Overall, landscape photographers are known for their love of ultra-wide lenses, but this is not always an accurate generalization. Many people prefer a normal lens or even a telephoto instead. But what about lenses that are primarily for sports and wildlife – supertelephotos? Can they work for landscapes too?
This is something I thought about recently, thanks to the arrival of a lens I plan to review soon: the Sony 400-800mm f/6.3-8. Normally, I look forward to testing this lens on a trip like Yellowstone or Bosque del Apache and trying to capture some interesting wildlife shots. But since there was no such trip for me, I decided to take it to our Fall Colors Landscape Photography Workshop.
I’ve long been a fan of telephoto lenses for landscape photography. When I used DSLRs, my favorite landscape lens was the Nikon AF-S 70-200mm f/4G. And in the mirrorless world, I’ve taken some of my favorite landscape photos with lenses like the Nikon Z 24-200mm f/4-6.3 and the Z 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 S. Yet, apart from a few attempts with the Nikon Z 800mm f/6.3 PF out of curiosity, I have rarely broken the 400mm barrier for this type of photography, nor felt any serious desire to do so. So.
After all, everyone knows that supertelephotos are unsuitable for landscape photography! In addition to the challenges of finding good subjects at such distances, there are also issues such as atmospheric distortion and haze that must be contended with. This is fine when your subject is an animal within shouting distance (although atmospheric problems may still occur), but a distant hill or a mountain far away? forget it.
Then…
I thought back two pieces of advice Massimo published in an earlier article on Photography Life. First, try a less suitable lens. And second, spend 80% of your time exploring new ideas in photography, even if it’s purely experimental, in the hopes of getting better and more unique images as you grow as a photographer.
Those tips certainly argued for bringing the 400-800mm f/6.3-8 and seeing what I could get. And now, after a long weekend of shooting beautiful autumn colors in constantly changing weather, I’m sure it was the right decision.
The first reason is that the 400-800mm allowed me to take new types of landscape photos in places I had been to many times before. Admittedly, this is a self-imposed problem, but we have held our workshop at this location almost every year for over a decade. Even with the change in weather and fall colors, I’m having a hard time capturing unique photos every time.
But take a photo at 800mm when the longest lens I used before was a 24-240mm superzoom? The result will be something unique.
Plus, I’m a fan of the simple fact that the Sony 400-800mm f/6.3-8 is a zoom. I’m not at all anti-prime lenses, but I think the main advantage of a supertelephoto for landscapes is that you can choose the smaller parts of the scene that you find most attractive. This requires very careful framing, and there is often not much ability to “zoom with your feet” if your subject is located on a distant mountain. During this trip, I found myself resorting to some unconventional focal lengths to get the perfect composition. (Any Lilo & Stitch fans out there? 626mm was a fun coincidence for this next shot.)
Aspen trees are perfect for telephoto lenses. Well, that’s not entirely fair – they also equip themselves with normal lenses and ultra-wide lenses. They are actually very photogenic trees, especially in the fall when they can turn anything from bright yellow to fiery red. But telephotos (and supertelephotos) capture the more abstract dimension of these beautiful trees, flattening them into straight lines against a colorful canvas.
As far as the Sony 400-800mm f/6.3-8 is concerned, I’m still in the process of testing it and I don’t have much to say, although I found it to be quite accurate. Atmospheric distortion and haze were factors, but not terrible considering the clear and relatively cool air I experienced on this trip. All of the photos in this article have enough detail to be printed at large scale, which is all I really care about. And I really liked the fact that this lens has an internal zoom – an excellent touch considering the harsh conditions I experienced (severe wind, rain and hail, sometimes all three at the same time).
Finally, I will say that my time spent with the Sony 400-800mm f/6.3-8 was helped by the fact that 400mm isn’t really that big. Very tall. Yes, it’s long by landscape standards, but issues like atmospheric haze pose much less of a problem at 400mm, and I found I was getting fairly sharp and contrasty results at that focal length even in the rain.
By comparison, I rarely felt the need to zoom to 800mm – partly because, at that focal length, it’s even harder to do. Look Your subject scans the scene in front of you. At least at 400mm, it didn’t seem so hard to see an interesting scene with your own eyes before taking out the camera.
And what were my stats from using this lens in the field? It turns out I took 63% of my photos with it exactly at 400mm, another 18% in the 401mm to 600mm range, and 19% beyond 600mm. To me, this is a sign that something a little wider would have been a better fit, like the Sony 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G or the Nikon Z 180-600mm f/5.6-6.3; Obviously an 800mm lens is excessive for landscape photography. Still, I took many of my favorites beyond 400mm, so I understand that 100-400mm or more may not be enough for every scene I want to capture.
Does it make sense that I’m switching to Sony and buying the 400-800mm f/6.3-8G? No, but it was an interesting experiment and it reignited my interest in long telephotos for landscape photography. On future trips – especially if I’m expecting good telephoto subjects like these aspen trees – I’ll definitely give more thought and effort to longer focal lengths. At least this time, I think it was worth it!
