p.3 #1 · Thinking out loud: thoughts on cropping, zooms & primes
I think the biggest thing in crop or not, is to work backwards. How do you plan on outputting your images? Social media is only going to see smaller images at most 2,000 on the longest side which is less than 4mp. How many people are ever going to see your images on something larger than a 4k monitor? Do you print? How large are the prints you normally make and from what distance are they viewed?
I crop most of my images from 3x2 to 4x5 as I like to print 8"x10" photos and display them on my inspiration shelf. I largest I print is 13"x19".
I like Mark Galer's YouTube videos and his A7CII and A7CR review helped me decide on the A7CII as my latest camera. One thing about him is that he likes to travel light. If you look at that video his goes over his pics for light primes and zooms. His findings is he can do a 2x crop from the CII and 2.5x crop from the CR and have little to no impact to image quality from good lenses when viewed on a 4k monitor. Cropping to APS-C 1.5x is larger than 4k on those sensors. So for what I need, 33mp-48mp is more than enough to include cropping. I don't need 60mm-100mp. In my experience I have no problem using digital crops on my X100VI to go from 35mm to 70mm. I never had issues with a Leica Q2 going from its 28mm to 70mm view as a crop. When I had a Nikon z7II I found it very handy to go to APS-C crop when I needed more reach.
In general don't over think things. In the real world ultimate sharpness, fastest lens, or fastest sensor matters more for bragging rights than results people can see when you share an image. Get something that allows for you to make your art. When you actually hit a limitation with your gear, upgrade. It's too easy to nit pick over things that don't matter in the long run.
Crop to carry lighter gear or improve composition, or don't crop and have enough glass to fill the frame with the type of art you want to make. In the end someone viewing your image won't know the difference.
I've tried many different cameras and lenses from when I started in the film era to now. I've wasted a LOT of money searching for the "best" when there isn't a best. I love gear and over thinking my selection for different use cases. It's much easier than getting out and taking pictures to explore my artistic side. Just decide on what type of photos you want to taken, the requirements for doing that, and your personal needs. My hands can shake at times so I need IBIS. A f/1.4 lens isn't needed for landscape work, if you never shoot more open than f/4 why pay for and carry glass faster than that? If all you shoot is studio portraits, fast glass isn't needed as you need to stop down to control the light for studio strobes. Also don't buy for something you might do several years from now. That may never happen and if you do go that way, the products in five years may do it much better than now. I think you get my drift.
p.3 #2 · Thinking out loud: thoughts on cropping, zooms & primes
Imagemaster I’m beginning to get increasingly confused by your replies.
The above mentioned quotation was in response to someone who has a background in higher education. So I am speaking to an academic and educator about the practice and study of education (pedagogy) and academia (research).
In my original post I believe many would find the language acceptable. Furthermore I believe that creators such as Mark Gaeler and Dustin Abbot do not have drastically different lexicon and idiosyncrasies than I do. Now those last two terms are linguistic terms and not photography related.
I do believe that complex words can sometimes come in the way of learning, but I specific words in disciplines also mean specific things
p.3 #3 · Thinking out loud: thoughts on cropping, zooms & primes
Let’s focus back onto photography here. I personally crop my documentary images quite often as many times it’s not easy to get into the exact position to get the optimum composition and cropping many times creates a stronger image. You get no special badge for not cropping your image. In fact, the ratio the sensors instil on you are many times not optimal and a crop to an 4x5 or in fact square ratio gives you a much stronger image.
p.3 #4 · Thinking out loud: thoughts on cropping, zooms & primes
Jaree wrote:
To the OP: I am in the anti-cropping camp. Not because of quality reasons, but rather that I like to "see" the scene exactly how I would view it later on. When I have cropped, it is for those rare photos of wildlife I take once in two years.
So you are at the mercy of the aspect ratio your sensor gives you. Never viewing the world around you with a different view?
p.3 #6 · Thinking out loud: thoughts on cropping, zooms & primes
Don’t overthink it, you’re looking for tomorrow’s news in yesterday‘s paper.
Lethimcook wrote:
Imagemaster I’m beginning to get increasingly confused by your replies.
The above mentioned quotation was in response to someone who has a background in higher education. So I am speaking to an academic and educator about the practice and study of education (pedagogy) and academia (research).
In my original post I believe many would find the language acceptable. Furthermore I believe that creators such as Mark Gaeler and Dustin Abbot do not have drastically different lexicon and idiosyncrasies than I do. Now those last two terms are linguistic terms and not photography related.
I do believe that complex words can sometimes come in the way of learning, but I specific words in disciplines also mean specific things...Show more →
p.3 #7 · Thinking out loud: thoughts on cropping, zooms & primes
Lethimcook wrote:
Imagemaster I’m beginning to get increasingly confused by your replies.
The above mentioned quotation was in response to someone who has a background in higher education. So I am speaking to an academic and educator about the practice and study of education (pedagogy) and academia (research).
In my original post I believe many would find the language acceptable. Furthermore I believe that creators such as Mark Gaeler and Dustin Abbot do not have drastically different lexicon and idiosyncrasies than I do. Now those last two terms are linguistic terms and not photography related.
I do believe that complex words can sometimes come in the way of learning, but I specific words in disciplines also mean specific things...Show more →
Don't worry about it, you are fixated on using "different lexicon and idiosyncrasies" than I do.
Maybe try posting images along with your language. This is after all a photography site and "A photograph is worth a thousand words", as long as they are not too big.
p.3 #8 · Thinking out loud: thoughts on cropping, zooms & primes
Years ago I attended a AAHE conference where the main theme was addressing the question of whether or not teaching skills should be part of the tenure review process.
Seriously.
It is actually a more complicated issue than many understand.
As to your question about active versus lurkers, my sense is htat there are a lot more lurkers than active participants. In some forums it is easy to see how many people visited a thread versus how many bothered to engage with a comment. (See the threads devoted to sharing images, for example.)
As to who can or should post — there’s no rule that says how much you should know or how much experience you should have in order to post. That being said, I do think it is worthwhile for newcomers to tread a bit lightly at first until they get a sense of how the community operates.
I’ll conclude with one more observation about cropping. I shoot two camera systems, both of which have a native 3:2 aspect ratio. But I rarely choose to present a photograph in that format. My default is 4:3. I sometimes choose to do a square image. I also like the 16:9 format. So I crop virtually every photograph I make.
OK, one more. Depending on what subjects you photograph, how you photograph them, and other aspects of how you work, it can be really useful to find and compose shots with the help of a “framing card” — a piece of paper”poster board” (I use backing board that I use for mounting prints) with a cutout in your favored aspect ratios. In the field, putting this white border around subjects can help you pre visualize them as finished images in whatever format(s) you like.
Lethimcook wrote:
gdanmitchell I completely agree. Ironically, the highest level of education is actually taught by professors who require no formal training in education. Very often the prestige of professors come from their research impact measured through bibliometric data. So when universities hire pedagogical proficiency and teaching ability are not necessarily the top-criteria. They just assume that if someone is an expert in a field that they automatically would be a good teacher. You also see this with retired NBA players who are world-class athletes, but end up not being able to translate such success in their coaching.
It feels like some are not fond of my thinking/writing out loud. Thinking out loud and journaling have tangible pedagogical benefits on cognitive learning. My doctoral supervisor advocated for speaking out loud because what sounds good in your head may actually sound awful once you speak it and verbally process it. Also if you speak or write publicly you get some funny reactions too if you truly had some awful ideas. And if you get responses, you can get a discourse, hopefully everyone learns something when we have discourse.
Slightly off topic:
This forum is of course full of people with tons of experience. I wonder what portion of this site's traffic come from those with accounts versus those who simply browse and lurk without an account. Anecdotally I visited and bookmarked over 100+ threads over the course of 12 months before I felt like joining in the conversation. Maybe Fred has some data.
I point this out because someone has mentioned that beginners would not benefit from my thoughts...there would certainly be a response bias in this thread since I believe the majority of users on this forum would not classify themselves at the 'beginner' level. ...Show more →
p.3 #9 · Thinking out loud: thoughts on cropping, zooms & primes
RoamingScott, you seem to be the second person on this thread to confirm my suspicions...I guess its not worth the effort anymore.
Back on topic. AmbientMike I think that math is correct but to connect that idea to Driften's reply they mentioned Mark Gaeler. I also leaned heavily on his testing with cropping and I believe he mentioned 4k monitors are around 8 megapixels. So I think that a 6mp might seem nasty when you think in relation to 24mp but its not too bad in the contexts of how most images are viewed these days. Not sure what the data is on what consumer monitors these days but I myself don't even have a 4k monitor.
I did the math on a macbook with a liquid retina display because that seems to be a popular computer. Turns out that the 3024x1964 screen is basically 6mp (5.94mp)
p.3 #10 · Thinking out loud: thoughts on cropping, zooms & primes
I've been cropping my entire photographic life. First of all, the aspect ratio of a sensor doesn't always (in fact, almost never) matches the aspect ratio of paper if you were to print an image. Common print sizes aren't as wide. This was true for 35mm film also, and especially true for 6x6 negatives back in the film days. We pretty much always cropped when printing.
Second, I found it strange that a Youtube entertainer is some kind of authority for you...
And speaking of primes vs zooms, I believe that zooms require better (much better) skill level to use. A prime forces you to see through a given FOV. You become focused and, with practice, more skilled at finding compositions. Zooms require you to see in several FOVs at once, I am approaching 50 and I still haven't mastered that. When I travel with a zoom I always end up with worse photos. These days I try to have 2 primes in my bag. One is a designated "normie", usually 35mm or 50mm. The other one is either wide (24 or 28) or a slight tele (75 or 85).
p.3 #11 · Thinking out loud: thoughts on cropping, zooms & primes
I'm a very research oriented individual so I wanted get lots of credible information before getting started. I read some books on composition like Michael Freeman's work, but there is not much in print about the latest models and very often the latest models quite literally 'change up the game', I'm thinking things like the new 50-150 F2. So the 'credible' sources tend to be those who's job is to cover and represent these new releases which are very often the creators who are the first to test and review the lenses. Some creators are not sponsored and buy such things with their own money but those are more rare and I'm guessing they can't always afford to buy the latest and greatest continually.
I actually think that point about a zoom has some truth to it which is why I made that bike analogy. I used to ride a road/race bike with a complicated gear system just to commute around the city and I found myself never really understanding when and how to change gears in an efficient manner. I'm not an excellent cyclist but I mostly ended up just sticking to one gear setting 95% of the time unless I had to tackle some massive hill that required a gear shift.
p.3 #12 · Thinking out loud: thoughts on cropping, zooms & primes
Lethimcook wrote:
gdanmitchell I completely agree. Ironically, the highest level of education is actually taught by professors who require no formal training in education. Very often the prestige of professors come from their research impact measured through bibliometric data. So when universities hire pedagogical proficiency and teaching ability are not necessarily the top-criteria. They just assume that if someone is an expert in a field that they automatically would be a good teacher. You also see this with retired NBA players who are world-class athletes, but end up not being able to translate such success in their coaching.
Indeed, the "highest level of education" is done by those rarest and most special in their ways members of the Humanity who attained the highest levels of knowledge and proficiency in their chosen area of professional interests. Naturally, their well-deserved prestige comes from their professional impact. There is no way around this; thus "pedagogical proficiency and teaching ability" are never the top-criteria, and cannot be the top-criteria. One simple reason for this is the intrinsic complexity of the existing knowledge at the highest levels of education. Both teaching and learning at this level is always a major challenge for everyone involved. Learning is two-sided. For a successful outcome, we want the information delivered efficiently and competently by instructors, however the students must have a capacity for learning (that on average many don't possess). Considering the last point, teaching in higher education is always a failure in a way, because in an average university, in an average class, there is always a certain percentage of students who ultimately are unable to learn well.
The experience of studying a complex advanced subject is actually not that much different from the experience of researching a complex subject at the frontier of a research discipline. Successful students are those who are capable of understanding and absorbing (often confusing) ideas and concepts. The unsuccessful ones may blame the instructor for "poor" explanations and the lack of "pedagogical proficiency and teaching ability."
It feels like some are not fond of my thinking/writing out loud. Thinking out loud and journaling have tangible pedagogical benefits on cognitive learning. My doctoral supervisor advocated for speaking out loud because what sounds good in your head may actually sound awful once you speak it and verbally process it. Also if you speak or write publicly you get some funny reactions too if you truly had some awful ideas. And if you get responses, you can get a discourse, hopefully everyone learns something when we have discourse.
You are correct here. "Thinking out loud", that is engaging with your peers and teachers, is very important and very useful when studying and learning. Note however that this method of learning means that you impose yourself on others, ask for their attention and time, and may benefit as a result. This (we can consider it selfish, in a way) behavior is appropriate with your instructors (they are paid to deal with you) and peers (as long as they enjoy your company). Imposing yourself on total strangers is a different matter. If you want to learn from strangers, you definitely cannot impose yourself on them, and you should not take this for granted that you shall benefit from their knowledge and expertise. In any case, with strangers, in a new community, one must be courteous and polite and should not behave as a spoiled brat (this is a general, impersonal comment).
p.3 #13 · Thinking out loud: thoughts on cropping, zooms & primes
Agreed.
- I'd like to add on that instructors also learn as well by engaging with students depending on the subject matter (I'm thinking soft-sciences or social sciences NOT the hard-sciences).
- Your points on the imposing on others are absolutely correct and many legitimate critiques have been raised in similar topics such as the pro / anti learning in public discussions.
p.3 #14 · Thinking out loud: thoughts on cropping, zooms & primes
Welcome, to FM!!! You seem to have got some discussion going, so that is always a good thing.
For myself, I tend towards primes with cropping as needed. I shoot with 60mp, and feel comfortable cropping down to 4k resolution, because that is what I view the photos on. More MP is welcome and maybe someday I will view the photos on an 8k monitor. But for now I don't crop below 4k, so that gives me a "zoom" range on a prime a bit past 2x via cropping.
I have looked at the sharpness of primes with crop vs zooms. I prefer quantitative testing and sharpness is fairly easy to measure. First, I haven't seen any zooms that offer the sharpness of GM level primes. Second, it doesn't take much of a crop before a zoom out resolves a cropped prime. I have found what I consider "image quality" is not actually related to sharpness. Many times it is the noise or the subject / background separation that is provided by a wider aperture. So for me a better guide on cropping is to limit the crop so the effective aperture is still wider than a zoom that I own. That sets some reasonable limits for me on how much crop is too much. Even a razor sharp prime can easily be cropped below the resolution delivered a mid-level zoom. Maybe back in the vintage days things were different. I have a vintage prime that my dad owned and it is downright soft compared to all my modern lenses, softest zooms included. That said I still find the images pleasing.
p.3 #16 · Thinking out loud: thoughts on cropping, zooms & primes
Lethimcook wrote:
RoamingScott, you seem to be the second person on this thread to confirm my suspicions...I guess its not worth the effort anymore.
Back on topic. AmbientMike I think that math is correct but to connect that idea to Driften's reply they mentioned Mark Gaeler. I also leaned heavily on his testing with cropping and I believe he mentioned 4k monitors are around 8 megapixels. So I think that a 6mp might seem nasty when you think in relation to 24mp but its not too bad in the contexts of how most images are viewed these days. Not sure what the data is on what consumer monitors these days but I myself don't even have a 4k monitor.
I did the math on a macbook with a liquid retina display because that seems to be a popular computer. Turns out that the 3024x1964 screen is basically 6mp (5.94mp)...Show more →
When you’re around a bit longer, you will get to know Imagemaster and RoamingScott a bit better. They have ‘personalities.’ That’s why some people hide some other people. Now, we all have our pet peeves and ticks here, as you will also learn when you stick around.
p.3 #17 · Thinking out loud: thoughts on cropping, zooms & primes
Back to cropping. My take is that it very much depends and it’s not something one can have a hard rule about, unless one practices a very narrow style of photography. Thus I don’t think not cropping shows a photograph or photographer is somehow better.
I can’t speak for Cartier-Bresson, but his insistence that his images remain uncropped makes me think of writers who don’t want their editors to change a single word, as if their output is 100% perfect. Bresson had some killer shots, but many of them weren’t.
p.3 #18 · Thinking out loud: thoughts on cropping, zooms & primes
To answer the question posed, I crop as needed. Ideally I get it as I want the first time, but sometimes cropping works very well. Also, important for birding and macro.
And I still say that high quality zooms defeat primes any day. The 12-24 gm has no equal, and not many primes around 12. The 50-150 f2 is extraordinary.
p.3 #19 · Thinking out loud: thoughts on cropping, zooms & primes
Correct. I let the sensor and lens decide what the world view should be. And that's why I prefer zooms for travel - being able to frame that picture of a far away Icelandic church in the mountains at precisely 315mm with no after the fact fiddling with cropping is priceless.
chez wrote:
So you are at the mercy of the aspect ratio your sensor gives you. Never viewing the world around you with a different view?
p.3 #20 · Thinking out loud: thoughts on cropping, zooms & primes
I like 4:3rds often for shots in portrait orientation (and now shooting both 4:3 and 3:2 systems I found I often like 4:3rds even in landscape orientation.)
And I've started to dabble in other aspect ratios as well. This aspect ratio appeals to me more than 4:3 and 3:2 for this particular shot.
