Determining the electromagnetic field response of photonic and plasmonic resonators is a formidable task in general. Field expansions in terms of quasi-normal modes (QNMs) are often used, since only a few of these modes are typically required for an accurate field description. We show that by exploiting the structure of Maxwell's equations, conjugate-symmetric frequency-domain field expansions can be efficiently computed via a Lanczos-type algorithm. Dominant QNMs can be identified a posteriori with error control and without a priori mode selection. Discrete QNM approximations of resonating nanostructures are presented and the spontaneous decay rate of a quantum emitter is also considered.