You can use telephoto or super telephoto lenses with your digital SLR (Single Lens Reflex) camera body. Telephoto lenses have much longer focal lengths than standard lenses. Fixed telephoto lenses often have focal lengths up to 200mm, and super telephoto lenses often go up to 60mm. Telephoto zoom lenses can have focal length ranges from 80mm to 400mm, allowing greater flexibility. These long focal lengths give the lenses a narrow perspective, meaning you can focus on your subject and eliminate distracting background information. The long focal length also gives these lenses lower depth of field, meaning less of the image will appear in focus.
Instructions
1. Familiarize yourself with your camera's basic functions before you try shooting with the telephoto lens. Practice with a standard lens if you have one. Once you feel comfortable with the camera's operations, you are ready to begin working with the telephoto lens.
2. Attach the telephoto lens to your camera body. Hold the lens firmly in your dominant hand and align it using the matching, guiding dots on both the lens and camera body. Then rotate the lens to lock it in place. You should hear a clicking sound as it locks. If you replace the telephoto lens with another lens while you're out shooting, store the lens securely in a camera bag.
3. Open the camera's aperture to its widest setting (i.e., use your smallest f-stop number) if you wish to minimize depth of field. The low depth of field will isolate your subject against a blurred background, focusing the viewer's attention on the subject only. A wide aperture setting will also allow you to use a shutter speed fast enough to eliminate camera shake.
4. Close the camera's aperture to its smallest setting if you wish to maximize depth of field and place more of the image's foreground or background in focus. You will not be able to achieve high depth of field with a telephoto lens, but you can increase it by reducing the aperture. You will have to use a slower shutter speed to achieve the correct exposure with a smaller aperture.
5. Use a tripod to minimize camera movement and unwanted blur. Close-up photographs will call attention to any accidental camera shake. A tripod will help you achieve images with maximum sharpness.
6. Set your digital camera's sensor to a high sensitivity number. Higher sensitivity will enable you to make appropriate exposures with shorter shutter speeds, which will help you to maximize image sharpness.
Tags: depth field, camera body, focal lengths, telephoto lens, telephoto lenses, with telephoto
