Be a tele addict
Long lenses provide the magnifying power you need to get close to a distant subject, and telezooms give vital flexibility...
Anything beyond the standard focal length of 50mm takes us into the territory of telephoto lenses. These magnify the subject to make it larger than the eye’s unaided view. Telephotos are the weapon of choice for wildlife and sports pros, but have a much broader use in other genres, such as landscape and portraiture.
Purely because of their length and construction, telephoto lenses are heavy, and therefore trickier to use. Fast, wideaperture prime telephotos are expensive, but offer astounding quality. Telezooms have greater flexibility, but they also come with a variable aperture; so although a lens might be f/4.5 at its short end, it will likely be f/5.6 or f/6.3 at the long end – worth noting if you are in the market for your first long zoom lens. 1 Shoot fast for action
A useful rule of thumb suggests that if you’re handholding and shooting, you should use at least a shutter speed that matches the focal length being used to avoid camera shake and get a sharp shot. So, if you are shooting at 400mm, the slowest shutter speed you should use is 1/400 sec.
While Image Stabilisation systems will help you bend this rule, it’s still valid – especially with a telephoto lens. Because it’s heavier thanks to all the internal glass, a telephoto lens is much more susceptible to you moving it during the exposure – and because the image is magnified, any mistakes are also more obvious.
If you want to err on the side of safety, doubling shutter speed is a better maxim to shoot by – so at 400mm, shoot at 1/800 sec as a starting point. Depending on your subject, of course, you might need to shoot even faster to avoid both camera shake and subject blur, but understanding how low you can go without introducing blur means you will get sharper shots.
2 The versatility factor
The 70-200mm is one of the most popular types of telephoto zoom lens. Relatively light for a long lens, the 70-200mm is easy to use and fast in focusing. Above all else, it’s the versatility of this medium telephoto lens that makes it so popular with many different types of photographers. At the shorter end, you can opt for contextual shots that include some of the surroundings; then, at the twist of the zoom ring, get in for tight close-ups.
For even greater flexibility, add a 1.4x or 2x teleconverter to a 70-200mm and you have the equivalent of a 105-300mm or a whopping 140-400mm for very little extra weight. The downside is you’ll be robbed of some light, losing one stop with a 1.4x or two stops with a 2x, but the convenience of that extra focal power is worth the compromise.