Nature Photography – Which Lens do I use?
Written by: www.ForestWander.com
Nature Photography – Which Lens do I use?
One of the most overlooked parts of an amature photographer’s gear is the lens. When I first started I thought “if I could get and good camera then I will take good pictures”. Well, that is not all true. First of all the camera is only as good as the lens. Then next in line the picture will only be as good as the settings tailored for the light and environment.
With that being said, let’s look first at what lens is needed for which application.
We will begin by classifying lenses into 4 different categories. And defining a couple terms.
Each of the following have fast and slow models
1. Fixed Wide Angle
2. Fixed Portrait
3. Fixed Telescopic
4. Zoom Wide – Telescopic
By the term fixed I mean the focal length is fixed. This means that the lens cannot zoom in or zoom out ( mm is the same all the time). The only adjustment control that the lens has is focusing.
Why would you want a lens that could not zoom? That is a good question. The answer is that it is a better lens, that has fewer elements of glass to disperse the light and will give a better quality picture. These are also sometimes called prime lenses.
The terms fast and slow refer to the aperture size. This is also called F-stop. The lower the F-Stop the faster the lens, and the higher the f-stop the slower the lens. I like to compare this to our human eye. The F-Stop represents our pupil which allow a certain amount of light in when our eyelid is open (AV). Then our eyelid represents the shutter speed which allows light in for a certain amount of time (TV). The wider that our pupil is (f-stop), then the less time (faster) we would need to open our eye lid (shutter speed), to allow a certain amount of exposure (EV).
So hopefully you can see (no pun intended) that (TV) Time Value and (AV) Aperture Value both influence the (EV) exposure of a picture. If a picture is over exposed then is will be too bright and a lack of detail. If it is underexposed you have the same problem in the opposite direction and the picture is too dim.
Depending what you want to accomplish you will need to not only have the right focal length, but the correct AV and TV to accomplish the correct EV.
Now let’s look at some real life applications.
Waterfalls
www.ForestWaterfalls.com
Waterfalls are one of my favorite subjects to photograph. They are so peaceful. There are two ways to photograph a waterfall. The first and most popular is to acheive the blurred motion effect of the water. This is accomplished by manipulating the TV. The longer the TV the longer the camera will capture the water flowing and the more silky the water will be. However, if you have a long TV the EV will increase unless you reduce the AV. So you will need a camera that has these manual controls which allows you to have a High AV say around 22. Then you will want a slow shuter speed such as 3 – 15 seconds. This is not always possible with just the lens as is. You may need to add a ND (neutral density filter) so that you can increase the TV without over exposure.
The second method of caputring a waterfall is to stop the water in it’s tracks. This is less tricky but does require that you have a fast lens. You will want to have the AV set as high as possible say around (AV) F1.8 and this will allow a very fast shutter speed such as 1/1000 of a second. This will provide minimum blur and provide a sharp crisp shot of the waterfall.
Depending on the frame that you would like to have you will need either a telescopic lens or a wide angle lens. I recommend a wide angle so that you can capture not only the waterfall but the surrounding scenery. The telescopic lens will provide you some close shots if you want to stop the water, but most generally folks like to get the whole waterfall so I recommend a wide angle lens or at least a portrait lens. Here are a couple good example lens values 28mm f1.8 for wide angle or 50mm f1.8
Night Sky
www.ForestWander.com/indexskys.htm
Night sky photography is great. Who does not love to look at the stars and imagine what exists beyond our little blue marble that we call earth. in short a high AV lens is perfect for night sky photography. I recommend at least a f1.8 or as
low as a f1.0 (which is expensive). Be careful however about too long of an exposure. The longer that you expose your picture the more you will realize how fast this earth is turning. Sometimes you may want to capture this effect. An exposure of several minutes will reveal that the earth is turning at a tremendous rate and that will be realized through the blurred star streaks that you capture.
Wildlife
www.ForestWildlife.com
Wildlife nature photography can be tough to photograph. This is because most animals are very skitish in the wild, and they will not allow you to get close enough to photograph them. So the only alternative you have is to have a telescopic lens which will reach the subject. However, when you increase the focal length the lens becomes slower and slower, thus increasing the chance that the subject you are photographing will blur. This can be overcome by purchasing a quality telescopic lens that has a fast AV. These are very expensive however. You could easily spend $5,000 for a telescopic lens with a low f number. But that is what it takes in order to take professional wildlife photographs.
You can however check into digiscoping. Digiscopes are point and shoot cameras that are attached to field or astronomical telescopes and these provide a better magnification than even the most expensive telescopic lens. However, they tend to be very slow because of the high magnification, so you must use a tripod and it can be difficult if not impossible to capture a moving subject.
Purchasing a zoom lens gives the best of a telescopic lens and a wide angle. Recently I have seen a 28-300mm zoom lens for around $300 which is a good deal. However the fastest f-stop this can go down to is f3.5 so unless you get an Image stabilization model (which will cost significantly more) there is a good possibility that you will get blurred results when at high focal lengths.
With the above facts in mind make careful consideration for the type of lens you buy. Think about what you want to accomplish. If you need high quality wildlife shots then save your money and don’t buy a zoom lens. Get a fixed focal length telescopic lens so your images will be crisp and clear even at high focal length. But if you want to capture waterfalls look at a wide angle fixed length with a low f-stop for bright colors and stunning detail while gathering the silky water stream effect.