Example of soft cropping: In the original rather dark and dull photograph the Litte Egrets (Woudapen) are hardly recognisable as such. After substantial soft cropping this photograph shows more detail and nicely picturises twilight mood at cloudy Lesbos isle.
This is optional page 7a of the workshop: Example soft cropping
You can “soft crop” any digital image using image editing “software” like Lightroom. We call it “soft cropping” to emphasize the difference with “hard crop” which is irreversibly performend by hardware. In both cases, the more you crop the lower the image resolution (amount of detail per square inch) of the picture will become. And by the way, when you print a soft cropped photograph on printable medium or display it on a screen or tablet this will automatically be realised using the print resolution respectively screen resolution of these media.
Soft cropping can produce a dramatically different perspective and atmosphere in the picture. Look at the examples below. In the series below the first picture is always the original uncropped picture.
Holland Kingfisher (IJsvogel) Z50 (soft cropped in Lightroom):
(click -> open picture, > < next previous picture, i -> settings camera + lens, “Full size” -> full screen, x-> exit picture)
Holland Kingfisher (IJsvogel) with fish D500 (soft cropped in Lightroom):
(click -> open picture, > < next previous picture, i -> settings camera + lens, “Full size” -> full screen, x-> exit picture)
Holland Bar-tailed Godwit (Rosse Grutto) migrating Z50 (soft cropped in Lightroom):
By the way the largest crop of this flock of Bar-tailed Godwits is a typical example of the quality of the image sensor of the Z50 in combination with that of our favourite aspherical converter TC-20E III. It is almost unbelievable that this amount of vivid detail and color contrast is shown in a photograph of a relatively small bird at a distance of around 90 meter, although wonderful direct sunlight in exceptional clean atmosphere (lockdown) might have helped a great deal!
Tip: Watch crop 1000 x 15000 of this image (full screen and maximally enlarged) and see detailed bar pattern on wings birds at 90 meter distance!).
(click -> open picture, > < next previous picture, i -> settings camera + lens, “Full size” -> full screen, x-> exit picture)
Holland Kingfisher (IJsvogel) with fish Z7 (soft cropped in Lightroom):
(click -> open picture, > < next previous picture, i -> settings camera + lens, “Full size” -> full screen, x-> exit picture)
Little Owl (Steenuil) taking rainbath (D300, soft cropped; enlarge picture to see raindrops):
(click -> open picture, > < next previous picture, i -> settings camera + lens, “Full size” -> full screen, x-> exit picture)
Lapwing (Kieviet (D500) resting safely surrounded by water (soft cropped in Lightroom):
(click -> open picture, > < next previous picture, i -> settings camera + lens, “Full size” -> full screen, x-> exit picture)
Retunt to workshop page 7: 8 Hard and soft cropping
