As others have said, to a certain extent it depends on the subject matter - birds, especially in flight, and action sport I will frequently leave myself room to crop, but landscapes or plant life, I far prefer to compose correctly in camera. (That said, I do sometimes compose with a square or 5:4 composition in mind, but in these cases, the crop is preplanned).
Why I do this I'm not quite sure, other than the fact that I enjoy the process of composition, and find I generally produce better images when I have thought about using the whole frame rather than taking an image that has the finished product 'in there somewhere'. But then, in this digital age, I also still try to get as much of the exposure etc right in camera too, so spend some time balancing ND grads etc rather than merging exposures afterwards. The time spent is probably similar, but in general I would rather spend it outside in the landscape than inside at my desk!
|