This super-quick editing hack transforms my travel photos into magical movie moments

Tutorials
By published

Canon pro Peter Travers shares his secret to creating more atmospheric scenic photos with cinematic widescreen cropping

Santa Cruz, California
A classic travel shot with too much blank blue sky, which I shot while standing in the shallows on Santa Cruz beach. While there’s an argument that the sky is creative or positive empty space, I prefer a judicious 21:9 widescreen crop to fill the frame with the sea, birds, boats and wharf beyond. (Image credit: Peter Travers)

While it’s tempting to embrace those huge skies that you only seem to get in America – and while I would’ve happily used these images when I was a magazine editor, as the empty space in the sky would be perfect to put big headlines and text on top – when using these sorts of travel images online, this excess empty space can mean they lose their impact.

A bit of clever cropping is an easy way to lose these blank areas in the frame. So why don't you go for a panoramic-style crop? It’s a brilliant and quick fix for removing large areas of sky, or large empty bits of land or sea, like these shots by the beaches of California.

The cinematic 21:9 crop (Image credit: Peter Travers)

When I’m cropping these images, I don’t mean the classic 16:9 ratio favored for most panoramic shots; I’m talking about a more extreme 21:9 ratio for a proper widescreen movie experience.

The great thing with modern cameras is that the large file sizes captured by their high-resolution sensors mean that you can make some hefty crops and still be left with large, usable images.

These shots were taken with an old 30MP Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, which captures 6720 x 4480 images – more than enough pixels to crop. But, of course, when doing these 21:9 crops we’re keeping the full width, and therefore the full impact, of our high-res images.

Cropping to 21:9 for cinematic widescreen effect

(Image credit: Peter Travers)

Cropping to 21:9 for cinematic widescreen effect

For this shot of the colourful buildings with palm trees of Venice Beach, I had purposely composed with the trees at the top of my frame, to ensure the tall palm trees were parallel with my camera sensor, so were straight and not converging in the frame. This left a lot of empty beach sand in the foreground. A quick 21:9 crop and – bam! – it’s instantly more dramatic, like a scene cut from an LA cop show on Netflix (Image credit: Peter Travers)

You might also like…

Take a look at these landscape photography tips, to help you get the most of the best cameras for landscape photography and the best lenses for landscapes.

Peter Travers
Peter Travers

The former editor of PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine, Peter has 18 years of experience as both a journalist and professional photographer. He is a hands-on photographer with a passion and expertise for sharing his practical shooting skills. Equally adept at turning his hand to portraits, landscapes, sports and wildlife, he has a fantastic knowledge of camera technique and principles. 


He is the author of several published photography books including Portrait Photographer's Style Guide, and The Complete Guide to Organising and Styling Professional Photo Shoots with fellow portrait pro Brett Harkness.


Peter remains a devout Canon user and can often be found reeling off shots with his Canon EOS DSLR and EOS R mirrorless gear. He runs Peter Travers Photography, and contributes to Digital Camera magazine. 

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.