Its a little more rigid but you don’t have to worry about beans/stuffing migrating away from the edge of the glass. So if it's just after sunrise and you can only get a shutter speed of 1/100 and you're shooting a 600mm lens to photograph a fox that has stopped to look at the camera, you'll be just fine to take the shot if you're on a tripod. Long-zoom compacts fill the gap between pocketable cameras and interchangeable lens models with expensive lenses, offering a great combination of lens reach and portability. You can use a bean bag, try and support the camera with your hand, or try whatever else to cut out the car's vibration from the lens, but nothing will work if your shutter speed is not very fast. The fur on animals makes any minor sharpness issue easy to spot. Thank you. Your fox vs duck shots show how much considering the so-shallow DOF matters, what is or isn’t in the focal plane. They all focus slow when compared to your 70-200 or other traditional focal length lenses. This is also partially to support the weight of the lens, but also because wildlife shots are not always action shots, and wildlife are often photographed in dim conditions. Two images taken from the same location, one with a wide angle lens and the other with a long-focus lens, will show identical perspective, in that near and far objects appear the same relative size to each other. Any techniques been helpful for you? Unless it’s something exceptional, don’t bother unless there is full or nearly full daylight. When shooting sports photography, for example, it's very common to see pros shooting at ISO 3200 in order to get a shutter speed of 1/1000. If you follow the long lens techniques in this article, you're almost certain to end up with good results, but keep in mind that you're changing a lot of the “muscle memory” you've likely built up. That only works to a certain point. Just going from f/5.6 to f/7.1 can make a significant difference on some lenses. It's worth testing. However, use caution with high ISOs when shooting wildlife if the animals are not moving around too much. Many long lenses offer more than one image stabilization mode, and selecting the proper stabilization mode can make a significant difference in the sharpness of the photo. Mode 2 is for panning, where you'll be swinging the lens as you take the picture. This week I'm shooting in Yellowstone doing a free photography workshop with 40 readers of Improve Photography, and as I teach I'm remembering some of the mistakes I've made early on that hurt the sharpness of my photos. Don’t forget the lens hood whenever possible. There are times like when its windy that setting the bean bag on your tripod and then the lens on top of that reduces wind shake and vibrations. Long-focus lenses are best known for making distant objects appear magnified. Long lenses are often used with a tripod, because of the increased weight and the fact that the effect of camera shake is magnified. There are some commercial sheets of this already flat black tin foil. This effect is also used for dolly zooms. Even advanced photographers struggle the first several times they shoot at the long focal lengths. But once you're to 1/250 or 1/320, it seems like your focal length can be quite a big longer. Many animals are quite long, so choosing too low of an f-stop often means that only part of the animal body is in sharp focus. Buying a long-range zoom lens. This is a good non-threatening position for shooting wildlife; however, the natural vibration of a car's engine wreaks havoc on image sharpness. Not available, lost or gives some vignetting, try taking some heavy duty tin foil, spray it flat black and be creative on how you fold it/attach to the end of lens as wide and far out from lens as can to avoid light scatter on lens. A 500 mm long-focus lens of non-telephoto design In photography, a long-focus lens is a camera lens which has a focal length that is longer than the diagonal measure of the film or sensor that receives its image. For example, when shooting bald eagles, you can usually be certain that they won't fly up to within a 10 meters or so (32 feet). It's not terrible, but it's not the level of sharpness that professional photographers would be happy with. It's like when a plane goes down and they set a search area so that the search crew's rescue efforts can be concentrated in the area most likely to find the downed aircraft. WE ARE COMPENSATED FOR REFERRING TRAFFIC. I can often shoot way down to 1/200 or so without issue if the lens has image stabilization. I can’t wait to try some of these techniques. You may have to manipulate it a little, if the beans (probably Styrofoam pellets) not packed tightly enough, shake the pellets into the center of the U, then tied up each end to keep them there. Each lens from different manufacturers implements focus modes differently, so it's worth double checking to see what modes are available on that lens, but usually it's 1 and 2 and they are for general and panning in that order. The most commonly photographed aperture with any long lens is wide open. Yours is the first that I felt I actually understood what you meant. But if you're in a situation where you know you'll be panning when taking the shot, go to mode 2 on the lens. IMPROVE PHOTOGRAPHY LLC IS A PARTICIPANT IN THE AMAZON SERVICES LLC ASSOCIATES PROGRAM, AN AFFILIATE ADVERTISING PROGRAM DESIGNED TO PROVIDE A MEANS FOR SITES TO EARN ADVERTISING FEES BY ADVERTISING AND LINKING TO AMAZON.COM. Mode 1 is usually for general photography. The focus limiter on most long lenses will simply show distances. Cheap bean-bag substitute: those U-shaped “travel” neck rolls that cost about $10-$15. When shooting sports, the monopod is NOT used to stabilize the image. 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