Telephotos For Landscapes

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Most people think of wide-angles when they think of landscape photography, and much landscape work is, indeed, done with them. But, perhaps for that very reason, you might want to try some telephoto landscapes, as well: By virtue of their relative rarity, tele-landscapes are different.

Tamron SP 70-300mm ƒ/4-5.6 Di VC USD

Long lenses isolate small, distant portions of a scene, and in the process, flatten perspective. These two aspects are so different from the wide-angle grand vistas that they tend to stand out from the crowd (assuming they’re good photos, of course—light, composition and detail are important no matter what lens you use, or what your subject matter is). Using a long lens for landscapes requires different thinking—and that can be refreshing in the field, as well as for the viewers of the images.

So, what is a telephoto lens? Well, in common use, it’s any lens much longer than a camera’s normal lens. Actually, telephoto refers to a specific optical design, in which the physical length of the lens is shorter than the focal length. But, most folks think of any long lens as a “telephoto,” and we’ll go along with that here.

For our purposes, telephotos start at twice the “normal” focal length for the camera. For a “full-frame” digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) or 35mm single-lens reflex (SLR), 50mm is the “normal” lens, so telephoto starts at 100mm. For Advanced Photo System, type C (APS-C), a “normal” lens is about 33mm, so telephoto begins at 67mm. For Four Thirds System sensors (and Micro Four Thirds mirrorless cameras, which use the same-size sensors), normal is around 25mm, so telephoto starts at 50mm.

We also put a long limit here for landscapes—you can shoot landscapes with any lens, of course, but lenses much longer than 300mm for a full-frame camera (200mm for an APS-C model and 150mm for Four Thirds/Micro Four Thirds) generally produce landscape images so different that they start to fall into the “abstract” realm rather than the “pictorial” realm. So, use whatever lens you want for your landscapes, but here we’ll consider full-frame lenses in the 100-300mm range, APS-C lenses in the 67-200mm range and Four Thirds lenses in the 50-150mm range.

Sigma 150-500mm ƒ/5-6.3 DG OS HSM APO; Sony 70-400mm ƒ/4-5.6 G Alpha A-Mount Telephoto Zoom Telephotos For Wildlife The main thing outdoor photographers use long lenses for is wildlife, of course, because they “bring the subject to you.” A long lens lets you fill the frame with wild subjects that won’t let you approach closely. Pro and big-budget amateur bird/wildlife shooters use 500mm ƒ/4, 600mm ƒ/4 and even 800mm ƒ/5.6 lenses, which start above $5,000 and go well past $10,000. More affordable options include telephoto zooms (Canon 100-400mm, Nikon 80-400mm, Sigma 150-500mm, Sony 70-400mm, Tamron 200-500mm, for example, all of which sell for less than $2,000) and slower moderate telephotos (Canon, Nikon and Pentax 300mm ƒ/4, Canon 400mm ƒ/5.6—also for less than $2,000—for example).

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While super telephoto lenses have relatively long minimum focusing distance, many of the lenses in our range can focus fairly close, providing the user with two ways to make “different” landscape images—to explore the whole other worlds of macro and telephoto. You can use the telephoto lens to isolate and compress distant portions of the scene or, to zero in on close portions for more image possibilities. Many such lenses are great for flower shots and even large insects. Some of the lenses in our chart are, in fact, true “1:1” macro lenses.

Different Nature
Wildlife photographers use long lenses—the longer and the faster, the better. Longer lenses provide bigger images of hard-to-approach subjects, while fast lenses permit using faster shutter speeds to minimize blur and lower ISOs to maximize image quality. But such lenses are big, heavy brutes and not easy to carry far afield.

Landscape shooters generally stop down to increase depth of field, so a fast maximum aperture isn’t necessary; they can make do with slower, smaller and lighter lenses that are easier to carry deep into tough terrain: a 70-200mm ƒ/4 rather than a 70-200mm ƒ/2.8, for example.

Slower lenses also generally take smaller filters, which cost less than larger filters and take up less space in the camera bag. Wildlife photographers also demand quick, accurate autofocus (AF) performance—never a bad thing, but not as important to landscape shooters, who often focus manually.

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Used at a given distance and aperture, long lenses produce less depth of field than shorter ones. Really long lenses provide minimal depth of field, even when stopped down. And stopping down too far will reduce image quality due to diffraction. So, while bird-in-flight photographers often shoot wide-open, or stopped down a stop or so, from there to get the fastest possible shutter speeds, long-lens landscape photographers usually use intermediate apertures as a good compromise between depth of field and diffraction blurring. Intermediate apertures with a long lens let you focus attention of a sharply-focused plane in the scene, while keeping nearby planes identifiable sharp. Ultimately, the aperture you use is up to your vision—if you need more depth of field, maybe it’s worth the loss of definition to diffraction effects when stopping way down, maybe it’s not.

Telephoto Tech
While wide-angle lenses are prone to a wide range of aberrations, distortions, vignetting and more, long lenses suffer mainly from chromatic aberrations. So, wide-angle lenses generally need more elements, including some aspherical ones, to correct distortions and non-color aberrations, along with low-dispersion and extra-low dispersion ones to correct chromatic aberrations.

Telephoto lenses generally don’t suffer from most of the wide-angle problems and thus, contain fewer elements and no aspherical ones, (except telezooms, which include shorter focal lengths).

All in all, newer telephoto lenses generally produce better results with today’s high-megapixel digital cameras than older lenses (which were designed for use with film), and telephotos with low- and extra-low dispersion elements—with such acronyms as extra-low dispersion (ED), extraordinary-low dispersion (ELD), FL, SLD, UD and DO—provide better results than those without.

Image Stabilization: Is It For You? Nikon 70-300mm ƒ/4.5-5.6G ED IF AF-S VR Zoom Short answer: Yes, if you shoot handheld. No, if you always use a tripod. Image stabilization in camera bodies and lenses helps you get sharper handheld images, and if you prefer to shoot landscapes handheld, you should opt for it. Some manufacturers use sensor-shift stabilization in their DSLR bodies (Pentax, Olympus and Sony, for example), while others provide optical stabilization in certain lenses (Canon, Nikon, Sigma, and soon, Tokina). Canon EF 70-200mm ƒ/2.8L IS II USM In-body stabilization has the advantage of working with any lens you use on the camera; in-lens stabilization has the advantage of stabilizing the viewfinder image, as well as the recorded one. If you use Live View mode, the live image will be stabilized with either type of stabilization. It’s best to shoot landscapes from a tripod, though, because a tripod can hold the camera steadier than we can (even with stabilization) and will lock your composition in place, so you can carefully examine it and it won’t accidentally change as you squeeze off the shot.

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Do-It-All Zooms Tamron 28-300 XR Di VC LD As you can see in the accompanying chart, there are a number of wide-range “superzoom” lenses that include our focal lengths. These offer the advantages of providing focal lengths from wide-angle to telephoto in a single package, minimal bulk and at relatively low cost. Their main drawback is that they aren’t quite as sharp as shorter-range zooms or prime lenses—trying to correct all aberrations, distortions and vignetting at a wide range of focal lengths is quite an engineering challenge. But, if you want to travel really light or have a very limited lens budget, a superzoom can be just what you need.

Mirror Lenses Pro-Optic 500 ƒ/6.3 mirror lens The Pro-Optic mirror lenses provide an economical way to experiment with “compressed” long, focal-length landscapes. Really long lenses “zero in” on a small, very distant portion of a scene, producing images in which objects are squeezed together—a definitely different landscape look. While conventional refracting long lenses are costly, the Pro-Optic mirror lenses (500mm ƒ/6.3, 800mm ƒ/8 and a 1000mm ƒ/11 kit consisting of a 500mm lens and 2x converter) sell for just $99.95 to $224.95 (available from Adorama). Besides being less costly than conventional telephotos, mirror lenses are also much more compact and easier to cart into the field. Mirror lenses are also less sharp than refracting telephotos and turn out-of-focus highlights into rings rather than disks—some like the effect, some don’t. But, the price certainly is right, and long lenses let you produce landscapes with a different look.