Improve Your Photography FAST with a TELEPHOTO Lens!

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In this week’s episode, we discus how you can improve your photography fast with a telephoto lens. While wide angle lenses are synonymous with landscape photography, they're actually rather limiting with what you can do with them. You can either capture grand sweeping vistas or exaggerate elements in your foreground, but outside of that you're sort of stuck! In this video, I'll share with you how you can improve your photography fast by maximizing the versatility and forgiveness of a telephoto lens, which in all honesty, might be the most important lens for landscape photographers. I hope you enjoy this week's video and as always thanks so much for watching! - Mark D.

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**LETS CONNECT**

[MarkDenneyPhoto]

⭐QUESTION: What's your most used lens?

[jremi]

I knew about that but Mark explains it so clearly and his examples are so good that he convinced me I should always have my telephoto lens with me when doing landscape photography. It could turn an otherwise unproductive session into a great one filled with gems. A single wide angle shot could be a source of multiple beautiful photos.

[JanieP]

Thanks Mark! You just saved my husband about $3000.00! I can’t wait to tell him!!! I recently changed over to mirrorless and I was going to buy a new Nikon wide angle Z lens for our upcoming trip to Jasper and Banff. But, I like your suggestion of using my existing 70-200mm telephoto in a vertical orientation to create a pano! Thanks a bunch!! Keep up the creative photography! 🙌🏻

[Cocandre]

I like to have clear subjects in my pictures, and that's why I never really liked landscapes as usually there is way too much going on. First time I tried telephoto for landscape I was asking myself if it was even legal to do it, and got amazing results (to me) !

[RobZ]

As a landscape photographer, sometimes I need to make the choice as to which lenses to carry. Unfortunately, the 100-400 doesn't come with me as often as it should. And if I do take it, I usually opt to leave the 16-35 at home.

BUT, the 24-70 and 70-200 is always in the bag... and panos are fantastic!!

Great video and advice, as always!!

[bonenyamom]

I really only use 2 lenses for landscapes. 16-35mm f/4 and 70-200mm f/2.8. However, I have occasionally used a 200-500mm f/5.6 for some trees and mountains way off in the distance.

[jasoneldridgephotography]

My most used is 100-400 for landscape photography. Occasionally I’ll use the 14-24 but most of the time it’s the long lens. Great topic!

[yomismo]

I agree with you! I have some nice wide angle lenses, including an 11-24mm f/4, but I love using my long lenses, I love making vertical panoramas with them.

[aprods]

This video resonates so much... I realized only not long ago that my 70-200 is my favorite landscape lens. I also tested the RF 100-500 a couple of time and it'll be my next purchase. I'm so happy you addressed this as it kind of confirms what I was feeling for some time but wasn't sure I was thinking and seeing straight! 🙏🏻👍🏻

[ShoesPhoto]

My next obsession for mountain ranges, pano's with my telephoto. Thank you for the advice!!!

[lawrencehorowitz]

I have the Fuji 55-200 that I use primarily for sports and events. Your video has encouraged me to think about using it for my nature photography. Thanks.

[brandonmjohnsonphotography]

Fantastic video! 70-200 is my favorite. I've taken some of my favorite shots with it.

[HR-wdcw]

I rented a full frame 70-200 for my last trip, and while I traditionally had shot wide angle a good portion of the time, I immediately fell in low with the different compositions (from one location/scene) that a 70-200 or just a long telephoto can provide you. The wide angle is good, but it many times will include too much perhaps when you don't want to, and something like a 70-200 or even a 100-400 or 50mm-?? will give you the flexibility to shoot more telephoto and pick out scenes within a scene basically.

For the pano thing, I would say even if you have a 50 or 85mm lens, those could work as well (you don't need a 100-400 or 70-200 but the more zoomed in you are, the bigger the elements will appear and the more compression, but a 50 or 85 will work as well as distortion is minimized and maybe even nearly non-existant by about 85-100mm, which you want to avoid distortion and why many people won't use anything wider than say 50mm for panos). I would say if you are going to shoot a pano, try to shoot it vertically as you may lose some pixels in the top and bottom as a result of stitching them together and then cropping out gaps (or you could use AI to fill in the gaps, but I generally try to shoot mine vertically so I have spare pixels to throw away, particularly at the top -- it takes more shots to get the same pano, but I think -- in my experience -- the quality of the pano when merged may be slightly better than horizontally with less pixels that you can throw out).

[keithwcaselman]

I agree, I keep putting my 100-400 Sigma back on to when the subject is miles away. Sure, the 30mm is great in low light and when you are close to the subject, but when it's a mile or more away, nothing beats a zoom. I love the way a pano looks from a zoom also. I have a pano of Palo Duro Canyon State Park that looks amazing because of the compression.

[RGP_WA]

Thanks Mark. Good reminder why I love my Sony 100-400 lens!

[dronepilotcontractors]

I have a 60-600mm Sigma on order and you have giving me some great use cases other than just birds!

[davesusko]

I have a small camera bag and need to have a lens attached to the body for everything to fit. I almost always have my telephoto attached. If anything, while driving of walking out to a shooting location, the "hey look at that" photo op (wild life, developing dramatic light, etc.) is typically a telephoto shot. If I come across something that is better suited for a wide angle, it usually takes some moving around/composing and the comparative effort to switch a lens is minimal.

[RussRead]

Another excellent video. I use my 70-200 and even the 200-600 quite a bit for my landscape work here in the Pacific Northwest. I'm often shooting across Puget Sound, or across lakes and valleys, and the isolation and "lens compression" work very well. 

I also love the old Sony Walkman there on your desk. I had that same model that traveled around the planet with me back in the 80s.

[rlfisher]

It's true! Getting unstuck from solely my wide-angle lens has yielded some compelling images.

[stephenschmid]

Thanks, Mark. I haven't used the vertical panorama technique very much. This is a good reminder to start doing it!