Photography is an art that thrives on the perfect combination of skill, creativity, and the right equipment. Among the various tools available to photographers, telephoto lenses hold a special place because of their unique capabilities. These lenses, with a focal length of 70mm or longer, are essential when the subject is far away or difficult to approach.
You have probably seen sports photographers standing on the sidelines at professional soccer matches with enormous 500mm lenses. Getting extremely close to fast-moving action is the holy grail in this type of photography.
Telephoto lenses are also extremely useful for nature photography. Wild animals are generally skittish, and getting too close can scare them away or create a safety risk. A telephoto lens helps overcome this challenge, allowing photographers to capture sharp, detailed images from a safe distance and preserve the beauty of nature in its purest form.
Telephoto lenses are also excellent for photographing virtually anything you cannot physically approach. Animals in zoos are a good example, as are subjects separated from you by a barrier such as a fence or a large body of water.
Telephoto Lenses in Smartphones
Many smartphones now feature telephoto lenses with optical zoom. Optical zoom preserves more image quality than digital zoom, which simply crops and enlarges part of the image. Thin smartphones often use ingenious lens designs, such as periscope or folded telephoto lenses, to fit a longer focal length into a relatively slim body.
Telephoto lenses are also playing an increasingly important role in recent iPhones, Samsung Galaxy models, and other high-end smartphones. Depending on the device, you may be able to zoom optically by 3x, 5x, or even more. This is useful for portraits, street photography, concerts, animals, or distant details. If you are looking for a new smartphone, consider not only its megapixel count but also the presence and quality of its telephoto camera.
If you mainly take photos with your smartphone, then when choosing a new device, pay close attention to its optical zoom, telephoto-camera quality, and low-light image processing.
Which Telephoto Lens Should You Use?
The focal length you need varies depending on the type of photography you practice. Here are some general guidelines:
Portrait Photography
Lenses with focal lengths between 85mm and 135mm are often used for portrait photography. These lenses help emphasize the subject and blur the background, contributing to attractive bokeh.
Sports and Wildlife Photography
When photographing sporting events or wild animals, lenses with longer focal lengths, such as 200–600mm, are often useful. They allow you to capture action taking place at a considerable distance without entering the field of play or disturbing the animals. If you prefer to have such an extensive range in a single fixed-lens camera, you can also consider a superzoom camera such as the Sony RX10 V.
Bird Photography
Photographing birds often requires an even longer focal length. Lenses from 400mm to 800mm are commonly used for this type of photography, allowing you to capture detailed images of birds at a great distance.
Moon and Star Photography
To photograph celestial objects such as the moon or stars, you may need a super-telephoto lens with a focal length of 600mm or longer. You might also consider a telescope, which effectively works as a very long lens.
Keep in mind that these focal lengths are only guidelines. The focal length you need may vary depending on your particular situation and creative vision.
Tripod
The telephoto lenses you see on the sidelines at professional sporting events are not only expensive but also bulky. You need a tripod that can support both the camera and the weight of the lens. Because these lenses are so large and heavy, you also need to use very fast shutter speeds to avoid camera shake caused by the lens.
A monopod or tripod can be invaluable when working with a telephoto lens. The considerable weight and length of such a lens can cause unintended hand movement while you take a photo. This can produce a less sharply focused result than you want—something you certainly want to avoid when capturing a special moment, such as your first encounter with a roe deer or red deer.
Zoom Lenses vs. Prime Lenses
The average photographer does not really need a large telephoto lens unless sports or nature photography is their passion. If you mainly photograph family events, travel often, and like to take your camera with you, you will probably find that a super-telephoto lens is not particularly practical.
Instead, choose something in the midrange—consider a 75–300mm or 55–250mm zoom lens. These lenses are reasonably affordable and offer plenty of possibilities.
However, a midrange zoom lens also comes with a few caveats.
These lenses are heavier than kit lenses, so you cannot use them at slower shutter speeds as easily. Most modern zoom lenses incorporate some form of image stabilization, which means they perform better at slower shutter speeds than their counterparts from a few decades ago, but you still need to understand their limitations.
The old rule was that you should never use a shutter speed whose denominator is lower than the lens’s focal length. For example, if you are shooting at the longest setting of a 55–250mm lens, you should avoid going slower than 1/250 second, or you may get camera shake.
That rule has changed considerably since the introduction of image stabilization. Depending on how well your camera performs, you can now often shoot a few stops slower. You will not know for certain until you run some tests, so start with the 1/focal-length rule and work backward to see how much blur appears as you use progressively slower shutter speeds.
Remember that you should still take precautions, such as holding your camera as steadily as possible during these exposures. Your test shots should reveal when you can no longer shoot handheld and need to mount the camera on a tripod instead.
Variable Apertures
While your maximum aperture may be f/4 at the widest zoom setting, it may change to f/5.6 at maximum zoom.
The reason is simple: as you extend the lens, the aperture does not technically change, but the physical distance the light must travel increases with the longer focal length, so less light ultimately reaches the camera’s sensor.
The old rule was that you should never use a shutter speed whose denominator is lower than the lens’s focal length.
Lenses with fixed focal lengths (prime lenses) are attractive if you are willing to spend more. A lens with a constant aperture has a barrel that does not become longer or shorter as you zoom, so the aperture remains the same.
Constructing a zoom lens this way requires much more material, making it considerably heavier and more expensive. It also usually comes with higher-quality glass and faster autofocus, which raises the price further. That does not mean it is not a worthwhile investment: if you discover that you enjoy telephoto photography, it is certainly not money wasted.
Prime lenses often deliver somewhat better image quality than zoom lenses because their design only needs to be optimized for one focal length. However, the larger the lens, the more expensive it becomes—and it will probably be beyond the average photographer’s budget.
Fun Facts
Telephoto lenses with a less extreme range can also be very useful for photographing people at events without getting in anyone else’s way.
Just as you can use a wide-angle lens to increase the apparent distance between objects, you can use a telephoto lens to reduce it. Suppose you are photographing a forest and want it to look denser than it really is. Stand some distance away from the forest and zoom in. Through your zoom lens, the trees will appear closer together, making the forest look much more substantial.
A telephoto lens also allows you to focus on a specific part of a landscape and isolate it from the rest of the frame. This can help emphasize a particular feature, such as a mountain peak, a single tree, or a waterfall. Telephoto lenses also minimize distortion, rendering subjects more accurately, particularly in expansive landscapes.
One advantage of telephoto lenses is their shallow depth of field. This makes it easy to separate your subject from the background, which quickly becomes blurred. You can also use a telephoto lens of up to about 135mm to photograph your children without making them too aware of—or bothered by—the presence of your camera.
While a wide-angle lens can make a person’s facial features look disproportionately large, a telephoto lens can create an almost flattening effect across the face. This is not as unflattering as the effect of a wide-angle lens on a human face, but it is important to be aware of it because it can produce a less accurate representation of that person.
Still deciding between wide-angle, standard zoom, telephoto, and macro? In Lenses for Beginners: How to Choose the Right Lens, we explain the key differences.
Conclusion
A telephoto lens is not essential for every photographer, but it is an exceptionally valuable addition when you want to bring subjects closer, create more flattering portraits, or isolate details in a scene. For many hobby photographers, an affordable midrange zoom lens is an excellent way to discover what telephoto photography can add. If sports, birds, or wildlife become a true passion, you can always upgrade to a faster or longer telephoto lens later.
