Inexpensive Telephoto Lenses (1)
Introduction.   Telephoto lenses are cool!  Their obvious benefit is that they bring far away objects closer.  But that's not all.  With a telephoto lens, you can achieve two additional clever effects.  First, you can compress distance.  This means that foreground and background objects seem to be closer together than they actually are, for a dramatic effect.  The effect is strongest when both foreground and background are in focus (i.e., when the lens is stopped down to F = 16 or similar).  Second (and seemingly contradictory to the previous issue), you can separate foreground and background items due to their narrow depth of field, if the lens is used relatively wide open (e.g., F = 4).

wpe2.jpg (6443 bytes) Do you have to pay a bundle to achieve these effects?  Not really.  A used, acceptable quality "prime lens" (one that has a fixed focal length) can be bought  relatively inexpensively.  I own one of those lenses, an old Vivitar 3.5/200mm.  This lens costs about $20-$30 on eBay (see report on eBay).  Mine has a screwmount (M42) that fits on my Yashica TL Electro (or many other older cameras). 

 

Usage.   For distance compression, stop down the lens as much as possible, i.e., to F = 22.  Make sure that there's enough light to keep the shutter speed to at least 1/250s to avoid blurring. 

 With a 100 ASA film, this will require bright sunlight.  With a 400ASA film, cloudy skies still provide enough light.

wpe3.jpg (18063 bytes)></font></p> <p><font face=In the picture above, the buses in the foreground, and the streetlights and advertisements in the background appear closely bunched together.   This creates the (desired) appearance of extreme crowdedness and of busy streets.

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