Originally posted by UnknownVT Having safety nets is all well and good -
but for me it is no substitute for careful work....
It don't think it's about not being "careful", and I don't consider it sloppy work when I take a shot of someone in the studio, and it works both as a full body shot
and as a head/shoulders portrait shot. I don't know if you've ever worked with very small children in the studio, but with some kids you might only get a few shots with a nice smile, and it may not have been a shot where you were zoomed in on the face. You may be able to make a nice portrait from that shot, but only if you have the resolution to crop it tight and still remain sharp. Or when shooting the entire family, you may be able to crop individuals for separate portraits. Or a wedding photographer may take a nice picture of the couple holding hands, and from the same picture he could zoom in the on the hands and crop the rest out for a nice detail shot of the clasped hands.
I could see other scenarios where cropping could be useful. For example, you may take a nice photograph of a building, and from the same photo you might be able to crop a separate image of a detail on the building. Or if you're shooting sports or a stage performance, but your lens isn't as long as you would like, cropping can simulate a longer lens. But the amount you will be able to "zoom" will be limited by the resolution of your original image.
And I don't care how good of a photographer you are, you
will sometimes get some soft shots. This can be caused by missing focus, or by your subject moving out of focus or being slightly blurred by movement. This happens a lot with kids since they sometimes have trouble holding still. With a very high resolution photo, some of these shots can still be saved.
All of the above reasons are why I'm annoyed when people moan about the "megapixel" wars. There seems to be a knee jerk reaction among some people to "just say no" to more megapixels, without fully considering the advantages of increased resolution.