When is it right to crop?
When composing a photograph most of us try to make sure that our main subject is well placed in the frame.
Part of that is the decision whether you should take the picture as a horizontal or vertical image.
If you’re using a zoom lens you’ll often have quite a lot of flexibility about whether to take the picture as a close up, with the main subject filling the frame, or as a more distant shot that shows your subject in his natural habitat.
There will also be times when you set out to take a picture that shows your subject in its habitat and are disappointed with the end result or times when can’t get as close as you’d like. It’s at times like these that you start thinking about how you can crop your photograph to maximise its potential.
This Lilac Breasted Roller was just too far away for me to be able to fill the frame so I concentrated on getting a nice sharp shot that I would be able to crop later.
By removing a lot of the empty background and closing in on the bird and its perch the shot becomes much stronger. You can see how this looks as a larger image by visiting our Miscellaneous Photo Album.
This photograph of zebras drinking at a waterhole is not too bad, but the hooves of an out of shot zebra at the top and the muzzle of another one on the left side are a distraction. It was a relatively simple task to crop the photo to exclude them and achieve a much better image.
Don’t be afraid to make some drastic decisions. As long as your original image is nice and sharp you’ll be surprised what you can achieve.