need to crop as you have more time to get it right.

With Nikon offering a 36mp sensor though, it certainly means cropping is pretty important tool to a Photographer, for right or wrong.

 

[Philip Perfect]

I find that I tend to crop my photos regularly. It doesn't bother me if I didn't quite get the framing spot on the first time round - I'd rather have it right for the finished image!

 

[dannyjo22]

I don't see why you would have cropping snobbery
You use the sliders to alter other stuff you didn't get right in camera so why get all pretentious over cropping?

 

[Nexus]

I don't see why you would have cropping snobbery
You use the sliders to alter other stuff you didn't get right in camera so why get all pretentious over cropping?

Not to mention that cropping and using an enlarger was a valid part of processing in the film days in the dark room. It far outdates Photoshop, which is probably the only thing those snobs have used!

 

[D.P.]

Can't say I ever hear any snobbery about cropping and anyone who religiously avoids cropping is a fool.

For starters, most or us use a 'crop' sensor cameras anyway, and even full frame is only making a particular 3:2 crop of the circular projection of the lens. Photography is all about choices, choices in camera, choices in lens and focal length, choice in position you are standing in, choice of exposure, choice of aperture, choice of time of day or day of the year, choice of focus point point, choice of filters, choice of adjusting how much polarization to permit, choice of post processing.

The 3:2 aspect ratio is fairly arbitrary and the final aspect ratio of the image may well deserve a different proportion. Much of my landscape work gets cropped to 2:1 or even 3:1 (although that is best done by stitching), I will also happily crop to 16:9 since that is now a standard viewing aspect ratio (although slightly wider formats can look fine for landscapes on a 16:9 TV with a black borer top and bottom).


Cropping to improve composition because one was lazy in the field is a sign of poor technical ability and foresight, much like making grave exposure errors and correcting in post. The downside is degradation of the final image quality, and you can only ever crop so much to correct for compositional errors. I spend a lot of time thinking about the photo and aligning scene elements before ever pressing the shutter button, and I will sometimes take several slightly alternative compositions which I can later decide upon on a big screen. Like nailing the expose through ETTR and avoiding clipping, I strive to get suitable out of camera composition. This may still mean cropping in post to get get a wider format are removing an unavoidable obstruction.

Data integrity is important, needless cropping looses data. It also seems a wste of buying an expensive camera if you crop half the image away because you were too lazy to change lenses or get closer of course sometimes it cannot be avoided. I will hopefully be changing form a D90 to a D800 and the 300mm f/4.0 with 1.4TC will have less reach on the D800 (although the pixel density will ensure I have more pixels per feather), I will have to crop away to get the same subject size in the frame- you can only get so close to a grizzly bear, bull moose or wolf. Of course the true solution is to bu a Nikon 500mm f/4.0, but that will have to wait for another year!

 

[Guitarman0]

To be honest when editing I feel that if a crop will improve the image there is no reason not to do it. When I do crop however I take note of what I have done so that next time I am out shooting I can reframe how I cropped. I have found the longer I have been going with photography the less I am cropping.

Sport however is a different story. I have covered both rugby and football fixtures and sometimes it is just impossible to frame a show exactly how you want as the action is so fast and unpredictable.

 

[Mint_Sauce]

I shoot my photos with a strong bias of not cropping. I don't think there's anything wrong with cropping but I like to maximise the resolution and it's just the 'proper' way really. I do minor straightening using the crop tool but very rarely crop in to a photo.