This story is a short one, because the visual evidence is so obvious. There’s no such thing as “compression” of the scene when talking about telephoto lenses. When you use a telephoto lens, you’re simply getting a narrower angle of view than what you see with your eyes, which may make it look compressed. But it’s not. That area in the scene is the same as it would be if shot with a wider lens. To test this, all you have to do is stand in one spot and photograph the same scene at a variety of focal lengths. Then crop the photos with the shorter lenses to match the framing of your longest lens. Once you’ve done that, you’ll see there’s no compression.

However, there are real advantages to using telephoto lenses. First, you’re capturing a small area and getting more resolution (detail) than you would by simply cropping. And second, telephoto lenses allow you to take advantage of the more limited depth of field they can provide. That’s one reason they’re so popular as portrait lenses.

So if you want to impress your friends and help me debunk the compression myth, share this, or show them how to prove it for themselves.

This picture is taken with a 70-300mm lens at 300mm.

From the same position, this frame was taken with the same lens at 135mm, and then cropped to match the framing of the 300mm image.

Same thing, except now taken with the lens at 70mm, then cropped to match framing.

Again the same, except now taken with a 24-70mm lens at 50mm, then cropped to match framing.

Same 24-70mm lens, but now at 35mm, then cropped to match framing.

And finally at 24mm, but again cropped in to match the framing of the original taken at 300mm.

(If you like this story, please share it with your friends and let them know about the links on photography that I post on my business Facebook page. I’m also on Instagram and Twitter, @reedhoffmann. And if you’re curious about the workshops I teach, you can find them here.)