COMPOSITION AND CROPPING
In a well-composed image every element supports the composition.
In the Field and at the Computer
There are no hard-and-fast rules on how to compose a perfect image; there are many contributing factors that cannot easily be listed in any order of importance. Composition is successful when the elements in the image are in balance and are connected to one another, and nothing seems disjointed.
In a good image, each element supports the composition and has a role to play. Small details—such as a distracting blade of grass, the cut-off tip of a bill, or a half length of a leg—can ruin an image just the same as a missing detail, something that obviously should have been captured in the image but wasn’t. It’s not enough to have your subject fully inside the frame, it should have free space around it so it doesn’t appear cramped. As a general rule, for a profile shot, the subject should be placed off center so there is more space in the direction the subject is facing (or the direction of motion).
The European Roller image was captured in one of the most memorable moments of my photography career so far. I was photographing European Rollers as they were emptying a nest box in which Starlings, to their misfortune, had already started breeding. I caught the European Roller as it was dragging a Starling chick out of the box, but I was just late enough to miss any chance of getting the composition right. In the image the European Roller is just about to fly head-on into the left side of the frame, severely handicapping the composition.
It’s often easiest to place the subject in the center of the frame, but this can be the worst composition. Sometimes it’s okay, for example if your subject is flying directly toward the camera and the image requires no extra space on the sides, either vertically or horizontally. Yet we are inundated with center-staged images, especially when there are no good reasons to place the subject in the center. The reason for this is autofocus, which has made it much easier to take sharp images, but you could say that it has been at the expense of good composition.
Autofocus technology has a way to go before it can follow birds accurately. Autofocus is at its fastest when it is used with one central focusing point. When a photographer is shooting a moving subject, it’s a struggle to keep the subject within the chosen focusing area. This puts focusing at the top of the list of priorities, and composition takes second place.
An aspect ratio of 3:2 is near perfect for bird photography, but there are quite a few occasions when good composition requires some other ratio. Luckily you can crop afterwards, on a computer.
Quite often it is obvious that photographers did not realize that another format could have been better for a picture they took. Horizontal is the favored format, but you should teach yourself to recognize situations that would benefit from a vertical composition. A fledgling photographer typically takes only horizontal pictures.
A European Roller just about to collide with the edge of the frame (Coracias garrulus)
Nikon D200, 300mm f/2.8, 1/1000 second, f/2.8, ISO 800, continuous focus with a central focusing point, Gitzo tripod and video head, blind. Pusztaszer, Hungary, May 2007.
If you’re photographing birds by water, always remember to get the subject’s reflection in the water. If you cut it off, it can ruin the image almost as much as if the subject itself had been cut off. If you can’t photograph the full reflection, try to crop it out as completely as possible. Photographing a reflection is challenging; the bird’s smallest movement causes ripples and distorts or breaks the reflection, which you might not notice as you focus in on the subject.
Producing the final image from the digital RAW file is quite a lengthy process, and you may lose sight of the compositional aspects of your image and hence fail to recognize its shortcomings, which might stick out like a sore thumb to somebody who sees the image for the first time. If I’ve been looking at an image for too long, I can flip it horizontally and spot faults that I missed in the original. If the mirror image is just as good as the original, then it passes my composition test.
Cropping an image after capture is necessary, especially in bird photography, regardless of your photographic skills, reaction speed, or painstaking composition in the field. I crop about 90 percent of my images on the computer. I would even say that you can almost never perfectly compose a bird photo in the field. By cropping it on your computer you will most likely enhance its artistic merit.
There is no shame in cropping, because nature photos are not taken in studios where you can control every aspect of your photography. Composition is mainly determined by nature; what the photographer can do is make sure that the opportunities are optimized.
Here are a few examples of composition. The fighting Gray Herons fill the image area from side to side; in fact, they are partly cut off. Part of the left heron’s wing is cut off by the left edge of the frame, causing the image to look as if it is tilting toward the left. To make it look better, I cropped the image on the top, bottom, and right edges, which makes the wing of the heron on the right point to the right top corner. A 15 percent crop helped give the image better balance.
The Red-legged Honeycreeper image works best in a horizontal orientation, but the aspect ratio of the camera does not always yield the best possible composition. Luckily, the computer does. Cropping the top and bottom of the image improved the result remarkably.
Ideally, every important element should be included in the image. Sometimes a missing tip of a wing or leg, or even a drop of water that has been split in half by the frame edge, can break the harmony.
All the same, there’s no absolute rule saying a bird must always be full in the frame, captured from the tip of its bill to the end of its tail feathers. When you’re photographing action at close range, especially if you think the action will not fit in the frame, your instinctive reaction is to back down or grab a wider lens, but sometimes the right thing to do is get even closer and take super closeups.
An image is not balanced if it has empty areas that serve no purpose, or if it is disproportionate or unevenly centered. Almost without exception, cropping improves the result.
Fighting Gray Herons (Ardea cinerea)
Canon 300D, Nikon 300mm f/2.8, 1/1000 second, f/5.6, ISO 200, manual focus, Gitzo tripod and video head, blind. Pusztaszer, Hungary, February 2005.
Panorama of Red-legged Honeycreeper (middle) and Blue-gray Tanagers (Cyanerpes cyaneus, Thraupis episcopus)
Nikon D700, 500mm f/4.0, 1/500 second, f/10.0, ISO 800, Gitzo tripod and video head, blind. Costa Rica, January 2010.
Dalmatian Pelicans (Pelecanus Crispus). Intense cropping, with the subjects filling the entire image area from edge to edge, can sometimes improve the result.
Nikon D200, Sigma 300–800mm f/5.6, 1/400 second, 600mm, f/8.0, ISO 400, continuous focus with a central focusing point, Gitzo tripod and video head, blind. Romania, April 2007.
Even in ideal circumstances it is probably impossible to follow a moving subject and not lose control of the composition. There is rarely time in the field to compose every image perfectly, and when you’re following a subject with your camera and concentrating on focusing and exposure, you’ll undoubtedly capture elements in the image that you don’t want. If you’re lucky, those elements can be cropped out on the computer. If you are less lucky, they will ruin your image.
Keeping the horizon straight is not always easy, especially in action photography. Always adjust the horizon afterwards, either by cropping or straightening in your image editing software.
Regardless of what you can accomplish on the computer, it is important to do as good a job as possible in the field. Great composition usually means taking advantage of the entire image area, which means the need for cropping is minimized and the image file will stay big.
Common Chaffinches fighting (Fringilla coelebs). The image is remarkably better after the rocks at the bottom and the tip of a Blackbird’s bill on the right have been trimmed out.
Nikon D200, 300mm f/2.8, 1/640 second, f/2.8, ISO 320, manual focus, Gitzo tripod and video head, blind. Pusztaszer, Hungary, May 2006.
A Barn Swallow mobbing a Eurasian Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus, Hirundo rustica). By cropping the empty space on the right, the image became more balanced.
Nikon D300, 300mm f/2.8, 1/1600 second, f/2.8, ISO 400, continuous focus, Gitzo tripod and video head, blind. Pusztaszer, Hungary, June 2008.
Here the crooked horizon is easily fixed by more tightly cropping the drinking Eurasian Bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula)
Canon 300D, Nikon 300mm f/2.8 plus 1.4x extender, 1/800 second, f/5.6, ISO 200, manual focus, Gitzo tripod and video head, blind. Pusztaszer, Hungary, February 2005.