Whenever people think of landscape photography they almost always tend to think about using wide to super wide-angle lenses. The most common question we get asked multiple times during each of our workshops is: "what lens should I bring?" As Don Smith would answer: "the real question you are probably asking is which lens/es you can leave." We don't want to carry heavy gear unnecessarily. There are certain circumstances where lenses can be left behind but most of the time I find that I need the very lens left behind.

          Rather than think according to the conventional wisdom that wide-angle lenses are better at landscape photography than telephone lenses take some telephoto lens landscape images. I really want to challenge you. Go out and shoot landscape images with a telephoto lens. Telephone lenses can be great tools to teach us photography. They help us to find the compositions, to think and see compositionally. They force you to look at large scenes in smaller chucks. They help us to spot great compositions easier. So practice with these long lenses.

This image was taken from a distance using a telephoto lens. I think it was taken at 600mm. Not all landscape images need to be of big, wide-open spaces. We do not always need to see in the distance. Try to get some more intimate images. Change things up, build a portfolio that spans a wide variety of images. The more we use long lenses for landscapes the better we will become at composition.

          Do you accept the challenge?