Taiwanese Rock Monkey in a central Taiwan forest. Shot @ 200mm
I know that I’m not alone when I say that one of the very first extra lenses I wanted was a telephoto. Unlike today, when I was first starting out, I wanted to go long. These days, my longest lens is a 70-200mm and most of my time is spent shooting at wide angles or portrait lengths.
A telephoto lens enables you to photograph things that are way off in the distance. Moving closer to the subject with a normal lens can keep the subject’s appearance the same size but a telephoto adds a compressed perspective to the photo. Simply put, there’s less separation of elements in the image with a telephoto.
With a wide angle, it’s easy to work free hand (handheld) but the longer focal length of a telephoto often means you’ll need a tripod to ensure the image is sharp. Modern IS/VR lenses do help but tripods are best. Using the 1/focal length rule, a 200mm lens needs a shutter speed of at least 1/250 and even then, you’ll want to brace yourself, possibly by leaning against a wall for extra stability, or holding your elbows in tightly against your body.
As mentioned earlier, a telephoto is great for capturing images of things in the distance. Wildlife and sports shooters in particular will often be found with super-telephotos of 500mm or more.
Portraits can also look great when shot with a telephoto. The “classic” portrait length is in the short telephoto range of about 85mm to 135mm, but even out as far as 200mm, a telephoto can make a good portrait lens. Of course, having a bazooka-sized lens pointed at you makes many subjects a little nervous, so try not to intimidate too much.
If you don’t have a great need for a telephoto, or the budget for one, you could try using a teleconverter. Coming in 1.4x and 2x, these add a multiplying effect to your lens at the cost of a stop or two of usability.
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