How willing are you to show others your unedited images? When I first started getting more serious about taking photos six and a half years ago, I used to go out shooting with my mentor Cindy Dyer. When we were finished, we would immediately download my images and she would go through them with me.
It is a very humbling experience to let someone see all of your shots, but in doing so Cindy was able to see what I was attempting to do and how well I was succeeding in things like composition and camera settings. Her view was that I should try to get it as correct as I could in camera and not rely on software to fix my problems.
Earlier today I posted an image of a Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) in a blog posting that I titled Unexpected eagle. In response to the posting, Liz of Exploring Colour asked me how much I had cropped the image. I answered her verbally, but then realized it would be more effective to show her the uncropped image and then the cropped one that I used in this morning’s post.
I was shooting with a Tamron 150-600mm lens at 600mm for this shot and that was what allowed me to fill so much of the frame with the eagle. It is very unusual for me to be able to get that close to an eagle without spooking it. When I am uncertain of the amount of time that I will have with a subject, I will usually use the center focus point of my camera and I think that is what I did here.
My DSLR is getting a bit long in the tooth and doesn’t have as many megapixels as some of the really new ones, which means I can’t crop as severely as some other photographers can without degrading the quality of my images. I have no objections to cropping, though I usually try to keep it as minimal as possible.
Uncropped image
Cropped image
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
You’re too kind Mike! Thank you for doing this post and totally satisfying my curiosity about the shot. Absolutely fascinating and you got such a fine shot right from the get-go!
I crop every photograph I take. The out of camera image size is not a standard print format. Old school, yes. But I like all my work to standard size.
I probably should print more shots, but I confess that rarely think in terms of standard print formats when I crop (which is most of the time). Usually I think more of trying to grab a viewer’s attention by showing a closer view of the subject. Even in the old days, there had to be a different cropping for a 4×6 versus an 8×10, so choices always had to be made. Aspect ratios are a fascinating question and I tend to go by what I feel, but I am always interested to know what others do. Thanks for sharing your approach, Ted.
Interesting conversation, I learn a lot here. 🙂
As you say, sometimes we can’t get as close to a subject as we’d like and even with a long lens can’t fill as much of the frame as would be ideal. That’s one reason I’m happy to have a Canon 5D sr. With 50 megapixels I can afford to crop a picture significantly yet still end up with plenty of detail.
One of the things I have always enjoyed about your pictures, Mike is your gift for composition. Personally, I don’t care if it’s cropped, you keep what your eye tells you is right, or you shoot what’s right. Either way, you’re behind the camera and I am often amazed at the results.
I crop all the time and I’ve never really understood what all the fuss was about. Even Ansel Adams cropped his photos.
Good topic, to crop or not to crop. I crop for different reasons: to illustrate a point (e.g., a bird’s foot) or to make it more aesthetically pleasing (rule of thirds, etc.). The only time I probably wouldn’t crop is for a landscape shot that I have purposely set up exactly the way I want it to look. By the way, it’s not just the megapixels you might gain in transitioning to a newer camera. I lost my Canon 7D (stolen) and replaced it with a Sony a7iii, and what a difference in the number of useful new features! It’s kind of like getting a new car with all the new safety bells and whistles — it just makes wildlife photography easier.
I suppose you have or had loads of Canon lenses. Have you disposed of them and are you only using your Sony today?
The original image is amazing, Mike. Well done to get so close to the Eagle! I crop a lot, on many photos only a little bit to make it “right” according to the rules and to please the eye.
Thanks, Dina. That is pretty much the same approach that I use.