Long Lens
25th November 2018
Long Lens
Many landscape photographers espouse the virtues of using the long lens. It is great tool to keep the scene simple and uncluttered. The long lens allows the photographer to focus-in onto a very specific element of the landscape. This maybe to ensure a very interesting looking tree, bathed in golden sunlight, becomes the main subject of an image; or it might be the case where zooming onto a rock, that sits in midstream is seen surrounded by a cascade of flowing water, or to pick out distant peaks covered in snow.
In fact there are many reasons and potential images made available by using a long lens, especially as the use allows the photographer to compose an image that would be difficult to access if using a wide angle. The photographer can be on the opposite side of a valley or stream, or perched on a hillock, far across a wide, flood plain, picking out the swirling mist that flows around distant peaks. All of this can be achieved with relative safety and comfort.
I also use a long (ish) lens, however every time I use it I feel I am losing something fundamental to both the image and the experience. Some of this might be in the quality of the image, as my lens is not the best, but the main reason is more about the loss of feeling and sense of place. When I am targeting a composition on a distant hill, standing far removed across the valley I have a profound sense that I am ‘not there’. There is a lack of intimacy and engagement with my immediate environment and the image I am endeavouring to capture. For some strange (and probably silly) reason I feel detached from the place I am observing to the image that is revealed in the back of my camera. It feels false and, in this age of virtual reality and computer generated scenes, etc, as if I am not actually ‘there’!
This is in no way a criticism of others who use this technique, as I admire their images, in fact I often wish I could do the same. That said, however much I admire these photos, I still need to be closer, so I can be immersed and be an actual part of the images story. I need to stand in the water, be sprayed by the waterfall, feel the stones digging into my knees as I huddle over the camera. I need to be able to almost reach out and touch parts of my image, otherwise I feel I have no relationship with the picture and it's subject.
Many landscape photographers espouse the virtues of using the long lens. It is great tool to keep the scene simple and uncluttered. The long lens allows the photographer to focus-in onto a very specific element of the landscape. This maybe to ensure a very interesting looking tree, bathed in golden sunlight, becomes the main subject of an image; or it might be the case where zooming onto a rock, that sits in midstream is seen surrounded by a cascade of flowing water, or to pick out distant peaks covered in snow.
In fact there are many reasons and potential images made available by using a long lens, especially as the use allows the photographer to compose an image that would be difficult to access if using a wide angle. The photographer can be on the opposite side of a valley or stream, or perched on a hillock, far across a wide, flood plain, picking out the swirling mist that flows around distant peaks. All of this can be achieved with relative safety and comfort.
I also use a long (ish) lens, however every time I use it I feel I am losing something fundamental to both the image and the experience. Some of this might be in the quality of the image, as my lens is not the best, but the main reason is more about the loss of feeling and sense of place. When I am targeting a composition on a distant hill, standing far removed across the valley I have a profound sense that I am ‘not there’. There is a lack of intimacy and engagement with my immediate environment and the image I am endeavouring to capture. For some strange (and probably silly) reason I feel detached from the place I am observing to the image that is revealed in the back of my camera. It feels false and, in this age of virtual reality and computer generated scenes, etc, as if I am not actually ‘there’!
This is in no way a criticism of others who use this technique, as I admire their images, in fact I often wish I could do the same. That said, however much I admire these photos, I still need to be closer, so I can be immersed and be an actual part of the images story. I need to stand in the water, be sprayed by the waterfall, feel the stones digging into my knees as I huddle over the camera. I need to be able to almost reach out and touch parts of my image, otherwise I feel I have no relationship with the picture and it's subject.