Cropping Photographs for ImpactPosted by drfl on July 22nd, 2010
For the first 2-3 years after I made the switch to digital I processed all my photographs in the 2:3 ratio. After all, I had years upon years of dealing with 35mm film which I then enlarged to 6×9 almost exclusively. Any other format seemed foreign to me. I had a brief stint with a 4×5 medium format, but I was never able to get the funds to go larger than 35mm even though I had yearned for the quality of the larger format. Another contributing factor to my continued use of the 2:3 format was the relatively few megapixels of my 20D. Don’t get me wrong, those 8 megapixels have created some pretty amazing photos, but I knew that magazines, calendar companies, etc. wanted lots of megapixels and the 20D barely cut it (if at all). I needed to squeeze every last detail out of that camera.
As time went on and sensors grew with my artistic endeavors, I began to explore the benefits of cropping images in other formats. Sure, when the image was printed it may present a problem, but on the computer, the crop helped the composition. Take the Hen image above. This is an excellent natural example of the golden spiral. If I were to keep a 2:3 format, I feel that I would detract from what I am attempting to achieve, showing the elegance and beauty of the pattern. Of course, with my larger sensor (and in a point and shoot to boot!) I was able to crop this image an still keep around 9 megapixels of image data.
Today, most of my images are still in the 2:3 format, simply because that is what the my DSLR cameras capture and its easier to compose in what is native on your equipment. With the advent of live view and other tools, however, I am finding myself using the crop to add impact more and more. Besides, my little G10 which captured this image is not in 2:3 either, so it has helped me to see differently and that is a good thing.
Technical Details:
Canon G11, f/3.2, 1/25 sec.
Omaha, Nebraska
