graywolf wrote:
Cropping in the viewfinder is still cropping.
The rather simple truism is that all photographs are cropped because they have an edge where the photo ends. The world does not.
Well, I heartily dispute that definition of "cropping."
I've always regarded the virgin image captured by your camera as the "what is" image. Whatever steps you take to arrive at that image, it is at 100% of whatever was capable of being recorded, given oyour equipment.
Cropping on he other hand, means to reduce that image content by whatever means you wish, to something that reduces the "total information" (number of pixels, grains, square inches of image, whatever) that's contained by the original image.
There IS no such thing as "cropping in the viewfinder." That's called framing.
Cropping, used as a verb in the photographic sense, is an unambigous word.
It means to cut from something. Until you have that 'something' there's nothing to 'cut.'
I selectively frame by zooming, walking toward or back from the subject, tilting the camera, etc. Once I see in the viewfinder what it is I wish to record, I press the shutter.
I got to that point by framing, not by cropping.
I may crop later on, but I can't do that until I have an image to work on.
Thank you for your time! <g>
keith
