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Computer vision methods were used to study crack growth and crack blunting in thin, 304 stainless steel single edge cracked (SEC) specimens with various a/w ratios. The in-plane displacement and strain distributions in the vicinity of the crack tip before and after crack growth were obtained and compared with theoretical predictions. Results for a growing crack indicate that for small amounts of crack growth, a critical value for the ω factor is a predictor of the presence of HRR-type fields. Specifically, with Δa < 0.08a₀ and ω > 10, where a₀ is the initial crack length, the crack tip deformation fields have the same form as observed for stationary cracks; the HRR dominant zones exist for V and ε_yy but the field variables U, ε_xx and ε _xy have either non-existent or much smaller HRR zones. For a limited range of crack growth (0.08a₀ < Δa < 0.20a₀), trends in the crack tip deformation fields in a segment of the crack tip region …