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Re: [OM] Re: How do you use your extreme focal lengths...

Subject: Re: [OM] Re: How do you use your extreme focal lengths...
From: Thomas Heide Clausen <T.Clausen@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 15:13:38 +0100
On Fri, 10 Jan 2003 09:03:49 -0500
Stephen Troy <sctroy@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> >From: Thomas Heide Clausen
> >
> >I'm kinda curious as to which types of photography such "long"
> >(extreme?) focal lengths are being used for by fellow zuikoholics.
> >Are everyone bird/wildlife/motorsports photographers, or is it
> >just that big glass is facinating? Or, and most likely, perhaps I
> >am just missing out of something... :)
> >
> >Please, enlighten me....
> >
> 
> One word - compression.  We use the big stuff for railroad
> photography, and the shots that always sell are the long-lens shots
> that compress the scene.
>  A shot of a two-mile long coal train crossing the Powder River
>  basin in
> Wyoming is much more dramatic when compressed so that it looks like
> it's about 500 feet long (the train, not Wyoming). 

I wonder what size lens you would use to make Wyomig appear 500 feet
long :)

> Here's a good example of
> telephoto compression of a fairly long train:
> http://www.dantroy.com/railroads/mojave.html
> 
> A really long lens can bring a distant background forward into a
> scene, such as this one: http://www.dantroy.com/railroads/cp.html
> 
> These were both taken with the Tamron 300/2.8 on an OM-4.
> 

I'm not much of a trainspotter, but...really nice shots.....

> Sometimes we need a long lens to get a shot that would otherwise
> require serious tresspassing.
> 

That I fully understand.

> Fashion photographers sometimes use 300-500 lenses to throw the
> background completely out of focus.  Depth-of-field in 500mm lenses
> is measured in angstroms.

*gg*

It's very interresting to hear how all of those who have replied
handle the "big beasts". Probably out of habit, I rarely find myself
go much beyond 135mm (and mostly, not even that long) - bigger lenses
were prohibitively expensive when I started photography, as compared
to my then disposeable income, so I grew up on the shorter focal
lengths.

Now that I actually have had (reasonable) big glass for a number of
years, it is nice to get inspiration on how to try to benefit from
it. Thanks.

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