A frame taken with a telephoto lens. Why do I need a telephoto lens and a wide angle lens

In professional television production, it often happens that both in the studio and on location in the field, when the only way you can hope to get an effective shot desired item shooting, is to use a telephoto lens.

However, the telephoto lens also has some disadvantages.

Disadvantages of a telephoto lens

Depth can be unnaturally compressed, making the distance between the foreground and the background seem much smaller than it really is. Solid objects appear shallow with "crushed" depth.

Distant objects appear much closer and larger than with normal lenses. It seems that objects with increasing distance to them do not visually decrease, as one would expect.

Anyone moving towards or away from us seems to take an infinitely long time to cover a very small distance, even if they are running fast. At the hippodrome, the horses are galloping towards us, but despite their best efforts, they seem to cover a very short distance.

Portrait shooting

When a telephoto lens is used to shoot a subject from the front, the subject on the screen or in the picture will appear much shorter than it actually is. For example, a large oil tanker might look like it is only a few meters long.

If a long telephoto lens is used to take close-ups of people who are at a considerable distance, you will notice that their appearance will be uncomfortably flat and facial contouring will usually decrease. Having discovered this, do not rush to look for a repairman, it's not about the device. Such distortion is a consequence of the choice of lens. Keep in mind that the effect described above can be especially noticeable in shots taken from the front (front) or at a slight angle (three-quarters of the face).

Subtleties of focal lengths

As the focal length of a telephoto lens increases, it becomes more and more difficult to handle cameras. Even slight camera movement, caused by the handheld camera shaking slightly or the camera cart driving over an uneven floor, will result in irregularities in the image. It's not an easy job to follow fast moving subjects such as a bird in flight, keeping them in the small frame of a telephoto lens and keeping the frame properly formatted throughout the maneuver! In addition to the difficulty of holding the camera, there are additional dangers associated with focus settings at shallow depth of field!

When using a telephoto lens, it is difficult to hold the camera still for a long time, as even slight shaking can be caused by breathing, heartbeat, or muscle fatigue. A gust of wind can lead to disaster! But holding the camera in your hands with a long telephoto lens is almost impossible. In order to maintain a stable image when using a telephoto lens, it is generally necessary for the TV operator to use a tripod or other form of camera support, and be sure to turn on the pan/tilt head lock.

The weather matters

In hot weather, shots of distant objects taken close-up using a telephoto lens, may be spoiled by haze rising from the ground. The diffraction of light creates an overall flicker that distorts the picture and destroys fine details. The only way out in this situation is to move the camera closer to the subject and use more wide angle lens.

Article text updated: 10/18/2018

Three years ago, I published a short article in which I compared how a widescreen and a telephoto transmit the same plot on a plane, taken from one point. It expresses, I suppose, the general opinion of novice photographers about what both types of lenses in question are used for. Today I want to supplement that review and give some facts that I learned while photographing at home and while traveling, first on the Nikon D5100 crop, and then, switching to full frame in February 2015, on the Nikon D610.

1. My misconceptions about where telephoto and shirik are used

Even during the first experiments with the Samyang 14mm f / 2.8 and Nikon 70-300mm 1: 4.5-5.6G, it became clear to me the main fundamental difference in the transmission of the geometry of the image obtained with a wide-angle lens and a telephoto lens: the wide lens stretches the perspective, and the telephoto lens stretches it very much compresses. Why this happens, in great detail, with diagrams and formulas. Therefore, I will not stop now. I’ll tell you better about what delusions I had three years ago.

Here are a couple of shots showing how the perception of a picture changes if you shoot wide and telephoto. My friend, when he saw them in , immediately went to the store and bought himself a high-quality Nikon 70-200mm f / 4.0G telephoto lens.

When buying a Nikon 70-300 telephoto camera, I was sure that I needed it for photography: for shooting birds and animals while traveling to distant countries. In May 2013, my wife and I rented a car and drove around Sri Lanka for about 1200 km. So that's when we early morning set off It was after that excursion that I decided: “Enough! AT next trip I will definitely take a telephoto lens for shooting animals.

The second reason why I wanted to have a telephoto camera is street photography: during your vacation you come to another country and feel embarrassed to photograph strangers, and a lens with a long focal length helps to shoot people on the sly, on the other side of the street. Based on three years of shooting experience with Samyang 14mm f/2.8 and Nikon 70-300, I can say the following:

1) I really use the telephoto for photography ... but not more than in 2-3% of cases.

2) It is the Nikon 70-300mm f / 4.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor model that is not suitable for high-quality shooting of wild animals, since a professional photo is taken during regime times when the illumination of objects is low. Animals and birds are very mobile, for a sharp photograph you need fast shutter speeds. The Nikon 70-300 telephoto is dark, in order to get the specified exposure time in poor light and a relatively narrow aperture, you will have to raise the ISO several times in comparison with fast-aperture counterparts (see).

3) There is an opinion among novice photographers: the longer the focal length of the telephoto, the better. It seems to me that this is not so for two reasons: the first is that if you photograph animals from afar, the image quality drops due to distortions introduced by the air (haze); the second - even if you shoot with a telephoto lens from a short distance, say, large-faced portraits of birds (or even full-length), such pictures quickly bother the viewer, because the story in the frame is important, and for this you need to show the environment, the habitat of our object. That is why I think that ultra-telephoto cameras are needed as a tool, but they will not be used in more than 5-10% of filming.

4) A telephoto lens is not suitable for street photography. The width is ideal for this genre, and the shorter the better. I don’t know how to explain it in words, but a wide-angle lens literally draws the viewer into the frame, makes him feel the atmosphere, become a participant in the events. A telephoto lens is a look from the outside, a feeling of detachment. I discovered this feature already on the first vacation, after buying a wide and telephoto. Here is a street photo taken on the streets of Pattaya resort in Thailand.

And here is another example of street photography, but taken with a Samyang 14 wide-angle lens.

The previous and this photo is used

Is there a difference in image perception? Or am I being smart? .. Pay attention to how the width conveys volumes. How many plans do we see in the picture above? The first is a man and corn, the second is a saleswoman and an aunt in black (she should perhaps be singled out in a separate plan), the third is a girl with a glass, the fourth is a girl in a white dress, the fifth is a blue building in the background, the sixth is skyscraper in the distance. Real 3D picture!

How many plans are in this picture? I counted three: the guy, the car, and the trees in the distance. Now let's try to approximate, i.e. use even more focal length.

It seems to me that in photo No. 8 we have a maximum of two, and maybe even one plan. The picture turned out flat, the volume was lost.

If you read a report on trips to distant countries in the section "Independent Travel", you probably noticed that most of the shots on the streets of cities in which there are people are shot wide, or with lenses with a normal focal length, not with a telephoto lens. The disadvantage of my Samyang 14mm f / 2.8 wide-angle lens model is the lack of autofocus: for the landscape this is not critical, but for reporting it is bad.

2. Features of shooting wide. Examples of using

The problem with wide angle lenses is that they are... wide. If we point the camera at any object, too many different extraneous things will enter the frame. Some of them will very likely be dark, others will be light, some will be close, others far from the lens. All this causes certain difficulties, and, in practice, turns many of the usual rules, techniques, and even desirable characteristics of lenses on their head.

Lens specification	telephoto lens	normal lens	wide angle lens
Speed, accuracy of autofocus	critical	Very important	No matter
bokeh	Important	Important	No matter
Image quality wide open	critical	Important	Relatively unimportant
Image quality on a covered aperture	No matter	Important	critical
Possibility of exposure	No matter	Important	Very important

Table. The relative importance of certain lens characteristics depending on the focal length.

When shooting with a telephoto lens, we usually photograph objects that are not at rest, the depth of field is small, and high focal lengths require special attention to prevent microblur. Therefore, focusing speed and accuracy are critical, ugly bokeh really spoils the picture in many photographs, in order to minimize micro-blur, in most cases you will have to open the aperture to full value. On the other hand, the very narrow angle of the telephoto field of view allows the use of long hoods that protect against side illumination and catching "hares". In general, when buying a telephoto lens, we will either have to give up some optical quality and speed, focusing accuracy, or fork out and choose a more expensive one, but without these shortcomings.

In the case of wide-angle optics, the situation is reversed. Shirik sees the world in a very different way than lenses with a normal range of focal lengths or telephotos. The difference is mainly in 2 things: perspective and IPIG(depth of field). In addition, wide scenes are characterized by problems in obtaining the correct exposure.

Note on terminology

Before continuing, let's deal with the main thing: perspective. The lens doesn't really do anything with perspective, it's a pure function of subject distance. That is, if we mount the camera on a tripod and take two shots with lenses with different focal lengths, and then crop what is obtained on a lens with a wide field of view, so that the borders coincide with what is obtained on a long lens, then the perspective will be identical in both photographs.

Although, as photographers, we probably never do that (well, just for the sake of experimentation). Instead, we will act according to the circumstances: with the width we will come closer to the subject, with the telephoto - we will move further. Exactly these actions dramatically affect the ratio of distances between the subject, foreground and background (see the diagram and detailed explanations in the article mentioned above about the difference between crop and full frame). Here - true reason why a wide-angle lens gives a different "perspective" than a telephoto lens.

Another issue in terminology concerns the expression for the width or length of the lens. In the transition from film photography to digital photography, there was confusion caused by different crop factor values. For example, a 35mm lens is sometimes referred to as a "normal" lens when used on cropped DSLRs and mirrorless cameras, as it has the same field of view at the crop as a 50mm lens at full frame. In the same article about the difference between cropped and full-frame cameras, we discussed what is real and equivalent focal length, and that the angle of view of the lens does not change regardless of which sensor is used in the camera. Below, in square brackets, focal lengths for cropped cameras will be indicated.

And, finally, the third: in the article we consider rectilinear wide-angle lenses, i.e. those that draw lines are as straight in reality as they are in a photograph (at least on average). There are also fisheye lenses (fish-eye, fisheye), which significantly distort images, as well as editors like Panorama Tools, in which you can assemble a panorama from images taken with fisheye - if you consider them, the article will turn out to be very complicated.

What does wide angle mean?

Let's draw one line at 35 mm. Anything wider than this wide angle. The second line is 24 mm, anything wider is over-widths. Using focal lengths shorter than 35mm will introduce many of the challenges and creative possibilities that are common in wide-angle photography. When shooting at angles wider than 24mm, except perhaps for occasional shots, it's hard to get decent results unless you're aware of them and pay close attention to them.

It is often said that the field of view of a 50mm portrait fifty-fifty is closest to how people look at the world. Perhaps this is a controversial statement, and difficult to prove, but, in general, there is a lot of truth in it. When shooting at normal focal lengths from 35 to 90 mm, about the same amount enters the frame as it sees a common person without turning his head. The ratio between the foreground and the background looks "correct" or "natural", the distortion is not too pronounced, with the exception of distortions that occur when a three-dimensional object is displayed on a plane - perspective.

Scenes shot with a wide-angle lens are larger: they correspond to scenes in real life to see which, you need to turn your head. They can contain a large number of objects located at different distances from each other. This means that wide-angle photography has a lot of potential: it can reveal connections and juxtapositions that are not obvious to the viewer. And the most the best photos can “pull” the viewer in a specific way, give him the feeling that he is “looking through the eyes of a photographer”, which cannot be obtained by photographing with a lens with a normal focal length.

perspective

The most obvious characteristic of a wide-angle lens is its ability to "stretch" perspective: the distance from objects in the foreground to the background appears larger than it actually is. Such stretching occurs when displaying a wide scene on a plane, and straight lines remain straight. Although, this feature sometimes gets unexpected results, and is not so easy to implement.

If the lens axis deviates even slightly from the horizon, the verticals in the picture will converge or diverge. The buildings in the photo will collapse. Personally, this feature does not interfere with me, it gives special creative opportunities. At the same time, it is often required to obtain a photo of a building with normal, straight walls. It is clear that it is better to take a picture right away so that the building has vertical walls than to correct the distortion later in Photoshop. The way to achieve this is to place the horizon in the center, take a picture and later crop the background in processing - you get vertical verticals.

Flat objects located perpendicular to the lens axis are obtained without distortion. Cut out a life-size figure of a person from cardboard and place it in the corner of the frame strictly at right angles to the camera matrix, and take a picture. The figurine will look almost the same as in life. Although, if you put a live person on the other side of the frame, his image will have serious distortions, since he is three-dimensional.

IPIG

“Lenses with a short focal length have a very large depth of field” - indeed, this is so. On the other hand, wide-angle scenes often come out very deep, so we need everything to be sharp. In addition, people look at photos taken wide, more carefully than in ordinary life, their eyes move from one part of the picture to another. Therefore, the presence of even a small unsharp area immediately catches the eye and irritates more than when using a lens with a normal focal length or a telephoto lens, in which areas with a blurry image are part of the composition.

Flare

Flare is one of the main problems when using a wide-angle lens. Because of the wide field of view, we can't wind up a large lens hood. For the same reason, a bright light source is rarely used in the frame or behind the scenes. “Hares” appear in the picture, and there is a loss of contrast, spoiling the picture. In any case, the photographer must keep this feature in mind, and either fight it or include it in the composition. For example, if it is possible to crop part of the image, you can cover the lens with your hand (even if it is in the frame), and then remove it during processing.

Features of composition formation when shooting at a wide angle, technical details, settings, I'm going to discuss in a separate article. Now I will only note that you constantly have to monitor the dynamic range of the scene and enter exposure compensation in plus or minus, . The dynamic range of the camera still may not be enough - you have to use the HDR technique (HDR). And when we shoot scenes where the main subject is very close to the lens - the background can be blurred due to the small depth of field, the solution is

I want to pay attention to how a small change in focal length at wide and telephoto lenses dramatically affects the geometry of the picture. Let's say we're using a Canon EF 70-200 f-2.8L IS II USM telephoto lens. If we shoot one photo at 200mm and the other at 180mm, the viewer probably won't notice any difference since the change in focal length is 20mm, only 11%. And if you take a picture with a Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L USM wide-angle lens, and then with a Canon EF 14mm f/2.8L II USM lens, then the same difference at 20mm focal lengths is already 250%.

3. What I use a wide angle lens for

Well, the conventional wisdom is that widths are for shooting landscapes. Indeed, I enjoy shooting landscape shots with my ultra-wide Samyang 14mm f/2.8. But not only this genre is limited to the scope of its application.

3.1. Shooting landscapes

For my taste, no type of lens can capture the magic of a landscape like a good wide lens. For serious landscape photography, you will need to purchase a good tripod and remote control (remote control). If we take pictures with our hands, we will have to raise the ISO to prevent “shake”, which will lead to the appearance of noise and loss of detail in the picture. Examples

3.2. Using Width to Convey the Scale of Objects

I used to think that a telephoto lens was best for showing aspect ratio, but experience has shown that a wide-angle lens also does a good job of this task, especially if the SVCC (story-important compositional center) is not in the foreground.

3.3. Wide-angle lens for shooting in tight spaces

The Samyang 14mm f/2.8 ultra wide-angle native element is photographing while walking along the narrow streets of cities, shooting interiors, reporting from dungeons, caves and other similar conditions. Here - the wider the angle, the better. My super-wide Samyang 14mm f/2.8 came to the rescue many times in these situations. It literally contains the immensity.

3.4. Street photo, reportage

Because a wide-angle lens conveys space in a special way, gives the viewer a sense of complicity in the action depicted in the picture, I love photographing scenes from street life with it. Another plus of widths: due to the large field of view, they allow you to show the interaction between the object and its environment.

When shooting a reportage, it is often necessary to tilt the lens axis, which leads to distortion and large distortions if a person stands close to the edge of the lens. It's a matter of taste: I love these pictures, and someone hates.

Photo 17. An example of using a wide-angle lens for street photography. Nikon D610 + Samyang 14mm. 1/80, +1.0, 8.0, 214.

Shot 18. Shirik allows you to "draw" the viewer into the frame. Nikon D610 camera, Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. 1/200, 2.8, 2500, 24.

3.5. negative space

Another case where the use of width is justified is pictures with negative space. What is negative space in photography? This is the part of the picture that doesn't draw much attention. If in the photo we have a small tree surrounded by endless expanses of snow, we can say that there is a lot of negative space on it.

A wide-angle lens is the right tool to introduce negative space into the frame, if that's our goal. It often happens that this property of its width, on the contrary, creates a problem for the photographer. For example, when we shoot mountains, we do not want 70% of the area to be occupied by the sky, which no one is looking at. However, in some shots, negative space is a very powerful tool for creating atmosphere in a frame. It shows the loneliness of an object surrounded by emptiness. When we need to show how small our subject is, negative space is a great way to emphasize this fact.

True, negative space can be shown with other types of lenses. It all depends on the intention of the photographer. For example, during a trip to the Indian Himalayas, I shot this scene, where the green background can be considered negative space, at a normal focal length.

3.6. Using latitude for astrophotography

Surely, looking at the pictures of the night sky, you noted that they are divided into two types: 1) with star tracks in the form of segments of circles; 2) stars look like dots. High-quality tracks are obtained if you take several dozen shots at slow shutter speeds and then combine them together in a special editor. To get stars in the form of dots, you need the shutter speed not to exceed certain value, which is calculated according to the "600" rule: we divide 600 by the focal length of the lens and get the maximum exposure time at which the stars will remain dots.

Focal length of the lens	Maximum exposure time for shooting stars without blur
15 mm	40 sec
24 mm	25 sec
35 mm	17 sec
50 mm	12 sec
85 mm	7 sec
135 mm	4 sec
200 mm	3 sec
300 mm	2 sec
600 mm	1 sec

I came across recommendations that when shooting with a cropped camera, these numbers should also be divided by the crop factor, but I don’t understand why. After all, as we found out in the photography lesson “Was it worth buying a full frame”, the focal length of the lens on the crop does not change. As you can see from the table, the shorter the focal length, the longer you can set the exposure time (and therefore use a lower ISO, at which the matrix does not make so much noise). And at a Samyang 14mm f/2.8 it will be 20 times longer than on a Nikon 70-300 telephoto. Here the aperture of the lens also comes into play, since there is not much light in the dark.

4.4. Using a telephoto lens for macro photography

In general, a telephoto lens cannot be used for serious macro photography, since an image at a scale of 1: 1, or larger, can only be taken with a special macro lens, in which the lens block is shifted to the outer end of the body. But, if your lens is of high quality, you can try to wind it up. I sometimes shoot macro on my Nikon 70-300 without these devices.

Here it must be borne in mind that the design of some lenses is characterized by the presence of such an unpleasant phenomenon as

4.5. Telephoto shooting of sports competitions, concerts and other social events

Well, that's one of the main purposes of lenses with long focal lengths. It would be nice to have a fast lens.

4.6. Shooting Portraits with a Blurred Background

One way to isolate the main subject in the frame is to blur the background (bokeh). It can be done by shooting with fast optics or with a lens with a long focal length. Accordingly, the telephoto can blur the background well.

4.7. Shooting with telephoto panning

One of the interesting techniques is panning: the photographer stands still, the subject moves, the lens turns after him, trying to keep him in the frame. Creates a distinct effect of movement in the picture.

Such photographs are taken in aperture-priority mode "S" or "M". Exposure - from 1/20 to 1/150 seconds, depending on the speed of our object. Focusing - tracking AF. Some photographers advise turning off the stabilizer on the lens. In my experience, it takes practice to get good shots. This picture was taken during

5.0 How to take pictures with a telephoto lens

Shooting with long lenses requires the photographer to have special skills and techniques that are different from those used when photographing with lenses with normal focal lengths. Even experienced photographers, having bought a telephoto lens, can make mistakes at first. Here are some tips on how to avoid them and improve the quality of your photos.

5.1. Activate Image Stabilizer

Many televisions allow you to turn on several stabilizer modes. Choosing what best suits the shooting conditions is vital.

Most telephoto lenses have two stub modes: “Mode 1” for normal shooting (used in 90% of cases) and “Mode 2” for shooting with a wire and from a moving vehicle. The second type is mainly used for shooting birds in flight and other similar situations.

It is clear that turning on and off "Mode 2" every time, as soon as the animal began to move, is inconvenient. There is simply no time for this. But still, if we know that we will shoot with wiring, then we turn on this mode in advance.

Focusing works differently for different manufacturers, so it’s better to check the instructions again, but in general, almost all televisions have “Mode 1”, “Mode 2” modes, and they are used for normal shooting and for posting.

5.2. Using the correct exposure time

The standard formula for handheld shooting without blurring on cameras with a small number of pixels is: V = 1 / FR, where FR is the focal length of the lens at the time of shooting. For example, if we are photographing at a focal length of 200 mm, then the maximum exposure time for handheld shooting of a stationary object should be no longer than 1/200 second (that is, you can 1/400, 1/800 or, say, 1/2500, but not 1 /100 seconds). On matrices with a large number of pixels, the formula B \u003d 1 / (2 * FR) is used.

Experienced photographers claim that this rule works up to certain limits. For example, when shooting on a super-long telephoto with a focal length of 500 mm, according to them, the maximum shutter speed will not necessarily be 1/500 second: sometimes 1/200 second is enough. Even when shooting on a Nikon D7200 crop with a 600 mm telephoto lens (EFR = 900 mm), an exposure time of 1/320 is enough if you hold the camera correctly (we'll talk about this below).

5.3. If the action is predictable, set a focus limiter

On telephoto lenses, it’s hard to turn the focus ring even with your hands, and what can we say about the telephoto motor. And if you remember the small battery in the camera that controls the auto focus system? Now it’s clear why focusing is not very fast on super telephoto cameras?

All long telephoto lenses are slow, even the $9,000 monsters from Canon and Nikon. All of them are slow moving when compared with normal 70-200 telephotos or with shorter lenses. For example, according to owner reviews, even the excellent Sigma 150-600mm f / 5-6.3 DG OS HSM Sports takes a full second to refocus from a near point to a far one. Therefore, any action that we can implement in order to help the lens come into focus will be our gain.

The focus limiter, to put it simply, tells the camera to ignore the short end of the focal length range. This narrows the search range. right point focus. The focus limiter on most lenses simply shows the distance - if you know the subject won't come closer than 5 meters, you set the focus limiter to "5-∞", which means the camera will now seek focus starting at 5 meters from you and further to infinity.

5.4. Do not shoot at extreme focal lengths

All super-telephoto lenses on the market today are soapy at the far end. For example, both Sigma 150-600mm and Tamron 150-600mm at 600mm produce a picture noticeably less sharp than at 500mm. And on my Nikon 70-300, I try not to shoot at focal lengths larger than 250mm.

If it is possible to get a couple of steps closer to our beast, then it is better to do this than to shoot at a larger focal length. Do a simple experiment: take a piece of paper with text, go outside (in good light) and stick it on the wall of a building. Take a few steps back until the entire frame is filled at the short focal length, take a picture. Then step back even further and take a picture with a zoom, trying to fill the field of the frame. If you take several photos at different focal lengths, you will most likely see a big difference between the images.

5.5. If possible, mount your camera with a telephoto lens on a tripod

A tripod can eliminate all the errors associated with the technique of shooting at large focuses, however, for shooting fast action, the use of a tripod is very limited.

Before you run to the store for a tripod, you need to understand a few things. Look at the podium with photographers at some major competition. None of them use tripods. You will only see monopods. You might think that a monopod is better at stabilizing an image than a tripod, and that would be a misconception.

When shooting sports, the monopod is NOT used for image stabilization, it is needed to support the telephoto lens so that the photographer does not have to carry the weight of the lens during the entire game. In fact, there is no difference between shooting with a monopod and handheld. Why? Because the shooting speed is usually shorter than 1/1000 of a second. This is sufficient to prevent microlubrication under normal conditions.

When hunting, professional photographers always take pictures from a tripod. Partly to keep the weight down, partly because shooting wild animals is not always action, and animals are most often shot at dusk. So, if the shooting is at sunrise, and we can only set 1/100 of a second, and we are shooting a wolverine that has stopped and, curiously, looks at the hunter, at the Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM Sports telephoto lens at FR=600mm, we will be happy with the result when shooting from a tripod.

Just do not need to think that we always have to shoot from a tripod. If the lighting conditions allow you to set a sufficiently fast shutter speed, it is more convenient to remove the camera from the tripod and drive the lens around, choosing a convenient angle. The ability to change the angle of view can result in more dynamic shots.

5.6. When shooting with a telephoto lens, turn off the car engine

This advice does not apply to sports photographers. But many photohunters take pictures from the car, because the animals are not so afraid of a person in a car and let him get closer. And the vibrations created by the engine will spoil the picture.

Some photographers advise you to carry a bag of grains with you, on which the telephoto is already placed. But nothing will work if the shutter speed is not enough. Therefore, if we are shooting wild animals from a car, we need to turn off the ignition and the pictures will turn out to be much clearer. This recommendation does not apply to the case when the shutter speed is shorter than 1/800 second: anything shorter is not afraid of machine vibrations.

5.7. Be careful with high ISO

You might think that increasing the ISO value is a panacea for the best shots of action taken with telephoto lenses. For example, looking at photographs taken by professional sports photographers, you can often see ISO 3200, which is necessary to achieve a shutter speed of 1/1000 of a second. When shooting with a telephoto lens, it's always better to crank up the ISO and get the correct shutter speed needed to capture a particular scene clearly than to make a mistake with the exposure time trying to keep the range of low ISO values.

At the same time, it is necessary to approach the choice of ISO wisely: as we said above, to shoot a stationary animal, you can use a slower shutter speed and not exceed the limits of normal photosensitivity.

One thing that is not often mentioned is the effect of ISO on sharpness. Some amateur photographers say that high ISO grains give a sharper feeling as they bring the finest texture to the shot. Well, yes, there is. At the same time, one cannot ignore the fact that the detail is also reduced, and the details are the sharpness and clarity of the image.

Look at this shot of a pheasant. It was shot at high light sensitivity. Looks, like, not bad ... until you compare it with a picture taken at low ISO.

If you zoom in on the image, you can see that the picture taken at high ISO is less clear.

How high can we set the ISO? Well, it depends on many factors, the main of which is the characteristics of our camera. Just take your camera and test different scenes. For example, on a Canon 7D Mark II, a value of 1000 may be fine for sports photography, but too high for animal photography. Even the slightest loss of sharpness is immediately noticeable on the hairs of animal fur or bird feathers.

5.8. Spend a few days practicing

If you follow the recommendations described above, the chances of getting good results are quite high. But keep in mind that there will be a lot of changes in the "muscle memory" that we may already have memorized. With a telephoto, you need to take pictures differently. If you rent a super telephoto lens before going on a safari or a sports event, you are likely to make a lot of mistakes. If you decide to take a new telephoto lens, even if you are an experienced photographer, before the photo safari, spend a few days shooting birds in the garden or at the zoo in order to understand what is the maximum ISO for hunting photography, what is the minimum shutter speed when shooting handheld, features of photography from a tripod etc.

Before the game, professional footballers train hard. Serious photographers too...

5.9. Tighten your aperture where possible

Most often, when shooting with a telephoto lens, the aperture is fully open. Sports photographers use the lowest aperture possible to blur the background.

But the same cannot be said for shooting wild animals. In a situation where we have a natural separation of an animal or bird from the background, it would be nice to be able to close the aperture just a little if the shutter speed is fast enough. Many animals are quite long, so with a fully open aperture, only part of their torso will enter the depth of field. But often we would like the animal to be completely sharp, so we should press the aperture just a little.

In addition to expanding the depth of field, you will notice that the lens has become sharper across the field of the frame when photographing covered. On some telephotos, switching from f/5.6 to f/7.1 will already make a very noticeable difference! Try a test.

5.10. Hold your TV properly

If we are shooting sports with a monopod or photographing animals on a photo safari with a tripod, it is recommended to place left hand at the far end of the telephoto as far as we can comfortably reach. This position significantly reduces the likelihood of micro-lubrication.

If we shoot animals through a car window, experienced photographers advise putting the far end of the lens on the door. If we photograph, relying on the part that is closer to the carcass, the jitter will be too great.

With the advent of the Tamron SP AF 150-600mm f / 5-6.3 Di VC USD and Sigma AF 150-600mm f / 5.0-6.3 DG OS HSM budget ultra-long-focus lenses, a lot of photographers began to shoot with ultra-telephoto lenses. They often get frustrated when trying to shoot handheld at slow shutter speeds. Let's see the recommendations of professionals on how to improve your shooting technique.

First, tilt the left side of your torso towards your subject. If you stand up straight, you will find it difficult to hold the lens firmly. Take a half step forward with your left foot, and move the right side of your body away from the subject. Try to find for yourself optimal angle, having practiced taking pictures with different torso deviations.

Second, create a supporting triangle. Your eyebrows and elbows are the corners of a triangle to get solid construction, press your elbows to your chest and the viewfinder to your eyebrows.

Third, adjust the angle of the protrusion of the hand. Your bent arm serves as a corner that supports the shelf. Depending on the weight of your telephoto lens, you need to adjust how far away from your body you hold the lens and where in your chest you press your elbow. The photo above (#35) shows the "standard" position.

For handheld shooting with heavy lenses, you will have to place your left elbow to the right and rotate your wrist, which will provide additional support.

Fourth, watch your breath. Once you've framed and focused, take short, shallow breaths and pull the trigger. If you breathe deeply, your chest can heave and create movement. Holding your breath while shooting can also cause some judder and micro-blur, the more the longer you hold your breath. Many photographers may not even notice that they are holding their breath before pressing the shutter button on their camera.

Fifth, the movement of the finger when releasing the shutter. Press slowly, avoid a quick poke on the button, as this can put pressure on the camera body and move the lens to a critical point during shooting.

Sixth, wait for the stabilizer to work. First, press the shutter button halfway to trigger the stub in the lens or in the carcass. If you hurry and VC/VR does not have time to work, we get a blurry image. In the latest telephoto cameras like the Tamron 150-600, the stabilizer works very quickly and waiting in a split second should not be a big problem and cause frame loss.

Seventh, met the advice to turn the tripod foot. Turning 90 degrees makes it possible to rest against it with one or two fingers. This will help press the telephoto lens onto the camera mount.

Eighth, lean on something. When shooting at slow shutter speeds, lean against a tree, rock, wall, and other structures. This will bring additional stability to your photographic system.

Ninth, add stabilization. You can put the TV on the soft pads of your hand.

Tenth, practice following fast subjects through the viewfinder. This will create some "muscle memory" and help you get more interesting shots. It's also a way to practice panning shots.

This concludes the analysis of the situation when I need a telephoto lens, and when I need a wide one, and a selection of tips for successful shooting with a telephoto lens, I finish. I ask you for help in promoting the site: please share the link to the photo lesson in social networks - the information will be useful to your friends, and the blog will benefit. Subscribe to notifications of new articles through the form below, maybe I’ll write something else interesting for you, my friends.

The only thing new photographers know about telephoto lenses is that they are designed to zoom in on distant subjects. However, in reality, telephoto optics are not just an opportunity to bring distant objects closer, but also a powerful creative tool with which the photographer can influence the photographic image in different ways. A telephoto lens can give the impression of a shallower depth of field or provide the right size match between far and near objects in the frame. The unique features of telephoto lenses make them extremely versatile, from wildlife and portrait photography to macro photography.

Types and design of telephoto lenses

Strictly speaking, a telephoto lens can already be called optics, the focal length of which exceeds 70 mm (for a full frame). However, today it is customary to refer to “full-fledged” long-focus optics as lenses whose focal length does not exceed 135 mm, which corresponds to an angle of view along the wide side of the frame of no more than 15 degrees. In any case, telephoto lenses differ in that their internal construction allows you to effectively increase the focal length. This gives excellent opportunities when shooting what is called "from a distance". Moreover, the larger the focal length, the more pronounced unique properties telephoto lens, which we'll talk about next.

The simplest design of a telephoto lens with a single telephoto lens has very large dimensions and poor image quality. Therefore, a different optical scheme is currently used, which includes converging and diverging lenses, as well as additional groups of lenses made of glass with different optical properties to reduce aberrations and implement additional functions, in particular, image stabilization.

A diaphragm is placed between the lens groups, which changes the amount of light passing through the optics and. The shape of the blur in the blur zone is just the image of the aperture hole. Increasing the focal length and ensuring sufficient aperture of telephoto lenses requires the use of lenses with a larger diameter. As a result, the weight and dimensions of long-focus optics increase, and, ultimately, the price of such telephoto lenses.

A quality lens with a long focal length is simply impossible to make light and compact. For example, a telephoto lens with a focal length of 200 mm and aperture of f / 2.8 is already difficult to hold in your hands along with the camera for a long time, so you have to use a tripod. Telephoto lenses with even longer focal lengths are often larger than professional SLR cameras.

True, in modern models telephoto lens manufacturers are trying to use expensive optical glass with a very high rate refraction or diffractive optics to somewhat reduce the overall length and mass of the structure. But in any case, you need to understand that long-focus optics are almost always large and rather heavy photographic equipment.

Currently, based on the effective focal length, it is customary to distinguish between three types of telephoto lenses:

- Short telephoto lenses

This is an optic with a focal length of 85 to 135 mm. Short telephoto lenses are the lightest and most affordable of all their counterparts. They are used, in particular, in portrait and wedding photography, when the photographer is in close proximity to the subject being photographed, but at the same time tries not to interfere in what is happening.

- Medium telephoto lenses

Medium telephoto lenses include optics with a focal length of 135 to 300 mm. Such lenses are often used for photographing fast-moving objects, for example, when shooting sports events. Thanks to the telephoto lens in this case, the photo loses blur.

- Super telephoto lenses

The ultra-long-focus optics have a focal length in excess of 300mm. These lenses are heavy and costly. They are used, first of all, where it is impossible to approach the subject at a sufficiently close distance. In particular, when shooting wild animals, which, when photographed close, can simply run away due to one awkward movement of the photographer.

By the way, the largest telephoto lens to date was manufactured by Carl Zeiss, it has a focal length of 1700 mm and an exorbitant weight of 256 kilograms. This unique telephoto lens was produced in a single copy for one amateur photographer of the world of wildlife from long distances.

Features of telephoto lenses

Telephoto lenses differ from other optics by no means only in that they are able to zoom remote objects. One of the key features of a telephoto lens is that it has a small angle of view, so that the relative sizes and distances for near and far objects are normalized. That is, the use of long-focus optics makes it possible to achieve such an effect on a photographic image, in which the objects closest to the camera seem to be approximately equal in size to the remote ones. The thing is that when the angle of view is narrow, distant objects fill a much larger part of the frame.

In practice, the telephoto lens has a direct impact on perspective. Normalizing the relative sizes of near and far subjects can be used by the photographer to give a sense of scale. To enhance this effect, you only need to get as far away from the nearest subject as possible and, accordingly, zoom in with a telephoto lens if necessary. Reducing the ratio of object sizes and distance between them can be beneficial for creating a sense of density or emphasizing the multitude of objects in the frame, but overnormalizing the relative sizes can also spoil the photo, making the scene too static, flat and uninteresting.

Given the amazing ability to zoom in on distant objects and at the same time a narrow angle of view, when using long-focus optics, the quality of the frame content should be carefully chosen. In other words, it is necessary to show a certain selectivity. A telephoto lens can perfectly capture a simple yet well-focused composition. For example, when shooting wildlife, you can zoom in on a small animal that is far away, accurately conveying its shape in the frame and focusing on Special attention various small details. Using powerful telephoto optics, you can shoot not only wild animals in their natural environment habitats, but also such dangerous and large-scale natural phenomena as volcanic eruptions.

Next Feature telephoto lenses - they reduce the depth of field at a constant focusing distance. It is important to emphasize that telephoto lenses themselves do not have a shallower depth of field. When using telephoto lenses, photographers often magnify the subject much more than, for example, using wider-angle lenses. That is, they usually do not move away from the subjects, as a result of which they fill the frame more, which leads to a decrease in the depth of field.

Given this feature of a telephoto lens, as well as the fact that distant out-of-focus objects visually appear much larger, which increases their blurring, the need to achieve extreme focusing accuracy at a selected point increases significantly. The slightest mistake in focusing when using a telephoto lens can result in blur individual parts photographic images. In most cases, when using telephoto lenses, it is better to use the center point to focus, and then adjust the composition of the shot as you like without worrying about changing the focusing distance. Regarding the topic of focusing, it is worth noting that focusing on fast long-focus lenses, one way or another, is associated with the movement of massive lenses. This, of course, somewhat reduces the speed and accuracy of automatic focusing.

To avoid image blurring when using a camera with bulky long-focus optics, it is imperative to use a tripod. However, hand-held shooting is also possible. Only to minimize the blurring of the frame caused by hand trembling, it will be necessary either to reduce the exposure time as the focal length increases, or to somehow stabilize the position of the camera in space. Most often, when shooting handheld, you have to use both methods.

To reduce shutter speed, you need to open the aperture wider or increase the ISO sensitivity value in the digital camera settings. Be careful - increasing the ISO sensitivity increases the chance of noise in the photo, and opening the aperture, in turn, reduces the depth of field. To stabilize the camera when shooting handheld, you can lean your body or the telephoto lens itself against some stationary object, such as a wall or a tree. You can also try to shoot while sitting, holding the telephoto lens with one hand.

Shooting with a telephoto lens - landscapes, portraits, architecture and macro photography

In addition to shooting sports and fast-moving objects, telephoto lenses are used in many other genres. For example, in landscape photography. In principle, for landscape photography, wide-angle lenses are known to be more suitable, as they exaggerate the sense of depth, while telephoto lenses compress. However, telephoto lenses are widely used in landscape photography.

In particular, they are used to shoot compositions consisting of several shots at different distances. In the foreground, trees or houses can be placed, then the distant slopes of the hill will go, and in the background it turns out blue sky. It is also beneficial to use long-focus optics when shooting in fog or atmospheric haze, since distant objects will appear closer in the photo. In addition, rain, snowfall or fog will appear denser in the picture than with conventional wide-angle optics.

Telephoto lenses can also be used for panoramic shooting, that is, for creating panoramas from several frames “glued” together. Usually wide-angle lenses are again used for these purposes. However, when shooting with any high point using a telephoto camera, you can achieve excellent detail in wide-horizon panoramic photographs. On them it will be possible to consider individual people, cars and trees down to the smallest detail. By gluing together many individual fragments, you can combine the high resolution provided by the large scale of photographing and the wide angle of view to obtain magnificent, detailed panoramas.

Long-range optics are great for photographing architecture because they capture the spatial relationships between different elements of a structure in photographs. If you use wide-angle optics to photograph buildings or structures, then a suitable shooting distance will be approximately comparable to the characteristic dimensions of the building. However, in this case, perspective distortions will inevitably occur, which often do not allow to correctly convey architectural forms. It is better to move with a telephoto lens to a greater distance from the subject. True, in this case there is a risk of foreign objects getting into the frame, but buildings and structures captured with long-focus optics look much more natural and natural in photographs.

In portrait photography, the telephoto lens provides minimal distortion of the model's face proportions and good separation of it from the background. The background or background that is out of focus is blurred. The image of the face or figure of the model will be captured in natural proportions. Plus, the use of long-focus optics when shooting a portrait allows the photographer to move a sufficient distance from the person being portrayed, and at the same time gives him the opportunity to more flexibly control the depth of field.

Focal length 112 mm. Aperture 5.6

Finally, due to the excellent detail and the ability to photograph at a fairly large scale, telephoto lenses can be used in macro photography. The closer the subject is to the camera, the larger it will appear in the photo. True, in this situation, the minimum distance that a particular telephoto lens can focus on will act as a natural limitation on the maximum possible shooting scale.

In fact, telephoto lenses can be used in a variety of shooting situations to achieve certain effects. assimilate key features and master the skills of working with a telephoto lens you can already in practice. So arm yourself with a telephoto lens and take as many pictures as you can.

A telephoto lens (telephoto) is an optic whose focal length is much larger than the diagonal of a full-frame matrix. Telephoto lenses are the most difficult to manufacture. The property of optical magnification was discovered a long time ago. It is actively used in spyglasses, telescopes, binoculars and microscopes. But the design of most of these items is simple. A person with his own eye "focuses" on a particular object. In the case of a camera, the lens must be focused manually, otherwise the picture will turn out to be smeared. Recently, this task has been assigned to autofocus. It is because of the focusing motors that telephoto lenses are difficult and expensive to manufacture.

Now on sale you can find optics with a focal length of 150, 300 and even 600 mm. For example, the Nikon 70-300 mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED VR AF-S Nikkor is considered a telephoto lens. As the name implies, this lens has a variable focal length. Finding telephoto lenses with a fixed focal length is very difficult. They are inconvenient to use.

Features of telephoto lenses

Telephoto lenses have a very small angle of view. The longer the focal length, the smaller this angle becomes. The size of the matrix in the camera does not change, so the picture seems to be closer. Unfortunately, this type of optics is subject to the same rules. It is not possible to equip a zoom lens with a wide aperture. Because of this, some photographers still prefer to buy telephoto lenses with a fixed focal length. For example, there are 200mm f/2 models. Such optics has a high aperture ratio, it can be removed even in poor lighting conditions. But it also costs much more than conventional telephoto lenses. Also, a photographer with such optics regularly has difficulties with the layout of the composition, which have to be solved only with the help of legs.

Telephoto zoom lenses are much more popular. Usually it is such optics that photographers who follow sports competitions use. Problems with the aperture do not bother them, if only because the field is illuminated by hundreds of spotlights. This allows you to shoot at fast shutter speeds even at f/7 or f/10.

Known deficiencies

The disadvantage of such lenses is their too high weight and large dimensions. Even binoculars with multiple magnification are of decent size. Here you need to enlarge the picture not for a small human eye, but for a matrix whose diagonal is approximately 35 mm. At the same time, numerous motors and optical distortion-correcting lenses should fit under the optics body. All this translates into the fact that the most powerful telephoto lenses can be a meter long and weigh several kilograms. No photographer could hold such a monster still. Therefore, telephoto lenses are almost always equipped with a special stand. With its help, you can lie down on the ground, while all the weight is transferred to this handle-stand. You can also attach a tripod to it. This is used by the very photographers who follow football match or athletics. Without a tripod, a lens with a kilogram mass would easily break off the mount to the camera, called a mount. If this is your first time using a telephoto lens, proceed with extreme caution. A bayonet failure is critical, after which you will have to buy a new camera.

There are also universal lenses that have the ability to greatly increase the image. They can have a focal length range of 24 - 300 mm. Technically, these are also telephoto lenses, although they are called universal lenses much more often. Sometimes such optics are included in the kit with reflex camera. Such lenses are rarely used by professionals, since the narrow aperture of the aperture does not allow shooting at a fast shutter speed. Fans can easily try their hand with such optics, for this you just need to stock up on a tripod.

Telephoto lenses are not very common. This should not be surprising. Such optics are just very rarely used. Such lenses are very heavy, it is impossible to take them with you on vacation. Telephoto lenses are primarily used for professional purposes. They photograph sports competitions, they are used by paparazzi, and such optics are indispensable for professional shooting of concerts. You can not do without a telephoto lens when hunting for birds and animals. In wedding photography, such optics are almost never used. For ordinary amateur photographers, a universal zoom lens is enough.

A high-quality telephoto lens with a long focal length and excellent aperture is a high-tech product. The cost of such optics can reach several thousand dollars. Canon has achieved the greatest success in the production of such lenses. It is her cameras and telephoto lenses that are used by about 60% of professional journalists and reporters.

Wide-angle lenses have optical distortion in the form of barrel distortion. Unfortunately, something similar is observed with telephoto lenses. The image appears to be concave in some cases. Such optical distortion called pincushion distortion. Manufacturers of modern optics are quite successfully struggling with this factor. Also, the SLR camera itself is trying to suppress distortion.

How to shoot with a telephoto lens

Telephoto lenses force the photographer to shoot at very fast shutter speeds. Otherwise, the so-called shake will be observed in the photo - blurring of moving objects. The longer the focal length, the shorter the shutter speed should be. As you understand, it is precisely because of this that telephoto lenses with a focal length over 1000 mm cannot exist. Using such optics, you would have to shoot at ultra-short shutter speeds. But with such parameters, a standard matrix simply would not have time to receive a sufficient amount of light, most of it would be lost in the lens glasses. However, modern technologies allow you to create such optics. But it makes no sense, if only because of its gigantic size.

Now, no telephoto lens is complete without an integrated image stabilization system. It allows you to slightly increase the shutter speed when shooting handheld. Some lenses are equipped with ultrasonic focusing technology. It is required for video recording. The sound of the focusing motors becomes almost inaudible in the video. This is very important in cases where the photographer does not use an external microphone, limiting himself to the built-in one.

macro telephoto

Telephoto lenses do not blur the background very much, but in a special way. Because of this, all attention is focused on the main subject of the shooting. Because of this, some telephoto lenses are even used for macro photography. In this case, you do not even need to get very close to the object being photographed. This is how some photographers shoot insects and flowers. However, a separate class of lenses has been created for macro photography.

The use of telephoto lenses for such shots has several advantages over dedicated macro lenses, which have a longer minimum focal length. The risk of disturbing the composition or the subject itself is minimized due to the fact that telephoto lenses allow photographing from a working distance of about 1 meter to the subject (for standard macro lenses it is 15 - 30 cm). In addition, due to the additional distance between the camera and the subject, the risk of camera obscuring the subject is greatly reduced, and there are more choices. the right lighting- both natural and flash.

Photo taken with a Tamron 70-300 telephoto lens

Using a telephoto lens for such high-precision work cannot be without some difficulties, so here are some tips to help you increase your chances of getting close-up shots with a telephoto lens:

• Due to the extremely short focal length, the risk of loss of sharpness due to camera vibration is higher here. Therefore, it is extremely important to use a tripod and a remote shutter release to try and minimize camera/lens movement.

• Sometimes even when using a tripod, the slightest movement of the camera can spoil the picture. Try attaching the lens using the tripod coupler directly to the tripod as you will significantly reduce the chances of it wobble. If you do not have a clutch, then it is recommended to set the shutter speed to 1 / focal length. Personally, when choosing a shutter speed to minimize the effects of jitter, I always use 1/primary focal length (i.e., multiply the focal length of the lens by the crop factor of the sensor to correct it to a focal length of 35mm).

• Consider the depth of field setting. Using marginal focal lengths at such a close distance can result in a reduction in depth of field to fractions of a millimeter. Therefore, to ensure that the subject is sharp throughout the frame, a fairly small aperture is used (there are websites and applications that will help you calculate aperture sizes).

• Make sure the subject is parallel to the sensor. If you want your entire subject to be in focus, ensure that the sensor is parallel to the subject being photographed. Note that under these conditions the range of depth of field will be limited to a few millimeters. By choosing the right position, angle, shooting angle, you will significantly increase your chances of getting a clear image.

• Set the lens to manual focus mode. If your telephoto lens has an AF/MF switch, switch it to manual focus mode and manually focus it on the subject. You may find that when focusing manually, the minimum focusing distance is reduced, allowing you to get closer to your subject, and thus be able to get more magnification.

• To increase the focal length, use a teleconverter while maintaining the same minimum distance focus. This will allow you to zoom in significantly without having to move the camera farther from the subject. Increasing the focal length will thus affect the choice of shutter speed and aperture, but as long as it is taken into account, the teleconverter can be successfully used to increase the reproduction ratio.

Comparison of budget telephoto lenses Tamron and Sigma

Review of one of the most expensive Nikon TVs

Using a telephoto lens as a portrait lens

The telephoto lens is necessary thing for any photographer. But not mandatory. Such optics are not required when working in the studio. A specialized telephoto lens is not useful even for beginner amateur photographers; instead, it is better to use a universal lens.