What You Always Wanted To Know About Super Telephoto Lenses (And Were Afraid To Ask)

The chance to get closer artificially to something through a telephoto I have always found it fascinating, almost magical. Being able to transform a point in the distance into the beautiful image of a little bird on a branch, or being able to capture details and close-ups at dizzying distances, never ceases to amaze me.

All this is possible thanks to those lenses so light (note the irony) that we see wildlife photographers or paparazzi 😉 and that allow us to obtain images of elements that are many meters away without having to get close to them.

What is a super telephoto lens?

We consider that a telephoto lens happens to be super Telephoto, when it has a focal length equal to or greater than 200mm.

Although there are telephoto lenses that reach a focal length of 1,200mm (such as the Canon brand, which weighs almost 4kg, and is valued at $120,000), the most common is to speak of super telephoto lenses (also known as long telephoto lenses) with a focal length between 200mm and 600mm.

These are the most used telephoto lenses, the ones with the greatest variety and the lowest prices. affordableso it will be approximately these focal ranges that I am going to talk to you about today.

Main features of telephoto lenses

Each focal length is associated with particular characteristics, not only depending on what they are capable of bringing us closer or further away from what we want to photograph, but also other aspects such as the angle they cover, distortion, depth of field or the distance between the different planes of an image.

Vision angle

is the scene portion that the lens is capable of capturing but measure in degrees. A wide angle, for example, is capable of capturing a wide angle of view (around 60º-100º depending on the exact focal length).

Instead, a telephoto captures much less of the scene (smaller angle of view). As you can see in the graph below, it gets smaller as we increase the focal length.

In long telephoto lenses we speak of an angle of vision that is between 2º and 10º, which means that we practically have no angle or, what is the same, that we will achieve close shots or close-ups at long distances.

depth of field

Super telephoto lenses are also characterized by having a very shallow depth of field which, translated into the image, means that the background of what we are photographing will always come out unfocused.

The longer the focal length, the more this effect is accentuated, which we can also accentuate by playing with the diaphragm opening. Remember that the more you open the diaphragm, the more light will enter the sensor and also the more the depth of field will be reduced (less area in focus in the image).

Distance between planes

Another feature of telephoto lenses is how reduce the distance between planes. That is, the longer the focal length, the more the main figure appears to overlap with the background. Look at the following image and you will see how the planes come together as the focal length increases.

If we also add the shallow depth of field that these types of lenses have, many times we will simply see a colored background rather than a background with its own entity, as in the following image.

Do you need a super telephoto lens?

A telephoto lens is designed to get us very close when we usually can’t. This is the case of the photograph of:

• wild Fauna. (Here is a recommendation of the best lenses to photograph it).
• press.
• sun and/or moon.
• sports.

What should I take into account when choosing one?

There are as many goals as needs you may have. But my main advice is that before looking at anything, set the maximum budget you are willing to spend and once you have it, start looking at the rest of the features. Because this is as always, the more expensive, generally, the better, there is not much of a secret.

And since you can get excited to infinity and we are talking about expensive goals, it is best to set a maximum budget before starting 😉 .

• Brightness: With such long focal lengths, the brightness of the lens is very important to be able to work with speeds high enough to freeze the image without trepidation or movement.
• Fixed lens or zoom?: As a lover of fixed lenses, I usually defend them to the death 😉 but in this case, I sincerely believe that a zoom lens can be more useful than a fixed one. Above all and mainly, because what you want to photograph normally moves, and you can’t always do it 😉
• Image Stabilizer: If there is a lens that needs a stabilizer, it is undoubtedly one with a long focal length. With super telephoto lenses, even when working at high speeds, you will find that any shake or slight movement can be etched into the image.

Some basic notes for working with a super telephoto lens

You can’t embark on an adventure with your brand new toy without first doing a little research on what is the best way to take advantage of it 🙂 . Although enthusiasm and practice are 50% of an image, preparation, technique and material are the other half. So here are some basic notes to keep in mind before going out for a walk with your brand new super telephoto lens.

• You will need a tripod yes or yes… and a really good one. Very robust and with swivel ball joint. For this type of lenses with such long focal lengths, the ideal is to fix them through a ring to the tripod to give them extra stability.
• Self-timer: because any vibration working with such closed fields can lead to an erroneous photo.
• Ideally, you should check if your camera can block the mirror to avoid that when getting up it contributes to the trepidation of the image.
• Work in as much light as possible; that is, with generous openings, to be able to use good shutter speeds.

Super telephoto lenses recommended

Notice to boaters: here is a small selection of long telephoto lenses for you to take a look at. The selection is based on good value for money. There are those with longer focal lengths and large apertures, but they are priceless and have little justification unless they are your way of earning your bread 😉 Now, I warn you that in these lenses, quality is expensive 😉

1. Canon EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS

2. Nikon AF-S 200-500mm f/5.6E ED VR

3. Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM | yes

For Canon:

For Nikon:

4. Tamron SP 150-600mm f/5-6.3 Di VC USD

For Canon:

For Nikon:

These are 4 good recommendations, but there are cheaper ones ;-), especially if you give up some focal length. Think that if you don’t have a camera full framethere is the conversion factor (also known as crop or multiplication factor) which means you have to multiply the focal length by 1.5, 1.6x (depending on your camera sensor) which actually gives you much longer focal lengths.

If you have a DX camera you might want to take a look at our short telephoto article 🙂 .

You can see it in the following table:

Don’t give up on your dream due to lack of budget 😉

Did you know about teleconverters? Now you can release air, in photography almost everything is possible, whatever the budget you have.

In this case, to replace the super telephoto lenses, we have the focal multipliers or teleconverters that, I quote verbatim a part of the article that we dedicated to it at the time, are: «a cylindrical device made up of several lenses that is placed between the camera and the lens to increase the focal range, or…