"A real Photographer doesn't.."

Crop.


How much merit does this statement carry?


And if this statement does carry significant merit, why do we have cameras like the 1dsmkIII and the 5dmkII?

(the reason behind this post stems from a friend who has had numerous college-level photography courses which have instructors (presumably film) who insist that cropping is cheating)

I try to do my crops in-camera for the most part. Especially with landscapes where I know what I want. Not just because you don't have to mess with that later, but also you get the largest size and most pixel data for printing large images.

With weddings, sometimes things move very quick, and I can't always spend time to get it 100% cropped how I want in the camera. I'd rather snap the shot and get the expression and emotion on someone's face and in their eyes and capture that moment, then later crop out 10% of the image if I need to. Not a big deal to me.

Hand that instructor a 1DMarkIII with a 400 f/2.8 lens on it and tell him to shoot some sports and see if he feels a need to crop anything after the fact. You either don't shoot 90% of what you see waiting for a player to be in the part of the field that will give you the perfect crop, or you shoot and crop. I'm pretty sure that "real photographers" used enlargers and trimmed their prints to fit certain sized frames in the old days, no?

Cameras are tools. Photoshop is a tool. You use the tools you have to get the best results. If he doesn't use the best tools, then he's not a real photographer as far as I'm concerned. I would stay he's a historian or something.

Specialized wrote in post #6381493
Crop.


How much merit does this statement carry?


And if this statement does carry significant merit, why do we have cameras like the 1dsmkIII and the 5dmkII?

(the reason behind this post stems from a friend who has had numerous college-level photography courses which have instructors (presumably film) who insist that cropping is cheating)

here's another one you hear sometimes:

"...edit their pictures in post"

(by the way - i dont believe this.)

Makes perfect sense to me. Thankyou.

A real photographer doesn't listen to others "do's and don'ts" .....and just does when he or she feels creative enough to do.

Stathunter - right on! it's your camera, your photos - in the end, 'your work of art' - it's your call, you decide what you do.

A real photographer does whatever makes him/her happy.

A real photographer buys Volume I and II That is the most un-realistic thing. Everybody crops and PP photos...that is the way it is.

Specialized wrote in post #6381493
(the reason behind this post stems from a friend who has had numerous college-level photography courses which have instructors (presumably film) who insist that cropping is cheating)

How utterly boring that all shots would be 2x3 format (for 35mm type bodies).

I crop to 8x10 all the time, Canon hasn't introduced a sports body with a sensor in that format yet.

If you have to deliver a job fast you dont have time to play with the shots.
Its best to do it once and do it right.

I try to get my pictures shot as I want them, but every now and then you'll mess up the angle a bit or something small shows up on an edge that just needs to go. A quick post-processing crop job really isn't "cheating" to me if it's making the picture look better.

i think the idea behind those 'rules' is that a "real" 'tog doesn't DEPEND on pp & cropping to rescue otherwise boring or failed images - but a good majority will use post techniques to ENHANCE or finish their original work.

I suppose my next thread should be titled, "What defines a real photographer?"

Specialized wrote in post #6383156
I suppose my next thread should be titled, "What defines a real photographer?"

Please, don't bother. Another inane thread is all we need. What does this have to so with the business of photography anyway?