Lessons

Lesson Info

Telephoto Lenses and Teleconverters

I started off this morning doing shots with my white angle ends now want to shift the perspective on a pull out my telephoto lens when I changed lenses, I try to be really careful that I don't get any junk inside my camera, so when I take the lens off, I immediately put the camera down like this. I never turned a camera that kind of the sensor facing the sky, because especially, but this kind of fog drizzle, I'm going to cause problems for myself. So let's goes back in the camera back, and I'll worry about putting the lens cap on later. Take this lens cap off and then I mount the lens. It's. Just a practical thing. You wanna minimize problems for yourself, okay? Got my you fi filter on. I'm putting a lens hood on and now I cover this lens up lens. Cap goes on. Other lens cap goes on on the front and to protect the land stephen and it's inside the back. Okay, so seventy two, two hundred to eight lengths. It's a really working lens for me. Between these two lenses, the seventeen to thirt...

y five and the seventy two, two hundred I can cover about eighty percent of all the situations that I find in nature beautiful limps, very sharp. Quite fast when you're not quite sure which lens to use in any given situation it's good to keep this principally mind wide angle lenses are really good for working with a subject in a context of a bigger environment no matter of editor is a person or better it is iraq divided the lances and the closer I get to the subject the more exaggerated that becomes relative to the rest of the scene I can create a sense of depth, subject and background and the more I closed my aperture down, the more detail I get in the scene of course now what is a telephoto lens to telephoto lens enables me to do the opposite instead of extending the perspective I can compress the perspective yet the foreground can be sandwich with the background as if they're all lined up in the same plane and that's what I'm looking for now it's still the same subject it's rock sent the tide line with a distant shore line but now see how different it's going to look I'm looking at the same rocks that I photograph it that wide angle lens before but now I'm extending my focal length to two hundred millimeters it becomes a different scene comes a surfer let me just catch him just called that alright so I'm seeing it that same s o setting that I've had since I arrived here still at four hundred f twenty two at a sixth of a second that means that I'm still going to see a little bit of swirl of the water around the rocks but I'm gonna go for a longer shut up oh no wait a minute another surfer showed up and this one scott a red surfboard it is perfect and he's standing still too that's beautiful sixth of a second at f twenty two he's doing exactly what he should do now all I need is that way ok got that got that okay can I get there fast enough if my neutral density filter so that I could do a really long exposure please stand still please hang around for just another minute. Well I grabbed at filter okay okay come on, come on, come on yes, I may be in luck don't panic don't panic that was the wrong andy filter this one is too strong shutter speed becomes too long so I've got to find that other filter where is that thing? Here's my variable neutral density filter so yes, thistle work so I need an extended depth of field to people the rocks detailed but I also want a longer shutter speed so no, I see the surfer standing there now they're moving on at a full second that's not gonna look too good but I'm just gonna shoot frames anyway way okay, so I didn't quite get this I have a just beginning to focus on the rocks and I saw that shirt for come in retzer for perfect profile it created a very nice counterpoint to the landscape that I was already composing for. So I did a couple of shots but I wanted to go the extra step of creating a longer shutter speed vete a surf oring there and I ended up not finding the filter I needed so it was an opportunity but I didn't quite get out of it what I saw in my mind's eye there is a difference between what I saw here and what I was able to capture their but that happens sometimes back to what I was originally aiming for and that is the rocks at the tide line. Now I have my variable neutral density filter and I can dial in a shutter speed of about twenty seconds at f twenty hotels long shutter speech I really need to pull out my remote control and put it to good use. Okay, here we go way twenty seconds not bad at all. Not bad at all that looks very nice using my loop to judged efrain critically and then I'm zooming in on a detail to make your two really sharp yes, it looks sharp so let me try this again I'm applying a variable neutral density filter that gives me more range and allows me to very quickly go from very long shutter speeds to relatively short shutter speeds so when I'm composing I open it up makes it easier to see what's going on and then then it's time to shoot aibel darken it okay time for another frame thirty seconds closing my viewfinder beat that lever on the back of my camera okay gonna do another one thirty seconds is a long time way go I'm going to check the history graham it's a bit too far to the left in other words a little bit too dark you've gotto periodically look atyou hissed a gram to make sure that your exposures are in the zone I can make all kinds of changes in light room but I want to create a history graham that gives me an optimal exposure idea leave it a bell cur I don't want to clip anything in the highlights and I don't want to lose too much in the shadows eater and here I can see that I can definitely move it a little bit to the right in other words I like my exposure so I'm using my exposure compensation here plus one now on darkening the andy filter again sound back at a thirty thirty seconds at f twenty two close the viewfinder and expels again I'm checking what I just did I started over exposing by a full stop to create a better history graham then you overexpose you move you're history graham towards the right and the more you move, you're history graham to the right the better quality image you create most of the information is contained on the right hand side of your history. Graham let me just double check that here in the back of the camera yet much better now and I'm still a long ways off from really over exposing but I don't want to go too far. All right, back to composition. Let me judge this critically yes this confirms what I was just talking about with this telephoto lens I'm compressing the perspective the rocks are a ll looking as if they're in the same plane even though we know of course that some are still in foreground and others are in the background it becomes mohr oven even distribution iraq's along the tide line instead of a handful of rocks in the foreground and a couple in the background but I'm going to do something else now even though this looks quite nice I would like to get a little bit more into the scene so I'm gonna grab another accessory here from my back. This is a tell a converter some people call them extenders. This is a one point for nick or tell a converter I can add it to the lens and then I will have no longer a seventy two, two hundred I will have of one hundred two three hundred millimeter lens so it extends the focal length of this rig put it back on the tripod way going back to the old thirty second exposure and that gives me a minute to talk to you about why I'm applying this tell it tell a comforter I can reach further into the scene these things are engineered to match wits certain lenses so I'm not leave really losing optical quality you have to be careful with which tele converters you apply I find that it's best to stick with nikon accessories that attached to my nikon lenses you have when you use kind of other brands you may experience a bit more of a loss of quality but you can make up for that by closing your aperture down by von or two stops let me see what I've got here yeah now I'm seeing definitely a different kind of a pattern that looks quite nice but I'm still a bit too far off now I can do two things I can crop in after the fact which shouldn't be any problem because the sensor on this thief or as his soup perp I can drop significantly and still end up in ojai quality image or I could grab the other telecom verger and that's what I'm going to try no so rick comes off tripod camera goes down like this and now I'm looking for the other tell a converter this is a two point zero tell a converter show that as even more length to the lens, auto focus is of wonderful innovation in camera and lens technology. But there are still times when I prefer to move my lens into manual focus and that's what I'm doing now. I want to be really precise where I put the focus on making use of the hyper focal distance, which means that when I focus in one third into the composition, I get an optimal depth of field, and I can do that better than the autofocus camp. All right, got my composition set. The focus aperture goes old away, too forty five now with his tele converter, and I met when I dial the variable neutral density filter in on back at thirty seconds close the viewfinder waiting for some waves. I don't use a two time stella converter very often because you definitely begin to see a loss of quality in your image. So when you apply vaughn, you have to be very careful. You have to close down your aperture, and you've got to make sure that your rig is absolutely stable. That's fine using the remote control, the even in the cameras on the tripod let's see what I've got here I'm zooming in on the image in the back of the camera because that's the only way I can see if it's really sharp and yes, it is so couple more frames before I start looking around again, I did a couple of frames that this two times tele converter added to my seventy two, two hundred, but and I'm going back to a wider frame, so linz comes off tell a converter comes off lens comes on back on the tripod, but before I go backto work again, I'm going to do a little bit clean up here, my camera back because it's beginning to look like a mess and so lens caps go back on when you're working out in nature, things could get really messy very quickly. I like to keep these lenses clean, okay it's important to keep changing your point of view don't get locked into doing the same thing all morning it's a fine line between working your way into a situation, not giving up too quickly, some photographers say okay, I've got the frame it's time to move on, I liketo linger a little bit more, then I like what I see on the back of my camera that means I'm in the zone I've got a nibble at things from a couple of different angles, but you don't want to wait for too long either before you turn yourself around so one more exposure here and then I'm going to see what's behind me way go again ten seconds at f twenty two let me try this again this is what I've seen this now, matt just eighty five millimeter perspective to create a little bit more space between the rocks moving a little bit to the left but it's really the border that is creating the space I can help things a little bit my changing my vantage point but way go I smuggle because you could see I wasn't using my remote trigger lazy not too good rocks in the foreground are too heavy not enough space between them they're blocking each other but I'm seeing here looks more interesting in the distance, so I need to zoom out a little bit again so I smuggled again right should have used this thing. Yeah, that looks better, but now I'm getting the blinky step means I've over exposed, so I need to adjust the setting from plus one two plus one third of a stop that's easy enough accomplished yes, things are sharp so here we go again that looks better let me see what I've just done I started off with a wide angle lens, which stretches the perspective then I moved to a seventy two, two hundred telephoto lens, aiming it at the same tide line with rocks interacting with two surf. I saw surfer come in. I panicked a little bit. I couldn't find the right filter, so those frames, they're not quite as good as I hoped they would be, but I got something out of it, and then I began to focus on the rocks at the tide line, and I added my tele converter, which enabled me to reach mohr into the scene. And then I took to tell a converter off again, for slightly vital scene, still working with these long exposures, even though there's a lot more light. Now. Then, since we arrived here on the beach, that variable neutral density filter allows me to mimic an early morning situation, but let's, call this a rap. I'm gonna look for something else.