We are in Lock Down again. what is a photographer to do? There are of course opportunities for indoor photography, and garden photography but the weather is not great and on cold wet grey days it is much nicer to stay in the warm. I find that when it is tricky to get out I can continue learning by reviewing my pictures. Such a review needs some constraints, so I decided to review my Long Lens photos. This is my summer lens really because I like to try and photograph butterflies and flowers with it. So what have I been doing with my 55 - 300 mm lens?
My long lens is one of the reasons that I really like my crop-frame Nikon SLR camera. I have been chasing butterflies with it for three years now and this year was particularly productive in July. Pretty Peacock is an example - taken in the local woods at a focal length of 300 mm it illustrates the detail that can be captured but also the constraints of the narrow depth of field. The trick I have found is to focus on the head - in this case that also picks up the surprisingly hairy body. The tips of the wings are just going out of focus and the foliage behind is completely out of focus creating some Bokeh i.e. out of focus blur.
What else can you do? So apart from my many pictures of butterflies and flowers, what else do I have? I rarely intentionally shoot landscape or woodland with the long lens. Sometimes however that is the lens I have when I spot a picture, in which case I often zoom to the widest setting of 55 mm (the same as the long end of my everyday 55-18 mm lens) to get in as much as possible. Using the widest setting doesn't utilise the key aspects of the longer lens so I have discounted those pictures for this survey.
My earliest intentional Long Lens view is Ludlow Roofs, shot in March 2019 at 180 mm. A great appeal of Ludlow is that you can stand on the hill one side of the river and view the castle and market town on the other side of the river.
Ludlow Roofs illustrates two key properties of the long lens. Firstly it seems to pull the subject towards us; this church was a very long way away - across the river and half the town. Secondly the lens appears to compress perspective - all those roofs appear like playing cards, one on top of the other. These aspects give the picture an interesting look.
Three months later in June 2019 we were on holiday in Northumberland and I took High and Dry. This picture frustrates me now because I would be happier if the boat was more to the left. I guess I was snapping the object rather than making a picture. The focal length of 72 mm allows us to clearly see this object which was in the middle of a large muddy estuary. The lens has brought the subject to us. The trees in the background are slightly out of focus but the focus of our attention is the boat. Having said that, what makes this picture work is that is portrays that estuary feeling. For that the boat needs the context of the land around it, and the long lens pulls the far shore towards us so that the boat is not lost in the scenery.
Six months further on, in December 2019, I was back in Ludlow. This picture of the castle has been taken at a focal length of 105 mm with more consideration for the composition. The tower is framed by the two trees. A foreground tree partly stands out against the shadow next to the tower and the light from the right helps define the shape of the tower. The river is between us and the castle and there is another tower to the left but these are intentionally left out of the picture. A small subset of objects has been selected for the image which simplifies it and invites us to explore the detail. The long lens has pulled that back tree up next to the tower and flattened the slope below the castle. The side light gives some shape to what would otherwise be a very flat picture.
Speeding forward again to July 2020 at around the time that I took Pretty Peacock I also took the picture Forest Light. This takes my Long Lens photography a step forward because more than previous pictures it makes something out of nothing.
I like this picture. I was walking through a stand of conifers moving from one butterfly hotspot to another. I had my long lens on the camera and I spotted the light. I took a number of shots, probably having to move backwards away from the subject to fit it in, but still at 78 mm. Even at ISO 800 I had a slow shutter speed of 1/80 sec. It was very dark in the woods. By using the long lens I have kept the trees straight and tall. The sunlit leaves in the clearing are pulled towards us and provide a backdrop to the dark tree trunks. I have another picture with more of the forest floor but I prefer this version as the trees have more height and it accentuates the length of the tree trunks - they are like long legs. To take this with a shorter focal length would I think bring in more trees and possibly distort them, losing this simplicity.
It is interesting to note that this picture is only possible because a tree has been chopped down - you can see the tree stump at the bottom of the picture. In general conifer stands are not made to be photogenic. I have since been back to recreate this picture but I have never found the light again.
I took this last picture in October while we were on holiday in Yorkshire. At 65 mm it only just counts as long but is does utilise the long lens characteristic of compressing the perspective.
As we completed a walk near Malham Tarn I had my eye on the tree silhouetted against the sky. I had the long lens on because I know that to bring these silhouettes out of the landscape you need to cut out everything else and the narrow angle of view created by the long lens does just that. Then we came upon this collapsed section of wall and I liked the S-shape created by this wall and another one going up to the tree. The light is a bit odd in this picture but I like the combination of compositional components. It was taken with consideration for my position relative to the subjects and the use of the long lens.
In conclusion, I still have much to learn about using the long lens but I am beginning to see possibilities beyond butterflies and flowers. You can use the long lens for landscape if you are considerate of depth of field and you don’t simply switch to another lens because you ‘can’t get it all in’. The long lens is good for pulling vignettes out of the landscape. Perhaps I should sometimes just take the long lens when I go out.