The Big Glass

Magnification
Magnification is a function of the subject’s size, its distance from the camera and the focal length of the lens used to make the photo. Using a longer lens, moving closer to the subject or choosing a larger subject will make the subject appear larger in the image frame.

Many wildlife photographers who use DSLRs and long lenses prefer “cropped-sensor” cameras to full-frame ones because the smaller sensors crop in on the image formed by the lens, producing a tighter framing than the same lens would produce on a camera with a larger sensor. For practical purposes, this is “magnification,” although technically, it’s not: A given focal length focused at a given distance produces a given magnification at the image plane. If you put a 300mm lens on a full-frame camera and focus on a moose at a certain distance, the moose’s image will be 0.5 inches high at the image plane. Since a full-frame sensor measures approximately 1×1.5 inches, the moose’s image will take up half the height of the frame. If you then put the same lens on an APS-C (1.5x) DSLR and take a photo with that camera from the same spot, the moose’s image will still be 0.5 inches high at the image plane, but the APS-C sensor measures approximately 0.6×0.9 inches, so that the 0.5-inch-high moose image will occupy nearly the entire height of the photo. For practical purposes, putting the 300mm lens on the APS-C camera effectively turns it into a 450mm, but really it doesn’t—the APS-C sensor just crops the image produced by the lens at the image plane more tightly.

Nikon AF-S 600mm ƒ/4G ED VR; Sony 300mm ƒ/2.8 G.

Perspective
It’s commonly believed that long lenses compress perspective and short ones expand it. Actually, it’s the shooting distance that determines the perspective; the focal length just determines the framing. You can prove this to yourself by putting your camera on a tripod, shooting an image with a long lens, then removing that lens, attaching a short one and shooting another shot from the same spot. Blow up the short lens shot so it covers the same field of view as the long lens shot, and you’ll see that the perspective is the same. (Perspective refers to the spatial relationships among portions of a scene: how large one object appears relative to more distant or closer ones and how far apart the objects appear to be.)

We think of “telephoto compression” because we generally use long lenses at great distance—and shooting at great distance does indeed flatten perspective. And we think of “wide-angle expansion” because we generally use short lenses at close shooting distances—and shooting at close range does indeed expand perspective. From a landscape standpoint, choose your shooting distance (when possible) to produce the desired perspective and the focal length to frame the image as desired from that distance. Of course, in landscape (and wildlife) work, shooting from a desired distance isn’t always possible, so you choose a focal length to frame, as desired, and live with the resulting perspective.

Depth Of Field
Long lenses produce less depth of field than shorter ones. This makes them great for shallow-depth-of-field selective-focus shots, but requires stopping them down when more depth of field is needed. But even stopping all the way down may not produce the desired depth of field, and stopping down increases the adverse effects of diffraction, reducing overall image sharpness. Due to the limited depth of field, when working with a long lens (especially a fast one wide open), precise focusing is imperative. (Tip: For wildlife subjects, focus on the near eye.) You’ll have to work with your long lens for a while to get a “feel” for its depth-of-field characteristics.

Canon EF 28-300mm ƒ/3.5-5.6L IS USM; Sigma 300mm ƒ/2.8 EX APO DG HSM; Tamron 200-500mm F/5-6.3 Di LD

Support
Long lenses magnify camera shake along with the image, so they’re best used atop a sturdy tripod. For landscapes and other nonmoving subjects, a ball-type tripod head is ideal because it allows you to easily position the camera as desired, then lock it there with the twist of a knob. Bird-in-flight specialists generally prefer gimbal heads, which allow you to track moving subjects while providing good support. For some photographers, a rifle-stock support such as the BushHawk is comfortable and fast to use. Besides eliminating camera shake as a source of image blur, a tripod can lock your composition in so you can study it carefully. Focus using the zoomed live-view image and you won’t accidentally alter the framing as you squeeze off the shot. A monopod is easier to carry around than a tripod and still provides much more support than handholding a long lens.

Note that since most long lenses are heavier than most camera bodies, you generally attach the lens rather than the camera body to the tripod head. Heavier long lenses come with tripod-mounting rings for this purpose.

What Do You Get For Your Money?
You can pay as little as $1,400 for a new top-brand 400mm lens or as much as $11,499 (same manufacturer, incidentally). What’s the difference?

All-Around Performance. The higher-end lenses deliver better image quality, assuming proper shooting techniques are used because they employ better optical elements and more precise production tolerances. Higher-end lenses also provide better autofocus performance, faster maximum apertures and more rugged construction, with better weather, dust and temperature resistance.

Special Elements. Aspherical elements are generally used to minimize the distortion and spherical aberration (focusing of light rays coming through the edges of the lens closer to the lens than light rays coming through the center) that plague wide-angle lens designs—especially fast wide-angle lenses—but you’ll also find them in some wide-to-telezooms to handle these problems and keep overall lens size down. One aspherical element can do the job of two or more “regular” elements. Aspherical elements aren’t needed in prime long lenses.

Multicoatings. An ideal lens element would transmit all the light that strikes it. But in reality, each element reflects a portion of the light that strikes it, and so transmission is reduced. Each glass-to-air surface in a lens does this; in a zoom lens, which might have 20 or more such surfaces, the light loss can be extreme. So better lenses employ multiple coatings on each element surface to minimize reflections and increase transmittance. Multicoatings also help provide good color characteristics, and reduce ghosting and flare. Some lenses also employ fluorine coatings, which minimize problems with dust and water, and make the front element easier to clean.