Why Use a Telephoto Lens
Old Snapping Turtle
Why use a telephoto lens? The obvious answer is to photograph far-away subjects, wildlife, for example. There are other, less obvious uses. One is to use a telephoto to isolate a subject and eliminate unwanted objects from the photo. Oh, and another reason to use a telephoto lens is to stay out of harm’s way. This ugly brute might have snapped off a finger if I had gotten too close.
The following pair of photographs I took during a snowstorm on a mountain road near Santa Fe, New Mexico. I used a telephoto to isolate one pine tree on the distant mountainside. It is the tree near the center of the photo on the left that I took without a telephoto.
The trees in the foreground are too intrusive in the first photograph. When I shot it, the tree on the end of the headland in the second photo was still hidden by a rain squall. When the squall moved farther downstream, I noticed the tree and used a telephoto to eliminate the foreground trees and zoom in on the lone tree.
I was interested in the church in the foreground of the first photo in which the church competes for attention with a lot of other stuff. I used a telephoto to eliminate all that distracting stuff
Here, I wanted to eliminate the dark, featureless foliage that occupies too much of the foreground in the first photo. so I used my telephoto.
Recently, I photographed a sunset. I almost always use a wide-angle lens to shoot sunsets to capture as much of the sky, clouds, and light as possible. This sunset didn’t fill much of the sky. Only a narrow band above the horizon was interesting. I used a telephoto lens to focus on the band and eliminate from the photo the cloudless sky above the band of interest.
This pair of photos is of Little Plum Lutheran Church in Wisconsin. I used a telephoto to focus on the church; the photos’ main subject.
