Using telephoto lens in photography

How do wildlife photographers get their shots of massive lions on the savannah, or cheetahs resting in trees? Do they walk right up (or climb right up) and point the camera right in the animal’s face? Of course they don’t; they simply employ a technology known as a telephoto lens. 

Telephoto lenses are incredibly popular among both amateur and professional photographers. They’re useful in a variety of situations and can help you take your photography to the next level. But what is a telephoto lens? A telephoto lens has a long reach, allowing you to photograph a subject that is far away or magnifying the subject in your frame. Generally, a lens is considered “telephoto” if it has a focal length of 60mm or longer. 

Many people confuse telephoto lenses with zoom lenses but they are actually different things. A telephoto lens can be—but does not necessarily have to be—a zoom lens. Telephotos come in a variety of focal lengths from “medium telephoto” (generally 70-200mm) and “super telephoto” (longer than 300mm) and they can be either zoom or prime lenses. It doesn’t matter whether the lens zooms—what matters is how long the focal length is.

What Is a Telephoto Lens?

A telephoto lens is a long-focus lens that allows photographers to utilize a focal length that is in fact shorter than the lens’ physical length. A telephoto lens will attach to the camera body of your SLR or DSLR camera, such as those manufactured by Canon, Nikon, and other leading brands. Some telephoto lenses can even be attached to a smartphone camera.

Uses of Telephoto Lenses

Here are some of the reasons photographers love telephoto lenses so much:

1. Telephotos Make Subjects Appear Closer to the Camera

This is the most obvious reason to use a telephoto lens and why most beginners consider getting one. A telephoto lens will allow you to take photos of subjects that are farther away. This comes in handy when you are taking photos of things that you can’t, or don’t want to, get close to. Having more distance between you and your subject can help some people feel more at ease in front of the camera. Taking photos of a soccer game from the sidelines? A telephoto lens will get you closer to the action. Want to take a picture of dangerous wildlife from the safety of your car? A telephoto lens will let you do it.

Telephotos also help improve the visual relationship between a subject and its environment by creating the appearance of a kind of compression effect that is similar to how our brains see object-to-background relationships. Mountain ranges that appear to be sitting practically right on top of a cityscape are better visually translated with telephotos than with wide angles. Simply put, telephoto lenses open up your photographic possibilities by making far away objects appear closer to the camera.

2. Telephotos Help Emphasize Blurred Backgrounds

If you’ve ever seen a photo where the subject is in focus but the background is blurred and wondered how that effect was achieved, the answer is often with a telephoto lens. This use is especially common in portrait photography. The way to achieve this look is to shoot with a long lens and the widest aperture available. For example, a 70-200mm telephoto lens shot at 200m with an aperture of f/2.8 will isolate your subject against a beautiful, creamy background. 

Generally speaking, the longer the lens and the wider the aperture, the more of this effect you get. This actually has very little to do with the lens itself and everything to do with the distance from which you shoot your subject. Longer lenses allow you to shoot your subjects from farther away, thus perceptually shrinking the subject in the foreground while the background stays the same size.

3. Telephotos are Excellent at Creating Flattering Portraits

One of the benefits of telephoto lenses for portrait work is that these lenses often have the effect of creating very flattering portraits of people. The distance between the camera and the subject impacts how close objects will appear in the frame and how they will look in comparison to each other.

As you shoot at longer focal lengths, the subject that is in the foreground of the frame will appear to get smaller relative to what is happening in the background. This effect can also make facial features appear to be more proportional. Add to that the beautiful bokeh from shooting with a long lens and you have a great tool for portrait photography.

What Are the Different Types of Telephoto Lenses?

Most telephoto lenses range from “medium” (with a focal length between 70 and 200mm) all the way up to “super telephoto” (with focal lengths longer than 300mm). Such lenses can either subtly or dramatically change your camera’s field of view, permitting full frame photography in a wide array of shutter speeds and f-stop numbers—from rapid action shots in full light to nighttime photos set at the lens’s maximum aperture. Here are some popular telephoto lenses within this range:

• 70–200mm lenses are able to zoom to any focal length within the stated range. These are great for portrait photography, with a sharp subject and a pleasing bokeh blur effect in the background. Meanwhile, on the outer edge of their range, these lenses work for long-distance event shots, like at a wedding or a sporting event.
• 100–400mm lenses are also zooms, and they push their boundaries beyond what the 70–200mm lens can offer. Sports and wildlife photographers value these lenses’ long range and handy ability to zoom.
• 85mm prime lenses have a shallow depth of field, so they are great for portraits with sharp foreground subjects and blurred backgrounds. Today’s digital cameras and phones frequently offer a “portrait mode” that mimics the effect of an 85mm prime lens.
• 135mm prime lenses have the same shallow depth of field as 85mm prime lenses, only at greater distances. They’re used for portraits, weddings/events, and more artistic experimental photography.
• Super telephoto prime lenses usually start at around 600mm and are favored by wildlife photographers who take many shots of faraway animal subjects. These long lens photographs are often characterized by an extremely shallow depth of field.

A wide array of lenses are available from premium camera manufacturers like Canon, Sigma, and Nikon.

Tips for Using a Telephoto Lens

There are three great ways to get the most out of your telephoto lens-

1. Use a telephoto lens to show accurate scale in your photographs. Unlike a wide-angle lens, which can alter dimensional perspective, a properly-used telephoto lens can represent all components of a photo in their actual sizes.
2. Use long focal lengths for an exaggerated depth of field; use shorter lengths for balanced sharpness between the foreground and background of your photograph.
3. Beware of camera shake. While telephoto lenses magnify the best parts of your photography, they equally magnify the worst parts. So be sure your shaky camera technique isn’t exaggerated by a telephoto lens. Get your technique right first, and then start playing with telephoto technology.