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February 10
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Replies: 11

How to avoid shooting too wide?

Forums > Art Related > Photography
:iconasabase:
!AsaBase Feb 10, 2013  Hobbyist Photographer
I need help with not shooting too wide. Every time I compose normal focal length shots, I feel like I have a good balance in the area I'm focusing on, but my crop ends up being too big and I get unnecessary objects that suck out all of the contrast/artistic feel.

I'm using 50mm the most, which is giving me these problems. When I'm using 35 or less, or a tele, I don't run into it that often.
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Devious Comments

:iconmarx-man:
~MARX-MAN Feb 12, 2013  Professional Artist
Incoming: "Oh shit I should have known that"

EOS 650D or T4i has 95% viewfinder coverage which means things that look perfect in the viewfinder will actually have a little bit extra.

Use live-view to double check your options, you have to compensate for the veiwfinder's inaccuracy.
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:iconasabase:
!AsaBase Feb 14, 2013  Hobbyist Photographer
already knew that.
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:iconmanualfocusphoto:
~ManualFocusPhoto Feb 12, 2013  Student Photographer
Get closer? crop in post?
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:iconolda-g:
*Olda-G Feb 11, 2013  Hobbyist Photographer
As FallisPhoto suggested, consider cropping.

If you are using photoshop, clutter near the edges can often be easily cleaned up with a selection with the lasso tool and content aware fill or the spot healing brush with content aware fill.
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:iconfallisphoto:
`FallisPhoto Feb 11, 2013
Who cares? You are not in high school anymore and there is no rule that you can't crop your photos.
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:iconhedwards:
~hedwards Feb 11, 2013
You mean this isn't 10 years ago when you needed every pixel to make a decent size print if you wanted to.

I think that unless one is one needs to offer the hugest prints possible, that it's not worth worrying too much about. But, at this point, a 12mp camera can afford to crop down by about 1/4 and still have to place ones nose on the paper in order to see pixels. And if one has an 18mp camera, one can crop quite a bit and still have a image that's big.

I personally, hate cropping for reasons other than liking a different aspect ratio for the image. But that's mainly because I'm picky and so used to needing the extra pixels that my mind has a certain amount of rigidity on the subject that will take time to break.
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:iconfallisphoto:
`FallisPhoto Feb 12, 2013
I mainly use film (ultra-high resolution film, at that) and never did develop that mind set.
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:iconasabase:
!AsaBase Feb 10, 2013  Hobbyist Photographer
I try to use live view when I can. wide angle or tele seem to work the easiest when translating to what I see with my eyes. But middle focal lengths give me the most 'cropped' feeling, versus what my eyes see. So, I end up very confused about how close/far I should be to portray the subject well.
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:iconasabase:
!AsaBase Feb 10, 2013  Hobbyist Photographer
If I get too close, I feel like I'm missing part of the photo, but if I get too wide, then I get unneeded 'clutter'
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:iconhedwards:
~hedwards Feb 10, 2013
Use a tripod, and make sure to sweep the edges of the viewfinder before you release the shutter.

Also, realize that most optical viewfinders are not 100% so, you're only seeing probably the middle 95% or so of what the sensor is seeing. I think even with the 7D it's not a 100% view it's approximately 100% so there's a slight disagreement between the viewfinder and the sensor.
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