On Cropping

When I first started in photography, it was on film (as thoroughly discussed across the broad history of this blog, and mentioned in the previous post), and it was C41-process prints from photo shops. I did not ever do my own development (though I have a curiosity about the process and see now that there are at-home C41 kits, and color speaks more to me than black and white...), and I never at all thought to try at-home printing. My prints were as they came out of the camera.

With early-boom digital SLRs existing in a world of about six megapixels and a maximum usable ISO of maybe 800, more often 400, there was no significant* room for cropping. Not in my experience, anyway. I got used to living in a world where I was disappointed I didn't have access to lenses that created the exact framing I wanted on sensor. Practically speaking, that means I had to settle for having a slow 200mm zoom.

As I fast forward 15 years to get to today, I have all of the sudden found that I don't care anymore. Almost every single photo I take, I crop for artistic refinement. I've almost completely stopped worrying about filling the frame with my shot, which has helped a lot with feeling held back by the amount of money I can put in front of the camera. This seems to entirely come down to the fact that I have accepted the resolution of the 24.whatever megapixels I have available to me as adequate for detail at crop, and that processing raw photos to remove the failings of old film-era coatings has gotten to be so good that I can reliably make any of the glass I have look good enough for what I want at pretty much any crop setting, as long as I have done a good enough job with the technicals of aperture, focal point, ISO, and steadiness.

This is all to say that I've found a significant feeling of liberation by actually taking advantage of the hardware I paid for, and also I have a much greater degree of appreciation for the work the engineers are doing to make the imaging and processing algorithms better. It lets me do things like snap with an inappropriate focal length because it's the lens I have with me and get results like this:

out of framing like this:

with a camera lens from 1978 (smc-Pentax M 135mm f3.5) mounted on a camera body released in 2013 (Pentax K-3). It makes me wonder how much better I could do with the advances in stabilization and high-sensitivity noise, and with exposure latitude, if that's something that's improved in last year's K-3 III. I know the K-1 and K-1 II both have significantly more exposure latitude than the K-3 did. I don't want to say I've already outgrown the K-3 given how little I've used it since I got it in 2015. I did my 11,000 pictures with the *ist DL in 4 years, apparently about 14,000 pictures with the K20D in 5 years, and I've only just gotten to 9,600 today after 7 years with the K-3, so I've slowed down considerably as phones and a general lack of interest in the hobby have taken their toll on me. If I outgrow the K-3, I don't know that I could pick a single replacement anyway, as both the current K-3 III and the K-1 II present significant advantages for my interests and lens library... not least of which in the case of the K-1 II is that it should be less hard on my film-era lenses for their imperfections, and also because it will further enhance the bokeh experience I have with my 43 and 77 limited lenses.

Anyway, all that's to say I am really enjoying getting out and doing this stuff again, and letting it tickle my brain has been rewarding so far.