Re: Thinking out loud: thoughts on cropping, zooms & primes
There is no photograph in the world that is uncropped.
When you put a lens on your camera and aim it at the world, you crop the scene with the camera and show only that part of it that you select. Choosing what is and is not in a photograph and how the contents of the image are arranged are what we do.
I think that implies that cropping, per se, is not really an issue – in fact, that it is fundamental to photography.
This might lead to some questions: Why might some thing it is fine to crop the world with the camera itself but not with other parts of the photographic process? If I have a 35mm lens on my camera and I see a subject that is best photographed with a 50mm lens, am I not cropping if I switch lenses? If I have the same lens but instead decide to act quickly and shoot with the 35mm lens and plan to crop that to the 50mm angle-of-view in post, how is that a problem?
Beyond all of that, opinions ranging from “cropping is unacceptable” to “cropping is great” are just individual opinions, not moral laws. Each photographer is free to decide for himself or herself what rules to follow in such cases.
Aug 20, 2025 at 11:17 AM
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Re: Thinking out loud: thoughts on cropping, zooms & primes
There is no photograph in the world that is uncropped.
When you put a lens on your camera and aim it at the world, you crop the scene with the camera and show only that part of it that you select.
I think that implies that cropping, per se, is not really an issue – in fact, that it is fundamental to photography.
This might lead to some questions: Why might some thing it is fine to crop the world with the camera itself but not with other parts of the photographic process? If I have a 35mm lens on my camera and I see a subject that is best photographed with a 50mm lens, am I not cropping if I switch lenses? If I have the same lens but instead decide to act quickly and shoot with the 35mm lens and plan to crop that to the 50mm angle-of-view in post, how is that a problem?
Beyond all of that, opinions ranging from “cropping is unacceptable” to “cropping is great” are just individual opinions, not moral laws. Each photographer is free to decide for himself or herself what rules to follow in such cases.
