To crop, or not to crop—that is the question. At a certain point in time when we are processing our images, we are all come face to face with this question. To some photographers, composing perfectly in the camera is the ultimate virtue, and they take pride in the fact that they do not crop (and object when their images are cropped).
Moose Peterson is one prominent photographer who does not crop and he explained his views in a fascinating blog posting in 2012 entitled, “The Crop Revisited.” I am still pondering one of his conclusions, “When you don’t give yourself the option to “fix it in post,” photographers push themselves. This always make a better click and the story telling, the subject, that passion of that click becomes clearer and clearer.”
Most of us could not live with such a high standard and for various reasons we choose to crop. I am so used to cropping my images that even when I compose an image just the way that I want it, I am tempted to move in closer with my crop. That was my dilemma with this image of a damselfly on the edge of a lily pad, as it was framed when it came out of the camera.
I really like the long sinuous curve on the left and the large expanse of green on the right. I worry, however, that the damselfly is taking up too little space of the image and is not prominent enough. So I cropped a bit and produced a second version.
That’s not a very extreme crop, but somehow the image feels different to me. Does it make any difference to you? Do you prefer one of the two over the other?
UPDATE: Fellow blogger and local dragonfly expert, Walter Sanford, has identified this for me as an Eastern Forktail damselfly (Ischnura verticalis). Thanks, Walter.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
I like the first one because you can see more of the surroundings but I almost always crop photos. I don’t know how true it is but I read once that when you use the camera’s zoom function you increase the chances of noise in the photo, so it’s better to “zoom in” by cropping when you can. I’ve never understood why some people seem to be so against it.
I think for some folks it’s a purist idea of a photographer, and they prefer to shoot with mostly manual settings, getting everything perfect in terms of exposure and composition. I think it is somewhat of a carryover from film cameras, but it’s a good practice, and sometimes I realize that I am getting lazy about settings, thinking I can adjust them later.
Regarding the zoom, I have to make a mental adjustment when shooting with my macro lens, since it has a fixed focal length. So if I want to get a closer shot, I have to move my feet and not my fingers.
To crop or not depends greatly on what you are going for. To me, the first show a bit more scale of the dragon fly in the whole frame; whereas the second is more centered around the detail of the dragon fly.
I prefer the cropped version because it makes the subject The center of attention and preserves enough of the curve and green space that are so prominent in the original.
Thanks for your thoughts on this issue. Often I crop much more radically (with birds, for example), but this one seemed to call for a much more minor crop. Things might be a little different for a print too, because for a blog, it’s usually best, I’ve found, to have the subject prominent in order to grab a viewer’s attention.
Last time I looked all of the great Macro photographers cropped and I yet to see Moose do any macro. If I had the lenses cameras and access he has I would not crop either. In one of his movies about shooting birds he spends most the time explaining how he built perches around he home in the forest/mountains so he could sit at his desk and on the patin and take pictures of birds with a 600mm lens. That said cropping leads to a significant decision.
Thanks, Victor, for your thoughtful comments. I was actually inspired by some of your recent posts to take this approach with my posting today. The “right” answer to my question about cropping is almost certainly, “it depends.” That being said, it beneficial for me to think about these kinds of considerations and not use possible post processing as an excuse for sloppy habits.
I have recently been suffering for sloppy in camera a mistakes. That said perfect in camera a work should not preclude the a better composition through cropping. We all have our own opinions and style, which is also an important consideration.
Good discussion with Victor.
In the article, he is clear it his standard and “your depends” response is the right one. We are all in different places with our photography, with different equipment, abilities and capacity to put up with inconvenience.
I think it all starts with your assumptions. I think it’s better to take a shot then miss it altogether – if nothing else than for learning. I try to get the best in camera shot I can and then I try to make it the best processed shot I can. As for cropping – it’s one of my favourite things!
For me it depends what is in the background and how close I want the details to be in the pic. Insects for the most part I try to get close, but if they are on a flower I’ll back it off a bit.
Great shots of the damsel.. 🙂
The tighter crop is my favorite for two reasons
The looser crop is too top heavy and the abundance of bright green pulls your eye away from the bug
Great post
An interesting topic Mike, for me the first image is a little un balanced and the Damselfly is a little too far to the left giving it no space to move into, the second image for me works and has a much better feel of balance to it, so to crop or not to crop well for me its to crop and that’s probably because I’m a perfectionist Mike, I do try to get it right in camera but it’s always going to be a little off because I want my focal point at a precise position, I always use single point focusing so if I’m photographing a bird in flight then I keep it centered and aim for the head and then move to the eye if it comes in close enough, if it’s a perched bird or on water then its just the eye I aim for and nowhere else, I quickly always move the single point to give me the best composition but you almost always end up limited as to where you can move your focal point by the cameras restrictions, now if I were a purist there would be many occasions where if I wanted the composition to be precise in camera then because of the restrictions as to where you can move your focal point then the focal point would not always be directly over my subject’s eye or where I want it to be, It may end up over the wing or maybe somewhere else and that’s the last place I want my focal point to be as I would probably end up the main point of interest the eye and head area slightly soft due to missing my focal point by hitting the wing as the depth of field in most cases tends to be quite shallow as its rare to go any higher than f8 so for me Mike the idea of purist is more akin to me being sloppy because I would not be in control of having my focal point over my subject’s eye (or as close as possible to it) or anywhere else I want it to be precisely, the only time I could become a purist would be if there was a camera with over 200 focal points so I could get the focal point to move anywhere across my viewfinder but untill then I would rather keep my focal point where I want it to be to get a perfect shot of my subject knowing that I can adjust composition by cropping later as opposed to getting the composition right in camera but with the risk of the focal point being in the wrong place producing slight softness in all the wrong places.
Ha! It’s good to know I am not the only photog to ponder cropping so much. For me, I tend to allow my bugs a lot of space in the frame. Often my shots are as much about the backgrounds they are the bug itself. But I cannot tell you how often other togs have told me I should have cropped in closer! There seems to be a general default view that all bug shots should be of the small-made-giant genre. I like the space around your damsel. Perhaps in an ideal world, I would like more space in front of it.
With my little point and shoot camera, I have no choice but to crop! This discussion is really interesting though. It reminds me of something I think I remember reading about Ansel Adams. Did he crop his photos of Yosemite Valley? I don’t think so. But Yosemite Valley is very different from a damselfly, a flower, a bird, or a spider.