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■ Consider a DO lens if you don’t have a lot of arm strength. These are ideal if you need to take frequent telephoto shots because they are much smaller and lighter. ■ If you’re using a tripod, make sure it’s heavy-duty enough to support your camera and lens. ■ For long telephoto lenses, use the lensmounted tripod mount. ■ Hold your camera and lens correctly for the most stable image. Place your left hand underneath the lens, not on the top of it. This is how your camera and lens were designed to be held, and is the most ergonomically correct position. ■ It’s easy to shoot tight shots with a telephoto lens, but be careful not to shoot too tight. Remember that you may need to crop later to fit various print-size aspect ratios, so think about leaving a little margin in your shots. ■ If you’re using a variable-aperture zoom lens, don’t forget that when you zoom out your f-stop changes. Especially if you are shooting in manual mode, you’ll need to adjust your speed and/or ISO accordingly. ■ Shooting with a flash and a telephoto lens can be tricky, because the effectiveness of the flash isn’t designed for great distances. Remember the Inverse Square law when shooting flash images.
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For more about the Inverse Square law, see Chapter 8.
MACRO LENSES Close-up, or macro, photography requires a lens that is either dedicated to functioning at a close range or that has the ability to take short-distance images along with other features. Several Canon lenses offer a macro function either as an option to other capabilities or as their primary purpose, and they vary according to how specialized you want to be with this unique type of photography. The primary difference between the various types of macro photography is how far you can be from your subject and how much magnification the lens provides. If you are shooting insects, for example, which in many cases won’t let you get a foot or less away from them to shoot, you’ll probably need a longer lens to capture them alive in their natural habitat. On the other hand, if you’re shooting something that will stand still for you — such as a flower or a small product for a catalog — you can get closer and you won’t need a long lens. As for magnification, being able to fill a frame with a close-up image is essential to producing high-resolution images.
CANON’S MACRO LENS LINEUP Macro lenses vary according to focal length and for the magnification level they can reach; for example, my favorite is the Canon MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5x Macro Photo, a dedicated macro lens that can shoot up to five times life-size (1:1) (see 6-24). This means if you adjust it to its maximum macro magnification level (5x), you can get an ant to literally fill your frame. It has outstanding image quality and resolution. And, because it can shoot up to .24 meter (.8 foot) from the subject, you can get very close to your subject and still be in focus.