Top 5 Ways To Make The Most of Your Telephoto Lens Shots

As a photographer, your gear wish list is longer than a child’s list of expected presents for Christmas. And yet, it’s time to add telephoto lenses to that list, especially if you want to take amazing shots of faraway objects.

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed the first time you hear about a mobile camera telephoto lens. How are you supposed to get started? How can you reach the same level as many professionals out there? What do they have that you don’t?

In this post, we’ve summarized all the tips and tricks to get the most out of your next telephoto lens shots. Read it through until the end to discover our recommended telephoto lens to bring your photography skills to the next level.

What is a Telephoto Lens?

Whether you are a professional or an amateur photographer, a telephoto lens is like a fruity cherry on top of a nice photo-taking cake. It makes your photos look clearer, even at a distance.

When you buy a mobile camera telephoto lens it’s to capture pictures of subjects far away from you. We’re talking about really far away. Consider that a 400mm lens has approximately the magnification of an 8x binocular.

Before you start feeling headachy, let’s dig into this concept for a moment.

A telephoto lens distinctive aspect is a more "pushed" focal length than normal lenses. The peculiarity of these optics is defined by having a focal length greater than 60mm reaching over 400mm (super-telephoto lenses). Naturally, telephoto lenses can be fixed or zoomed. Zoom ones have a variable focal length within a range (for example, 70-200mm). These types of camera lenses magnify distant subjects reducing the feeling of perspective. 

In a nutshell, you can use your mobile camera to make objects closer to you appear larger than distant objects. A quick example? You can make a person in the foreground look extremely small compared to a mountain or building in the background.

If you thought that was cool enough, think again. Telephoto lenses are ideal to create a blurry effect. Longer focal lengths reduce the depth of field and increase the blur.

In other words, telephoto lenses help you get the focus on the subject by blurring the background. Through this technique, you can isolate the target and have stunning visual results.

Now that we went through the fundamentals, let’s move on to what kind of pictures you can capture with a telephoto lens. 

When Should You Use Telephoto Lens?

Portraits Photography

From the earliest of times, we as humans have tried to capture the essence of a person or a group of people in paintings, photos, or even cave drawings.

Speed forward a hundred - or even thousands - years, and portraits have now become one of the favorite types of photography for beginners and professionals alike.

In case you’re wondering, you don’t need expensive equipment to shoot enchanting portrait photos. Your mobile camera telephoto lens will do the trick.

Technique Tips: When using telescopic lenses, distances between the elements of the face are usually compressed. The eyes and ears look closer together than when using a wide-angle, and the nose is not magnified.

This way the face looks more beautiful than in real life; and you thought that social media filters were the only trick to look more stunning.

The blur allows the main subject to be perfectly isolated and creates an artistic nuance around it. The smaller angle of view takes away space for distractions and focuses all the attention on the person portrayed.

For these types of shots, we suggest using a focal length of 85mm. In fact, an 85mm mobile camera telephoto lens for smartphone iPhone will give exceptional results. Keep in mind that focal length choice also depends on how much of the subject's body you want to capture.

Wildlife Photography

Wildlife photography is probably one of the hardest and yet one of the most gratifying types. It’s challenging because animals can’t just stand still because you’re telling them to.

Wildlife photography can fill your wanderlust by pushing you to visit parks and other natural areas. If you’ve ever watched a wildlife documentary from BBC and National Geographic, you know that you can’t get too close to animals when they are in their natural habitat. How to solve this problem then?

Technique Tips: When adding a telephoto lens to your phone, you can zoom right into the scene without being physically close. You can also isolate the subject and highlight its every detail from far away.

To comfortably capture your target, you can use a 28x Super Zoom Camera Telephoto Telescope Lens for Mobile Phone. This tool allows you to lurk well-hidden from sight and photograph animals. By doing so, you will not disturb them or make them angry. It’s not fun to be chased by a big dog in the neighborhood. Trust us!

Sports & Fast-Action Shots

During a football match, have you ever noticed photographers armed with huge cameras? Even with your mobile telephoto lens, you will be able to take close-up portraits of the athletes in motions.

If you are not a football fan, what about your favorite singer’s concert? Or a fast-action car racing? You can capture all these moments and much more with the 36x Super Zoom Phone Camera Telephoto Lens. 

Technique Tips: Get close to the action. Bring along your cell phone telephoto lens and zoom into the motion to freeze the action. Adjust the shot to separate the subjects from whatever is going on around them. This way, you can further highlight your target and have the best results.

Break-taking Landscape Photos

Landscape photos make you feel in touch with nature and so tiny when compared to the elements around you. As you might have guessed by now, telephoto lenses can help you take better photos of natural surroundings too.

Technique Tips: This type of lens can isolate the objects and other details within the scenery with a narrow depth of field. Try to zoom on lines, layers, textures for more abstract images.

Have fun creating a flatter perspective with telephoto lenses, that by not distorting the images as much as with other tools they also give you a better perception of the area. This way, you’ll make far objects look closer to the ones in the front.

You can also compress the scene instead of making everything look far and wide. Achieve this result with the  60X Zoom Mobile Camera Telephoto Lens.

Macro Photography

For taking telephone lens shots of tiny objects, you can use macro lenses or simulate a macro effect with telephoto lenses.

Technique Tips: It’s all about filling the frame. Besides zooming and isolating the subject, you can fill the frame with the object itself. This means cropping the scene so that you can occupy every corner with the subject alone.

An example could be taking a close picture of a tiny bug. This trick is particularly useful when you want to photograph insects.

In this case, photographing from afar with a telephoto lens can be an excellent alternative. It may not be a 1:1 life-size image, but elements are indeed magnified, creating fascinating results. 

Bonus Idea: Shoot The Moon

"Go where no man has gone before" says a popular quote from Star Trek. You don’t need to wear a space suit to get closer to the moon. You only need a telephoto lens, and here’s how.

The longer the focal length of your lenses, the more magnification you have. To achieve an astonishing result, we recommend the 60X Zoom Mobile Camera Telephoto Lens. Check out its specs here below:

Specs:

Magnification:	60X
Material:	Multi-coating optics + Aluminum alloy + ABS plastic
FOV:	3.3°
Length:	260 mm
Construction:	8 elements, 4 groups
Interface:	M17xP0.75

The 60X Zoom Mobile Camera Telephoto Lens with Tripod for Phone is perfect for shooting the moon and landscape photography. It can also be used for all the types of photography we have mentioned.

This equipment is designed for advanced Optical Glass for HD images. The motion capture is clear without a dark circle around the corner, and it adapts to different settings. 

The telephoto lens is compatible with all top smartphone brands and comes with a tripod to improve the stability and the quality of the photos you take with it.

With the Apexel 60X Zoom Mobile Camera Telephoto Lens, you can turn your mobile phone into a professional camera. 

Conclusion

We hope this guide was helpful in shedding some light on the infinite possibilities you’ll have once you add a telephoto lens to your photography gear.

Needless to say, not all telephoto lenses are made equal. If you’re ready to boost your photography skills, you should check out our telephoto lens kits.

Founded in 2009, our team at Apexel is devoted to realising constantly more innovative and high-performing photography equipment, including a wide variety of photography lenses and accessories.

From an experienced photographer to an everyday picture taker, we strive to provide the best solutions for taking photos worth bragging about. Contact us to learn more about how our products can help you!