Mark these two dates down on your 2012 Calendar!

May 19-23. 2012
December 1-5, 2012

Fleeting Glimpse Images is pleased to announce two Badlands Photography Workshops for our 2012 workshop series. Based on our sold-out workshops from 2011 we are expecting good demand for the coming year.  The workshop format will vary slightly from last year and we are hoping to pull off a couple of new twists for the 2012 offering.  We will pass along those details as soon as we lock them down.

Early Sign-up Discounts!

Save $50.00 by signing up no later than 2/29/2012 for the May workshop and no later than 8/31/2012 for the December workshop.  After that the price goes back to $645.00. See our website for full details.  Full information about the 2012 Badlands Photography Workshop series can be found at http://badlands.rikkflohr.com.

Reserve your place today!

Rikk Flohr © 2012

The Crop You Forgot You Made

Every picture is a crop but likely not in the way you might be thinking. We all make viewfinder framing decisions where ever we decide to point our lens.  We slice out the rest of the world for that rectangular vision we desire. What we likely knew, but have forgotten, is that our camera, specifically our sensor is performing a crop of all the light gathered by our lens.

Lenses are round. They cast circular images. But our digital sensors, like sheets and rolls of film before them, only capture rectangular images. Shutters (talking in-lens shutters) could be round or rectangular but ultimately, modern cameras take a rectangular image to the emulsion or the memory card.  Our digital files, slides and negatives all reside in a rectangular format.

Math Time

Lenses: Focusable area of a standard 35MM format lens is roughly 1520 MM² at minimum to cover the shutter/sensor. The image circle of lenses varies slightly so this is an inexact number.

Sensors: Full Frame are 864 MM²

Cropping: The cropping which occurs in taking the rectangular ‘meat’ out of the lens’ image circle is about 44%. Only 56% of the focused image by the lens actually falls through the shutter and onto the sensor.

In the example I’ve mocked up above, you can see how the sensor effectively crops off much of the image circle. And, in this case, most of that lopped off detail is meaningless.  Nonetheless, we have lost part of the image rendered by our optics. There isn’t much we can do to get it back either.

“What is the point of all this, Rikk?” you might be asking yourself. We are, after all, stuck in a raster world where image formats are defined by an array of pixels that is always rectangular. It turns out, thanks to Mark Sirota’s pointing me to an interesting web community there is a small but determined band of circular croppers out there. Originally I dismissed Mark’s suggestion as being simply a group of matte-ers – sticking a rectangle with a hole on top of every image. But, as I thought about the origin of all our images being circular, it became less peripheral to me and I decided to take this topic on.

In Part 2 of this Crop Circles Series, we are going to dive deeper into this rogue group of croppers. Part 3 is going to talk about compositional considerations for the ‘circular crop’.

Stay tuned.

Rikk Flohr © 2012

But what is in it for the Cropist?

After the wealth of new cropping features and augments brought to us by Lightroom 3, I decided to dive through the new features in the Public Beta for Lightroom 4 and see what was here to excite the cropist in us all.  While there is much in Lightroom 4 that is new and exciting to the photographer at-large, the Cropist finds very little in the way of new cropping tools or functionality.

1. The maximum value of the aspect ratio has been increased to 9999.999 to allow for greater precision and to enable the entering of screen resolutions as aspect ratios.  Numbers larger than 20 entered into this dialog will result in a decimal shift to reinforce the concept of aspect ratio vs. physical size.

(i.e. entering 1920×1080 will result in a 19.2×10.8 value in the crop panel)

2. New Crop Ratio Choices in the Aspect Pull-down.  These reflect ratios common to video and represent Lightroom’s further venturing into the video arena.  Both the aspect ratio and the screen ratio are shown as hints.

That is about it for the crop features… No new or custom crop overlays like we were hoping for… No crop presets … no additional aspect ratios held beyond the five in our most recently used list…

Well, there is this other new thing…

I wouldn’t really call this a crop feature but it is a camera framing guide of sorts. In the Library Module, Loupe view mode, there is a feature which allows you to overlay a PNG file onto your image.  Either in tethered capture or perusing previously captured images, you can now overlay a series of guides, like a magazine cover perhaps, to view your framing.

Imagine you are shooting a magazine cover and you want to show the art director each shot as they come off the camera in the context of the cover design. You can create a PNG file with transparency that will overlay your shot previewing the potential layout as you shoot-provided you are in a tethered environment.  It lops off parts of the image that are outside the bounds of the Layout Overlay’s aspect ratio and puts the PNG file on top of your image.  The Layout Overlay is located on the View>Layout Overlay> menu.

Here is an excellent video from John Beardsworth

Video

That’s it so far for crop tools in Lightroom 4. Last time they delivered a couple of treats between public beta and final release. Let’s hope cropping gets another look.

For a more complete break down of what is in the new version of Lightroom, check out my link here.

These are the links to the public beta pages:
Public Beta Site: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom4/
Forum: http://forums.adobe.com/community/labs/lightroom4/

Rikk Flohr © 2012

The blog No Cropping Zone is primarily a macro photography blog and espouses, (rightfully so) the process of doing your close up work via careful selection of equipment, meticulous technique and careful framing.  At first blush this might seem like the antithesis of Holy Crop! but really it isn’t.  I think it is the blog titles that make it seem that way.

Holy Crop! has an entire category devoted to in-camera ‘cropping’ . We believe, whole-heartedly, that careful in-camera framing is the first step toward a stronger photo. That is why we recommend blogs like No Cropping Zone. Give it a read.

Rikk Flohr © 2012

Here are the Cropist’s New Year’s Resolutions recommendations for 2012:

1. I will frame more carefully in-camera
2. I will crop more carefully in software
3. I will try more than one crop
4. I will not be bound to existing frame and matte aspect ratios
5. I will read Holy Crop! and contribute!

Do any of these and you will have stronger images in 2012. Do them all and watch out world!

Happy New Year everyone!

Rikk Flohr © 2012

For review, the original camera framing is represented below. It is a 3:2 aspect ratio as this was a DSLR capture. It also happens to match one of our standard print sizes. If you remember from the Cinematic Crop article, we kept the lower left anchor point for the image in each case. This means there was no accounting for aesthetic tweaking.  Each image as it is cropped is losing material only from the top and/or the right side.

Original Capture & 4×6 Print

8×8 Print

4×5, 8×10 & 16×20 Print

11×14 Print

5×7 (and Wallet Size) Print

8×16 Print

These tend to be the common sizes printed at most labs and the sizes for which you can find ready-cut mattes and frames. That is why they were chosen.

The shape varies widely across the spectrum of print sizes.  While the Cropist advocates always finding the strongest version of your image, your buying public is concerned about finding framing and matting.  In  a future article, we will talk about ways to tweak your image to make it fit into the nearest available print size. We will also discuss when to stick to your composition and only print for custom framing.

Rikk Flohr © 2011

For consistency, in each of the following photos, I have cropped the image with the lower left anchor of the image appearing in the same place.  Thus, the only difference in the crops is how much is taken off the top and/or the right. The sun and horizon end up in a reasonable position in each image so I think it is a fair comparison.

Here is the same image as it appears or would appear if it were:

In the Original Camera Capture: 3:2

On Standard Television: 4:3

On HD TV: 1.77:1 (16×9 HD)

At a Movie Theater: 1.85:1  (Standard since 1953)

On an Anamorphic Screen
(Cinemascope, ~Cinema Displays) 2.39:1

When you envision your world, do you see it on TV or as an Epic Movie vision?

This Wiki Aspect Ratio article lists a host of additional aspect ratios in use at various times and purposes in the cinematic world.  Some of them might be fun to try the next time you are deciding on a crop for a particular look and feel.

In case you are wondering, the 1.85:1 is my favorite rendering under the strict constraints under which I cropped these images. It is epic without being too wide.

Perhaps next week, we will look at this same image in the common print sizes…

Rikk Flohr © 2011

Greetings Holy Crop! fans,

I’ve just returned from teaching my Badlands Winter Workshop at Badlands National Park. The Queen of the Crop and I took 8 photographers around the park chasing sunrise, sunset and all the critters in between.  Of course, in the non-shooting hours we taught image editing techniques with composition and cropping figuring heavily into our curriculum.

The shot above is from one of our afternoon drives. This old car sits on a hilltop near the park and makes for a tempting target for driver’s by.  I thought this might make an interesting image to discuss briefly the Rule of Thirds and the Rule of Fifths.

To begin, I ask myself: “Of what is this a picture?”  In other words, what is the star-the subject. It is a picture of…

The answer: “A Car”

The car is the star. It should occupy the most important part of the frame. I have overlaid a rule of thirds grid to show that we have placed the focal point of the car, in this case where the missing driver’s face would be, at the lower right rule of thirds. The car is facing into the frame and the space is left in front of the car to satisfy the rule of space. The car isn’t moving so the rule of motion isn’t as important. In this shot, the car is a face looking semi-hard left. It needs space into which to stare.

Secondary to the car is the sky-particularly the sun.  The sun is fairly small in frame but the extremely bright area is fairly large.  Even though we discussed sun placement in a previous article as being stretchable to the rule of sevenths, here a rule of fifths is an appropriate placement. Keeping the sun near the upper left rule of fifths gives us ample space to hold the sun in the picture.

The sky is awesome in this image. We need just enough land to ground the car and contain it in the frame.  Keeping the horizon near the rule of fifths lets the sky dominate the remainder of the picture.  A rule of thirds placement would have left too much foreground and lessened the sky’s impact.  The rule of fifths grid overlaid here shows clearly the rule of space choices. There is twice as much space in front of the car as behind.  There is four times as much sky as ground.

Playing the rule of thirds against the rule of fifths is a good way to start your composition both in-camera and in post production.

1. Start by putting your subject on the most obvious rule of thirds.
2. Put your secondary subject on the opposite rule of fifths in a way that balances the relative size and weight of the two opposing focal points.
3. Lastly, chose a horizon placement that reflects the relative strengths of sky and land. 
4. Tweak to taste.

Good shooting!

Rikk Flohr © 2011

Sometimes.

I was working with 5:1 panoramic crops thinking about an upcoming article on retouching.  My goal was a banner-like crop that showed just the eyes. Without even thinking, I put the eyes on the lower rule of thirds (pictured below).

I thought, “Hmm, that looks a little odd. True I got great brow space but the eyes are cramped against the bottom of the frame. It almost looks like she is peeking over the bottom border.  It didn’t work for me.

My next step was to put the eyes on the upper rule of third.  I lost the brows completely. I also gained enough of a nose to look awkward.  Clearly, with this crop, and this subject, rule of thirds was failing me.  The crop of choice was the opening image where they eyes are dead center in the frame vertically.

For the article I ultimately tweaked the crop to satisfy a little Rule of Space for the eyebrows.  It is still a centered crop but the eyes aren’t coming over the bottom edge as badly as in the lower rule crop.

I guess the point is compositional rules are great guides until they don’t work. Then you just have to with your gut. Never leave something on a rule of anything just because it is a rule.

Let’s repeat that: Never leave something on a rule of anything just because it is a rule.

Rikk Flohr © 2011

Greetings Holy Crop! fans. October was a barren month for posts to Holy Crop! My apologies. A couple of unbidden yet most welcome gigs intervened and I found myself neglectful. Hopefully November will make up for my hiatus as I get back to a more normal schedule.

This edition of Crop Shop features a shot from my recent tour of the southwestern United States. I took this picture at sunrise at Great Sand Dunes National Park in early September.  The shot above is the original camera framing. As I composed this image at the wide end of 70-200 MM F2.8L IS, I noticed a lone hiker traversing down the distant dunes.  My first inclination was to curse my bad luck at his intrusion but upon further review, he became the focal point for my cropping. Rather than crop him/her out, I decided to crop him/her in.

Analysis:

I have a wealth of wonders and am loath to crop anything but this image can be stronger so here goes:

1. Great curves everywhere. The motion tells me I ought to think horizontally.
2. I have a slight distraction in a too-interesting feature too far away from my focal point. This left most point of interest needs to be sacrificed.
3. The hiker (yellow square) is placed great and makes for a scale-enhancing element to the landscape. He/she might be a little small in-frame.
4. The trail of footprints is a great element too, complimenting the curves and leading you to the hiker.
5. I have a brooding almost ominous sky framed (quite deliberately) at the rule of fifths.
6. The great curves are everywhere but with the miniscule hiker on whom I will be focusing, I have to zoom in a little lest he/she become lost in the desert.

My gut told me to go wide and I did. I started with a 3:1 crop but decided that I lost too much depth. Those additional scooping layers enhance the grand scale of the landscape. Too much sky is sacrifice in this ‘going wide’.

I decided to back off to a 2:1 Panoramic crop. This time, I left the dune detail in at far left.  This was better for depth but the hiker shrinks to anonymity.

To combat this, I kept my 2:1 Aspect Ratio and zoomed tighter, sacrificing sky to the Rule of sevenths and putting the hiker on the right rule of thirds.  Better for the hiker but the rest of the image suffers.

I didn’t want to overlook a portrait crop. I tried this crop and it is ok. It maintains the depth I wanted and puts the sky, hiker and tracks in a good place but the grandeur of the landscape is lessened. Perhaps a little wider?

I went to square next and placed the crop as well as I could conceive. The square crop doesn’t seem to be the solution. It adds space but fails to add grandeur.

What Next? Enter the Queen of the Crop.

I contacted my venerable sounding board and asked her for a crop suggestion. She sent me back her best thoughts in the form of a crop that restored some depth, kept the landscape feel and still placed the hiker prominently enough to be divined by the careful observer.  It isn’t so different from my first 2:1 panoramic attempt but the subtle shift brings back pieces of the sky, maintains the depth and keeps our hiker from being lost in the desert.

Thanks to Laurie Hernandez, Queen of the Crop for the assist.

If you would like to purchase this print, click on the link below.

10×18 – Signed Print 
Lone Hiker in the Dunes: $ 44.95 USD

includes shipping to the lower 48 of the US.

Rikk Flohr © 2011