POTD: Telephoto

ELinder

ELinder

Member
I've seen threads for lenses wide open and wide angle, but I don't think I've seen one for telephoto lenses. Where should the cutoff be, around 100mm or over? The focus can be to get something very far away, or to get something close to fill the frame, or to get a unique perspective.

Erich
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Fun shots! Erich, The helicopter really adds to the first image :). Michael, I love how the animals blend in with the scenery.

I love tele shots and here is a memorable one for me from last year. Younkin Airshows Twin Beech 18 flown by Matt Younkin, son of the late and great Bobby Younkin. ;

Handheld, f/14 @ 500 mm, 1/160, ISO 200

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Here's another fun use for telephoto - zooming while snapping a long exposure (18mm to 120mm):

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Here's a long telephoto - 230mm (plus 1.5x crop factor), used for a 'candid' type street shot. ; It also let me see the funny umbrella wording and the rain falling:

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To help enhance motion blur when panning after a subject (135mm):

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Max telephoto for up-close details, and expressions (250mm):

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Getting closer to a sunset for more contrast and drama, such as these crepuscular rays at 120mm:

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500mm for a nice, big moon:

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telephoto for nice sharp crisp details on a subject with nice, soft blur backgrounds (330mm):

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Okay...Justin. ; Wow. ; I am a sucker for a sunset photo anytime and I love that one alot, but the umbrella picture made me laugh out loud. ; GREAT shots.

What I love telephoto best for, is getting shots of the kids when they are a long way off from me. ; Here's mine:



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Justin, talk about getting into the spirit of a thread!
Jason, a Beech Twin doing aerobatics? That must be a slow and graceful show.
Roni, I have a niece who hates having her picture taken by me. I have to catch her from a long way away, so the longer the lens, the better.

Erich
 
Well, starting this thread turned out to be a bit prophetic. The clouds parted, the stars aligned, and fate handed me a once in a lifetime opportunity. I now own a Nikon 300mm f/2.8 G-AFS ED-IF VR lens. I'm going to have to get used to shooting with a monopod; this thing weighs a ton! One of my first test pics.

Erich
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Having just tested a 300mm F4 G-series Minolta lens a few weeks ago, I can only imagine what a beast an F2.8 is! ; Sounds like fun though. ; Looking forward to your filling of this gallery with some examples!

I had a wonderful close flyby of a great egret on Saturday - I was at 460mm (690mm 35mm-equiv) on my big Tammy, and fired off some 5fps burst as it went by...I was dialed in for -.7EV to meter the all-white bird in bright sunlight. ; Got a nice sequence out of it:

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great stuff all. here is 2 with the tamron 200-500 at full zoom. no cropping except for 1.5 sensor crop. from the Forsythe Wildlife Refuge in Galloway NJ

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Justin, that is a nice sequence. But I have to ask, how is the color on your monitor? On mine, the bird is a dull gray, but you said it was bright sunshine on a white bird. I'm wondering if I need to calibrate this laptop display.

Erich
 
No...sounds about right. ; As it is underexposed to save detail, it comes off on a temperature measurement at a grey tone below pure white (255 255 255 0). ; I avoid pure white in most photos as there is zero detail remaining - a few points of it are OK, but on an all white bird like that, too much pure white means no feather detail. ; It could be a little brighter, but I was too lazy to go messing with it in post processing!

Also, that is a significant resize from the original, and the one posted here a pretty low res version at that.
 
from AK

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Congrats Erich on a sweet lens!

Here are 2 favorite shots of mine last year. One from Pixelmania and one from Tyndall.

f/2.8 @ 300 mm, 1/640, ISO 1600, No Flash, handheld
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f/4.0 @ 500 mm, 1/2000, ISO 320, No Flash, handheld
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How is Disney about bringing big glass into the parks? Any gotchas I should look out for?

Next month I'll probably have sore arms from lugging this thing around: shuttle launch, Sun-n-Fun, and Disney.

Erich
 
I think WDW is much better than DL for big glass. ; I believe Zeagle brought in a 300/2.8.

I brought a 300/2.8 to DL 10 years ago. ; And had to convince the Fantasmic! stage manager to let me use it.
 
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