While cropping is important, care must also be taken to ensure that it is not overdone - this will lead to the impact you are trying to convey in your photographs to be minimized rather than emphasized. For instance, look at the first three photos of this urban apartment block below: Overall view Cropped: Better view     Overdone: Impact lost? The first one is considered okay for most people, but photography enthusiasts may disagree. The second one is much better as the distracting elements in the first photo, like the streetlight and most of the other blocks, have been cropped, leaving only the main unit intact. But in the third photo, cropping was overdone here. There is nothing in this image to show that the subject matter is part of an apartment block. However, if you only want to emphasise the rooftop design, it is okay to shoot it like what has been shown in the third photo. Below is another example of how cropping the unnecessary portions of a given image makes for better impact overall. The objective is to show the two apartment blocks located toward the top left (distant) of the photo. The first shot showed an overall view, which included the buildings in the foreground as well as other unnecessary elements in-between. The second photo has less distracting elements now that the lens had been zoomed forward to make the apartment blocks larger. Overall view (70mm) Cropped view (200mm)     Cropped further (400mm) The third photo was shot at 400mm focal length with the help of the EF Extender 2x. Lens used was the EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM. The said apartment blocks became more prominent in this photo than they were in the first two shots. Of course, distractions still exist in the foreground, which can be further cropped while preparing the image for printing or by photo editing software, in the case for Internet usage, but I didn't. While it is good that photographers have the option of cropping unwanted elements in their photographs, while still composing them via the camera's viewfinder and at the later stage during printing or scanning, they must also remember that the cropped images should not lose information of whatever subject matter the photos are conveying to the viewers. Of the examples in the previous page, all the photos still retain the message conveyed by their respective subject matters despite the cropping. For instance, the residential photo is still an image of a residential area and the logos on the car still show that they (logos) are pasted on a car, despite the heavy cropping on the images. << Back to Main . 1 . 2 . 3 .