A ‘zoom lens’ is a lens with adjustable focal length. Often the term is confused with a telephoto. Where a zoom lens may be a telephoto, it isn’t necessarily so.
In the case of my 18-135mm Fujinon lens, this is a wide-angle to medium telephoto range zoom.
I used this to good advantage the other day at Millers Falls, Massachusetts to make a sequence of photos of New England Central’s southward road freight 611.
Both of these photos were exposed from the same vantage point. All I did was adjust the focal length of the zoom as the train approached.
Telephoto view; 18-135mm zoom lens set at 116mm (equivalent of 174mm on a 35mm film camera).Wide angle view from the same vantage point. 18-135mm Fujinon zoom lens set to 23.3mm (equivalent to a 35mm lens on a traditional 35mm film camera.) Incidentally; when making these comparisons it is crucial to distinguish between historic film size and the focal length of the lenses. Both photos were exposed digitally.
On April 9, 1988, I exposed this view on Conrail’s heavily used former New York Central System ‘Water Level Route’ west of Silver Creek, New York.
Clear skies and bright afternoon sun were ideal when exposing Kodachrome 25.
For this image of Conrail SD50s working westbound I used my Leica M2 fitted with an f2.8 90mm Elmarit.
Using a telephoto with a Leica rangefinder was always a bit tricky.
Although a window in the M2’s viewfinder provided a pretty good sense for the limits of the frame offered by the 90mm lens, the camera didn’t offer any sense of the effects of visual compression or limited depth of field that are inherent to this focal length in the 35mm format.
Yet, the combination of Leica glass and Kodachrome 25 allowed me to make some exceptionally sharp images.
I scanned this original Kodachrome slide at high resolution (4000 dpi) using a Nikon Super Coolscan5000 operated with VueScan software. For presentation here, I used Lightroom to scale the scanned file (which was more than 110 MB) into a Jpg. I left the corners of the slide mount in the frame to show that it hasn’t been cropped.
Every so often someone will ask if have any regrets. I’m never sure what they’re getting at, but yes, Yes I do.
My regrets? Not learning photography skills more quickly.
In this view I had the right idea, I just didn’t have the right lens on the camera. Exposed on K64 using a Leica 3A with 50mm Summitar lens.
I made this photograph in late 1978 (slide mount reads ‘Feb 79’, but if I recall correctly, it was right around Christmas. Prompt processing wasn’t on my agenda back then).
I traveled with my father and brother to the old New Haven electrified lines. We picked this spot and set up. We were all delighted to catch this GG1 with an eastward Amtrak train. I can still feel the excitement when we spotted the old motor in the distance.
At that time I had access to all of my dad’s lenses. We probably had a 90 or 135mm with us at the time. Yet, I opted to use my 50mm.
Why? I just didn’t know any better.
Today, I look as this image and see three elements that I could have put together more effectively; the aged former Pennsylvania Railroad GG1 electric (pantograph first), old New Haven short-arm left-handed semaphores (most American semaphores aim to the right), and winter glint light.
Now, I’d use a telephoto to feature the signals and the electric in tighter more visually pleasing composition. This what I saw at the time, I just included too much dead space in my image and the locomotive and signals are too distant.
At least I was using good glass and Kodachrome film. There’s that anyway.
Here’s a much enlarged version of the image that suggests that I had the vision for a stunning photo but neither the skills or mindset to use the correct equipment to pull it off effectively.
Tracking the Light explores photography every day.
One of the great challenges of working with long telephoto lenses is getting the focus where you want it.
The inherent nature of a telephoto lens produces a comparatively shallow depth of field (relative field of focus). The longer the lens, the less depth of field.
So where precision focus is important with a wide angle lens, it is critical with a long lens, unless, of course, your intent is to make soft images.
Placing focus is important to me, as I’ve learned various visual tricks for directing the eye within an image by clever use of sharpness. Sometimes when photographing trains, the optimal focus point is not at the front of the locomotive; however, in this case, that was precisely my objective.
One of the reasons I’ve embraced auto-focus cameras, was that about ten years ago I concluded that I couldn’t trust my eyesight to make precision focus, especially when I had to do it quickly.
Test photo looking toward Platform 10 at Heuston Station, view from Conynham Road.
Using my new Fuji X-T1, I made this image on Friday February 20, 2015 of an Irish Rail continuous welded rail train crossing the River Liffey at Islandbridge in Dublin.
Exposed with a Fuji X-T1 with 18-135mm lens set at 135mm; ISO 800, f5.6 1/500th second, ‘Velvia’ color profile.
I arrived at my location a bit winded and had only a few moments to make a test photo and set the focus point (the Fuji allows for easy adjustment of the desired focus point) before the train came into view.
The equipment performed perfectly! The front of the 071 class locomotive is razor sharp. Hurray!
Very tightly cropped portion of the above photo to check for sharpness. Considering that I made the image hand-held of a moving train, I’d say the autofocus worked admirably.
Exposed with a Fuji X-T1 with 18-135mm lens set at 135mm; ISO 800, f5.6 1/500th second, ‘Velvia’ color profile.
