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Long Telephoto lenses and increasing depth of field?

Started Jun 20, 2019 | Discussions thread
Chris R-UK Forum Pro • Posts: 22,843
Re: Long Telephoto lenses and increasing depth of field?
1

In my experience, shooting groups of small animals and birds at close range with a long telephoto lens in mediocre light always leads to depth of field problems, whether you are shooting with a bridge camera or FF. Just try playing around with a depth of field calculator.

I have had real problems shooting badgers in my garden. At 20ft with a 300mm lens on M4/3 I can only just get the tip of the badgers nose and his ears in focus if he is looking straight at me. I have never got a good badger group shot with 3-4 badgers all in reasonable focus. I have had exactly the same problem with groups of meerkats in the early morning in South Africa and with groups of dolphins in Mexico in good light (in good light but at a high shutter speed).

If you want close ups you really have to concentrate on a single animal or bird. If you want more than one animal, you have to use a much shorter focal length and/or a small aperture, if the light allows it. Alternatively, keep one animal in sharp focus and have the others deliberately blurred.

Here is a meerkat shot from South Africa:

The rear meerkat is only about a foot behind the front one and this is what it looks like at f/11. My nephew was shooting next to me with a FF body and he was at f/22 (and 2 stops higher ISO) with an equivalent focal length lens.  Neither of us could get sharp group shots.

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Chris R

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OM-1 Olympus E-M1 II Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 9-18mm F4.0-5.6 Panasonic Lumix G 20mm F1.7 ASPH Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 45mm F1.8 +4 more
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