Need help with composition... Cropping...

[Justin_AUS_Spotter]

Hey guys I'm usually very good with cropping aircraft photos... This one presents quite the challenge. What references should I use to crop this photo?



I tried looking at photos in the database, but it still does not seem clear to me what I should be looking for to compose this picture correctly.

Thanks

Justin

[PMN]

Hi Justin,

I think there are only two logical ways to crop that image and they're something like these:





The main problem with this particular shot (which I guess may or may not be a problem depending on how you look at it), is the fact that the fuselage is sitting so far to the left, which means the options for cropping are somewhat limited. Both these crops are balanced compositionally. In the first one, the distance from the nose to the left of the frame matches that from the horizontal stabiliser to the right of the frame. The nosewheel and top of the vertical stabiliser form similar references to the bottom and top of the frame. If you can find these distinct points to balance your composition around then you can get a well composed shot from almost anything, but bear in mind that certain things within the shot are more relevant generally than others. Like for example you can cut through, say, a horizontal stabiliser to get a tight crop of the fuselage and it can look OK because the horizontal stabiliser doesn't play a huge part in what you're trying to show, but cropping through the intake of an engine will generally result in a poorly balanced image because engines are a large part of the aircraft and can make or break the general composition.

Compositionally the second shot kind of speaks for itself, although it's cropped in a fair way. This particular image will need quite a bit of brightening so you may start to run into problems with noise being too apparent if you crop in too close. Personally I'd go for something along the lines of the first crop.

Hope that helps!

Paul

[Justin_AUS_Spotter]

Great thanks for the recommendations. Common sense told me to do exactly what you did in the first shot. I just wasn't sure if that was the right way to go. Thanks for the info. I know about the colors and levels and all that good stuff. Was just wondering about framing. I should get a pretty good photo onto JP

[LX-A343]

Justin, I would say, everything from the original you posted and the 1st one posted by Paul looks OK. You can play a bit with the added space around the aircraft until it looks OK.

The 2nd posted by Paul is a tricky one, as the chopped off parts of the aircraft can look weird. Taken from an angle closer to the nose, this would be a perfect cropping to show reflections on the fuselage for example.

As Paul mentioned, the photo needs some brightening.

[brianw999]

Personally I would go for Paul' first crop. Wherever possible I like to see the whole tail visible and the first crop does this. There has to be a great deal of interest in a shot cropped to exclude the tail for it to work. Both images work....but #1 works better.

...and yes, it needs brightening up.