Why and when do you use teles

[luisarguelles]

I must recognize that I'm more a wide-angle user, using mainly a 20mm or 21mm, a

24mm and a 50mm. Ocasionally I use a 90mm and excepcionally, a 200mm tele lens.

I understand that for sports or safaris nothing beats a good telephoto, but in

what other occasions do you use a telephoto lens?

[leicaglow]

For fashion, and rarely for product shots, I use up to a 180mm to control depth of field and compression of the subject. An 85mm and 105mm also, but they're not that long.

[joseph_smith3]

There are many landscape shots taken with teles from 200mm to 500mm. Think of those Smoky mountain shots at sunrise and moon over mountain shots in the rockies. And those great shots of aspens in the rockies--not all taken with wide angle lenses. Joe Smith

[erik_loza]

That's a valid question, but there will be as many answers as PN members. Do you feel that there are images you have missed because you don't own longer glass? That's usually how it starts.

[frederick_muller]

Travel architecture and landscapes. When you are shooting from a vehicle, or a boat, or a ship ... the longer focal length helps you jump those pesky telephone poles / lines / shrubs / peds / cyclists that are usually very close to the road.

 

Architectural detail that is elevated ... situated above you. You can't use a shorter focal length and shoot straight up because of the distortion. Not even a T/S lens or distortion in P/S will take care of it. By backing up and shooting with a longer lens, you minimize the acute angle between the ground and your line of sight. You then have less distortion to correct.

 

Street portraiture.

 

Compressed perspective ... without a lot of digital tricks (which I don't do anyway), it's the only way to increase the apparent size of the moon or sun in relation to some object in the foreground. In my case, buildings and scenery at sunrise or sunset for example. I find the best lenses for this purpose are the more compact "cats" or catadioptric lenses.

[geoffs1]

I tend to use telephotos for most of my shots. I like the perspective compression and shallow DOF.

 

It probably doesn't hurt that there's a tele on my camera most of the time because of the distance shots that I take.

 

Having said that, one of my "wish list" items is a really WA lens (or lens/body combination); I'd really like to play with that end of the perspective spectrum too.

 

Cheers,

 

Geoff S.

[henryberkins]

ever seen a sunset photo where the sun is a huge firey ball in the sky?? only a telephoto can make the sun that big. when you use a wideangle the sun becomes a tiny little dot, same applies to the moon.

 

cropping in tight has dynamic compositional impact. alot of arcitecture/landscape users use a telephoto for cutting out exess image.

 

if you want to stack a row of something up(cars in a traffic jam, trees along a road) a telephoto is perfect. the flat persepctive really stacks repeating shapes.

 

my look on it

chris<div></div>

[greg s]

Sometime I'll use the 300mm for people photos (really want to do more of this)

 

http://www.pbase.com/coraltown/image/68981807

 

and sometimes for flower pics...

 

http://www.pbase.com/coraltown/image/60116913

 

http://www.pbase.com/coraltown/image/64104233

 

and there is always the moon...

 

http://www.photo.net/photo/3541895&size=lg

[mark_chappell]

Birds. Mammals. Lizards and snakes. Insects. Flowers. Landscapes.

[tom_jenner1]

Background compression for some plated food shots. Usually a 105/2.5.

[juan_parm_nides]

Hola Luis,

 

Tengo algunos buenos medios teles de focal fija, pero habitualmente uso un 70-200VR para retratos, pues me aporta mayor flexibilidad con un bonito bokeh. Me gusta mucho tu p᧩na. Un abrazo.

 

 

I have some medium prime teles, but I normally use a 70-200VR for portraits, it gives me a lot flexibility and a beautiful bokeh. I like yor website very much. Regards.

[janvanlaethem]

Luis,

 

Apart from the obvious perspective compression that has been pointed out above and beautifully illustrated by Chris's picture, shallow depth of field with a telelens at a wide aperture will throw everything in front of and behind your main subject out of focus. You can easily see this in portrait photography, where a tight portrait focuses all attention on your model and everything in front and behind nicely blurs.

 

Shallow depth of field also has another advantage. If your subject is behind a wire fence, for instance when shooting animals at a zoo, putting the front element of your telelens really close to the fence and selecting a wide aperture will blur the fence so it becomes almost invisible. It's like shooting through the fence without actually poking your lens through it. I haven't been able to locate any images that illustrate this.

[luisarguelles]

Thanks a lot for the excellent replies. Yes, I'm well aware that using long focal lenses is the only way to image, for example, the Moon. Please, see these images I took of the Moon some time ago:</p>

http://www.photo.net/photo/5591424&size=lg

</p>

http://www.photo.net/photo/5591426&size=lg

</p>

And here, a picture of the Sun showing a strong magnetic storm:</p>

http://www.photo.net/photo/5591429&size=lg

</p>

This one was taken with a manual focus 200mm f/4 Nikkor mounted on an Olympus-E-500:</p>

http://www.photo.net/photo/4522751&size=lg</p>

In any case, my teles see very few use. For example, my Sigma APO 300mm f/4 has taken only one or two rolls of film, but your comments are really a source of inspiration. I'll try to take some interesting images.</p>

Juan: Thank you very much for your words. It's really nice to find such a wonderful people here in the Nikon Forum.

[charles_hess2]

Being a 'people photographer', I've grown to love my Leica 75/2, and it has now become my standard lens that's on the camera most of the time. Everyone has their own style and preference, and I can say that the majority of my shots have been taken with lenses between 45-90mm. For you, wide-angle is best, and I wouldn't worry about missing a shot that might have been better with a long lens. We all miss shots that could have been better with a different lens, film, whatever.

[janvanlaethem]

Luis,

 

Your moon shots are awesome. Could you please tell us which focal length you used to be able to fill the frame?

 

I have always been more interested in wide angle to short telelenses myself. In fact, most of the shots I take are either with a 24mm, 50mm or 105mm prime. The longest lens I own is a 200mm and it sits on the shelf most of the time.

 

Thanks for posting the links to your excellent portfolio.

 

regards

 

Jan

[luisarguelles]

Hi Jan, thanks very much for your words. The solar system pictures were taken in afocal mode with a Zeiss Telementor telescope (please, see http://whuyss.tripod.com/zeiss/). That is, you focus your camera at infinity using a normal lens and 'replace' the eye at the eyepiece of the telescope with the camera and lens. While it requires some experience, results are very interesting. I've obtaned resolutions where a pixel represents 3 km on the Moon. That is, if there were a 300,000 ha. city in the Moon, it would be easily imaged.

[luisarguelles]

Oops, I forgot: The Zeiss Telementor is an 840mm f/13 optical system. I can tell that the optical quality is second to none. While its production ceased in the 90s, it can be found actually for less than 1,000$ second hand. I can't think of a better telescope for entering amateur astronomy.

[luisarguelles]

Charles, you have an excellent point there. Yes, using a given lens makes it imposible to get other interesting shots that you probably are unaware of. I think I should use a tele from time to time in order to expand the joy of taking pictures.