Hi everybody welcome to another episode of Exploring Photography right here on
AdoramaTV. I'm Mark Wallace way up high in the Andes Mountains, it’s four and a
half thousand meters and so if I'm having a hard time breathing is because
there's no oxygen up here.
What I want to talk to you about today is using a long lens for scenic
photography.
Now I know we're always thinking when we were shooting scenic photos use wide
angle lenses our 15mm, our 21mm, our 35mm, and definitely those work. You can see
these images that I've shot in the past using my wide angle lenses. We get that
beautiful sort of three-dimensional feeling or being pulled into the image,
that's why we love our wide angle lenses, but for wide angle lenses to be
effective we need foreground interest we need something to pull us into the scene.
Well sometimes when we were shooting scenic photography we don't have that
foreground interest or we'll have something that's way off in the distance
like this,
There's some amazing mountain peaks back there but they're hard to see because
I'm using a wide angle shot right now.
Now I shot this earlier with the 35mm lens and you can see that
we've got tones of uninteresting, just nasty foreground interest and those
mountain peaks are way off in the distance just little tiny bumps, but instead
what I can do is I can use a long lens. Now a long lens is going to do several
things for me when I'm shooting scenic photography.
The first is in a situation like this. It’s going to take that thing that's way off
in the distance and it's
going to bring it close. In fact let me shoot this, I’m going to shoot this is at
f/8. I'm focusing almost at infinity and because it's sort of a bright day here
I can get away shooting this handheld. So this is a thousandth of a second and you
can see that this really brings those mountains closer to me and that's
one thing that you really want to do when you have something way off in the
distance, a wide angle lenses is just going to lose that. To our naked eye we see
this mountain range and it's amazing but when you take that wide angle picture it's
just a blip in the background. We don't like that.
Another thing that a long lens will do for your scenic photos,
I think it's even more dramatic than something like this, is it will compress
that image and what that means is we have a lot of things that are in the
distance, like rolling hills, mountain ranges that are way off in the distance.
When we shoot with the wide angle lens we can't really tell how close they are
together, if we use a long lens we can exaggerate that and make them feel
compressed that they're closer together. Mountains and mountains and mountains
and mountains and clouds and we can do that. Now on the way to Cusco I actually
shot some pictures in the Andes Mountains and you can see here's one I
shot with, I think 35mm lens. You can sort of see the expanse and sort
of the the atmospheric conditions of the mountain range but really the magic
happens when I put my long lens on my camera. This is a 135mm
lens.
I just saw a section of that. Now you can see that compression really happening
where things are being pushed closer together. We get all of that fog and
those clouds and we get that really amazing scene and I think I also cropped
this
so it's a 16:9 which gives it that cinematic effect. A long lens will not
only bring things that are far away closer, things like that, but they'll make
them look closer to each other.
Those mountain ranges, the river next to the mountains etc a long lens will
really help you out.
Now when i was in Patagonia this also proved itself, I shot Mount Fitz Roy
using this 135mm lens.
It's one of my favorite shots of Fitz Roy. Now when i got to the mountain peak
some of you will remember that episode I shot with the 21mm lens, got way
too much uninteresting
foreground interest. I switched to a lens that was a little bit longer
not a really long telephoto but a 50mm lens and that 50 gave me this
shot. Which is one of my favorite Patagonia images that I shot. This image
of Fitz roy is pretty cool but I shot a lot of scenic photos using long lenses
let me give you a look at some of those images just so you get an idea of what
you can do with long lenses and scenic photography.
The point is in some situations when our foreground interest isn't interesting or
when were shooting at things really far away a long lens is really going to do
the trick.
So when you're packing your bag this summer you're going out on your big
camping adventures, your family vacations whatever I know you're thinking
wide angle lenses for scenic photography but don't forget that long lenses can
really give you some dramatic effects really using that compression bringing
those things that are far away
really close. Long lenses can really do some amazing things for scenic
photography, so try it out yourself
this summer as you're traveling around and taking vacations. Hey don't forget to
subscribe to AdoramaTV it's absolutely free that way you don't miss anything
from any of our contributors and if you want to know more about scenic
photography and using wide angle lenses and foreground interested, focusing
at hyperfocal all that stuff check out the Adorama Learning Center we've
covered all of that in the past it's really amazing and it's free, so check it
out. Thanks again for joining me and i will see you again next time.