When I post images to the Avian forum, they are usually taken with a 400mm. lens and cropped. A number of times the experts have commented that the image looks heavily cropped, or has a heavily cropped feel to it. A recent example is in a Red-tailed Hawk image I posted the other day. How do people know, what is that special look (which is obviously undesirable) and how can I improve it in pp (i.e. without getting closer to the bird)?
from what i have seen, heavily cropped images lack detail and quality that others that are full frame have. PP wise, not sure there is anything you could do. either a bigger lens or getting closer is the ticket.
I agree with Harold. A "heavy crop" looks kind of flat with less fine detail than an uncropped image. A large crop also has more apparent noise due to the increased magnification. Your hawk image was sharpened to show edges well, but the noise was still apparent. If you look closely at the feather detail in the wings facing us, the fine detail is not there. If this closer to FF and the hawk still filled the frame as shown the fine detail would be visible.
Ed you can usually tell heavy crops by the loss of quality but some do stand up fairly well. They won't much good for anything other than internet posting.
One thing you can not get away from is dof !!! If you make an image wide open of a bird in flight with a heavy crop the entire bird is usually sharp since it was so far away !!! When someone tries passing a heavy crop for a full frame they are only fooling themselves.
Solution is getting closer or more focal length !!!
How to tell if heavy crop?
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