PhotoPlus The Canon Magazine – August 2019

The Canon Magazine 37

telephoto lenses

Compressed perspective

It’s the distance that you shoot from rather than

the focal length that causes the ‘compressed

perspective’ effect. If you don’t have a long lens

you can get the same effect by simply cropping

in on an image shot at a shorter focal length at

the same distance.

Shooting motorsports handheld

For sharp handheld shots when using long

telephoto lenses, use a shutter speed that’s at

least the reciprocal of the focal length of a lens.

So, that’s 1/500 sec when shooting at 500mm

on a full-frame body such as an EOS 5D Mk IV or

EOS RP, or over 1/1000 sec when shooting at

600mm (equivalent to 1.6 x 600mm = 960mm)

on an APS-C, such as an EOS 7D Mk II.

Quick tip

It’s not just the backgrounds

you can blur into oblivion when

using telephotos: by using a

Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM

here at f/4, Canon pro Ben Hall

has also rendered all the

foreground foliage into a lovely

blur to retain focus purely

on the puffin.

With the right shutter speeds

and focal length combo you can

freeze the action with ease

Sharper shots at longer focal lengths

The downside to lenses with longer

focal lengths is that they are more

prone to camera shake. To combat this,

lens manufacturers have developed

‘image stabilization’ systems that

enable you to get sharp results with

slow shutter speeds. Look out for lenses

with the following abbreviations: Canon

IS (Image Stabilizer), Sigma OS (Optical

Stabilizer), and Tamron VC (Vibration

Compensation). With a little practice

these systems enable you to shoot with

shutter speeds well below those you

would normally use when handholding

your Canon camera – for instance, a

four-stop IS system means instead of a

1/320 sec shutter speed, you can get

away with shooting at just 1/20 sec

and still capture a sharp shot.

Ben Hall

Ben Hall

Octavio Passos / Stringer