Cropping for better composition

Cropping is an editing feature that allows you to trim off parts of the image that you don't like – it provides an opportunity to recompose the shot after it has been taken.

However, one vital point to remember is that cropping discards pixels and therefore lowers file resolution. I love photographing birds, but unfortunately, they always tend to be too far away, even with a 400 mm telephoto lens, so I have to crop the edges off the file to make the subject appear larger. If I crop 50% from a photo, it then looks as if I have shot the subject with an 800 mm lens, not my regular 400 mm lens. Cropping has saved me a lot of money in my not having to buy an even more powerful (and thus very expensive) lens. But the inevitable compromise is that, in that example, I have lost half the pixels in the file—no problem if I only ever post the image online, but a restriction if I hope to have it printed large.

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