Technique - Technique
Tuesday, 13 November 2007 21:52


A major problem in many presentations is an overwhelming usage of wide-angle to normal lenses. Monotonous perspectives are rather poisonous from a viewer's perspective so don't forget to add some extra spice by taking advantage of tele lenses. Tele lenses are often used to isolate or emphasize an object (e.g. portraits, sports or wildlife) but there's more than just that. In contrast to the impression of depth provided by a wide-angle lens a tele lens can "compress" a scene or isolate or special object.

The first picture illustrates how a tele lens can compress the several layers of the scene to a relatively "flat" view with a seemingly shrinked distance between the layers.

The next picture illustrates that this also works pretty well for landscape photography as well.

Technically compression is a function of distance and enlargement. The bigger the distance and the higher the enlargement (=longer focal length) the more pronounced is the effect. However, even moderate tele lenses a la 85mm or 100mm are already good enough in many situations.