How to Use a 70-to-200-mm F/4 Zoom Lens for Landscape Photography

Using a 70-to-200-mm zoom lens can add an element of creativity and flair to your landscape photos.

Landscape photography creates a wide array of photographic adventures for hobbyists and professionals, taking artists to beautiful and remote locations. Many photographers work with wide-angle lenses to capture the wide expanse of the scene before them. A zoom lens is normally used to capture sports or distant subjects and compresses the front and back of the photograph due to the design of the glass within the lens. (See reference 1.) Though somewhat uncommon, a lens that zooms from 70 to 200 mm can be used for landscapes and can add creativity and diversity to the normal landscape image.

Things You'll Need

• Single-lens reflex camera (SLR) or camera that uses interchangeable lenses
• Zoom lens, 70 to 200 mm

Instructions

1. Choose a location for your photograph with a long distance between the camera and the subject. The distance will vary based on your composition goals, but to capture a wide scene of your subject, stand at least 200 yards away. A 70-to-200-mm zoom lens will compress the various layers of your image, the foreground, background and middle ground, so adding more distance between you and the subject will help maintain the depth of the landscape.

2. Place the camera on a tripod at the proper distance from your main subject. Using a tripod will help steady the camera--necessary because this lens is long and heavy and may add camera shake to the image.

3. Compose your image at the widest setting possible for this lens, in the 70-mm range, to capture as much width as possible to the photo. The lower the focal length of the lens, the wider the angle of the image that is captured. Most landscape images are shot within the range of 21 mm to 50 mm.

4. Turn the barrel of the lens to zoom in on your subject and capture the same image at the 200-mm focal length to add detail to your overall photo shoot. For example, if you are photographing a cactus in front of a mountain range, take the first image at the 70-mm range, capturing both the cactus and the mountains. Zoom the lens by turning the barrel of the lens and narrowing the composition of the image to focus on just the cactus. The closeup image of the cactus, shot at 200 mm, will add some visual variety to the wide shot at 70 mm and create a more interesting display of photos.

References

• Photo.net Web site