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p.2 #11 · 65x24 crop on X-H2 and X-T5 | |
rjn_design wrote:
Sorry for starting this battle, I just curious to see what others felt. I do use the crops in the camera and shoot RAW plus JPEG. For me I like to see the image I am about to capture in what I feel will be the final crop. Yes I typically will slide the 65x24 crop frame up or down slightly during processing.
Thanks for everyones responce and there is no reason to get upset with people just want to see what other felt.
Thanks
Robert
No reason for YOU to apologize. Unfortunately, we’ve got a few forum participants* who seem to be here largely to wade into discussions and throw insults and snark at other members, and to spout hyperbole.
Your question about cropping and how cameras handle it is a legitimate one, and photographers have different (and often strongly held) personal points of view on the matter. It is useful to find a way or ways to visualize intended crops on cameras, too, whether that’s via a camera’s preview of the crop, watching the matrix lines in the viewfinder, using framing cards, or any of a few other methods. (Lots of times, when my camera is on the tripod, I may even use my hands in front to the scene to help visualize a crop.)
If you are a tripod user — and especially if you work with relatively static landscapes and similar — I suggest at least playing with the framing card idea. It can be a littel cumbersome, but it is also very useful since you can hold it in front of any potential subject, even before you take out your camera or set u the tripod. Quite a few landscape photographer — though not all — use it. (Adde bonus: with practice you can guess at your likely focal length by paying attention to how far you hold it from your face.)
Lots of LF photographers use pretty big ones — one I work with who comes from that background (but today shoots only digital) carries big framing cards — larger pieces of mat board with something like a 7.5 x 10 “hole” cut out. (That is a 4:3 aspect ratio.) He will walk around and hold this up to potential subjects to help visualize them as final prints. I carry (but don’t always use) smaller versions with 4x3 cutouts. Obviously, you can make them for any aspect ratio you prefer.
I do think that is useful for cameras to provide framing tools, too. As I mentioned earlier, on my larger system I prefer to have the rear screen of my camera display a 4:3 aspect ratio, since this is my default. A number of cameras today will display additional crops this way.
My one hesitation is that the interface could get a bit cumbersome if cameras displayed all possible/likely crop options. Though someone wisely suggested earlier in this thread that allowing custom crop settings could be a useful option.
One more thing regarding cropping. I know a number of folks (including several who were protégés/assistants to the original “pre-visualization” guy) who have pretty distinct ideas about cropping that they apply when photographing. These days, when shooting digital, every one of them tends to “shoot large” — e.g. rather than framing exactly as they imagine the final image will look they frame slightly larger in order to leave a bit of wiggle room in post. The quality of today’s digital cameras allows this with no meaningful image degradation.
(They also recognize — and I’m in agreement — that slightly altering the vertical/horizontal scaling in post is a useful way to fine tune some images to fit your preferred crop. I’m talking about adjustments that won’t be noticed by viewers, but which can tighten things up a bit if necessary.)
And, finally, you can safely ignore anyone who implies that the only valid approach is to know in advance exactly what the crop/composition will be and/or that cropping in post is somehow unethical or a sign of a lack of skill. There’s no historical precedent for that notion. Yes, there are photographers who have and who do prefer to not crop. But there are equally excellent photographers — including most of the major names you may know — who crop all the time in post, whether optical/chemical post or digital post.
I’m hopeful that enough of he participants in this thread will be interested in an honest, respectful discussion of the question that we can push past the folks who seem to be here to snark and troll… and “throw (verbal) excrement against the wall.” :-)
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*To quote, ironically, one participant in this kerfuffle: “… I'm here to tell you you ARE good enough, and your gear IS good enough and, c'mon man, just MAKE something and let's see it and talk about it and share it. We only have a little bit of time on this ball of weirdness, let's stop arguing about Sony colors and Fuji ergonomics.” ;-)
Edited on Jan 13, 2025 at 11:36 PM · View previous versions
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