Most people probably associate landscape photography with grand sweeping vistas. Usually taken with wide-angle to standard lenses, they encompass vast expanses of land, sometimes stretching almost from under the viewer’s feet and reaching out to the distant horizon and glorious skies. But there are times when despite our best efforts images thus created fail to impart the sense of awe and marvel we experience, fail to do justice to the spectacles we witness. The camera sees the world very differently to our eyes and sometimes the overabundace of visual information it registers can detract from the resulting photograph and weaken its impact. What makes us gasp with wonder, can often get lost in a sea of the ordinary and nondescript. The human eye is inherently more selective in its observations, and in some situations we can help the camera do the same by switching to a long lens.
The use of telephoto in landscape brings some technical hurdles, the most important of which I described in my article on the South Downs in LPM issue 11 (January 2012). What I feel is worth adding here is the importance of setting your focus exactly where it needs to be. This may seem like a platitude, because obviously accurate focusing is essential whatever lens you’re using. But due to their properties, telephoto lenses make it even less forgiving. Their intrinsic shallow depth of field leaves very little room for error, even though when used for landscape, your subject matter is often hundreds or thousands of metres away and you use smaller apertures for more depth (and better optical performance). In fact, having your focus so far away, and therefore getting a greater depth of field, can be actually deceptive on occasion, because tiny shifts may prove hard to detect on the focusing screen, and this in turn may ruin your shot. It has happened to me many a time.
I find it really helpful to separate the focusing and light-metering functions in the camera. So when I half-press the shutter release button it only measures light, and I use a different button under my thumb at the back of the body for AF. This lets me carefully set the focus where I want it to be and then reframe the image as I see fit without the risk of refocusing accidentally, while being able to take a light measurement again before exposing the frame. Not every DSLR gives you this option, but if yours does it’s certainly worth a try. It may seem awkward and counterintuitive at first, but you can get used to it before long, and ultimately it gives you more flexibility.
On the creative side of things, telephoto landscape can put your compositional skills to the test, as quite often you have seemingly very little to work with. Sometimes it’s only light, shadow and basic geometry of the land. For me the most desirable scenario is to have the sun at a low angle in front of me. This generally makes for more sculptural lighting and more dramatic effect, lets you define the lie of the land with more clarity and bring out intricate textures and patterns which otherwise may remain invisible. That’s when the magic happens, if you’re patient and observant enough.
I find it much more difficult to create compelling pictures in a front-lit situation (unless there is some graphically strong content in the frame, like a very prominent shape, a striking juxtapotion of colours). Although, even in this case passing clouds may come to your aid, their patchy shadows can break the indistinct monolith of the land, model its shapes and lend it depth. Of course, timing is crucial and seconds can make a ton of difference.
Owing to considerable distances between the camera and the scene, a lot of atmosphere and pollution get compressed by long lenses, which inexorably leads to a serious decrease in contrast and saturation of your image. This becomes even more apparent when shooting against the light, as even on a clear day moisture and other particles in the air reflect and scatter the sunlight and consequently obsure the scenery. It’s typically necessary to increase contrast substantially in editing to counteract this unwanted effect and bring back the tonal range and saturation that the eye expects.
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Slawek Staszczuk
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