Ed Greding Loc: Texas

I'm a little confused. It seems to me that if you use a long lens on the Sun, and focus well, it will stay in focus regardless of where you stand, because the Sun is so far away. If you want to include a foreground earthly object, say a tree, it will almost be right there with you, relative to the distant Sun. Still, you must be far enough away from the tree to focus it also, which means a high f-number. And the tree will be magnified just as much as the Sun. Could someone kindly clarify this if I am wrong? Heck! Maybe it needs clarification anyhow!

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

No clarification needed. SHOOT IT FOR YOURSELF AND FIND OUT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

blackest Loc: Ireland

It's a bit tricky to think about but

The long lens has a narrow field of view the moon is about 1/2 a degree wide.

fov of a 50mm lens 39.6 about 1/80th of the frame
600mm 3.4 degrees about 1/7th of the frame arghh math lets call it an 1/8th or 10x bigger :) it's a bit more than that.

now we need a couple of trees 1 nearby 1 distant. if we use the long lens and the nearby tree we see a few branches the tree looks massive but we compensate for that and the moon gets scaled back.

but the distant tree make it far enough back so the tree takes the same angle of view as the moon now the moon and the tree looks the same size. both are at infinity focus so we see the tree as being about 10x nearer than it actually is but the moon is as wide as the tree so we see the moon as being 10x bigger.

I think thats it :)

mentally we see the tree as being nearer than it is so the moon looks bigger relative to the tree.

dsmeltz Loc: Philadelphia

If you shoot 50 yards out from a tree with the tree filling half the frame and the sun in the background the tree will appear to be a certain size relative to the Sun. If you move to 100 yards from the tree and zoom in to the same framing (the tree filling half the frame), the Sun now appears to be twice as large relative to the tree. (This is not exact but illustrative.)

While your distance from the tee has doubled your distance from the Sun as not changed significantly.

Focus on the tree in both instances.

bobramewe

Hmmm...playin with a long lens may have more merit/fun than I anticipated.
Thanks!

wj cody Loc: springfield illinois

most use of my 500mm lenses is to compact the perspective of the image

r.grossner Loc: Rockford IL & Sarasota FL

Sounds like a you got it covered unless you need a longer telephoto. Its a DX body so your 70-300 zoomed has the field of view of a 450mm.

r.grossner Loc: Rockford IL & Sarasota FL

The stop light is a mile away. Not the best example of compression. Really need more cars so they would look like a train. Tamron G2 @ 600mm.

(Download)

r.grossner Loc: Rockford IL & Sarasota FL

Lots of heat distortion on a hot Florida day.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Yes, I have a lot of pictures of photographers; often they are more interesting than their subjects.

gnawbone Loc: Southern Indiana

I had a Sigma 150-600, took some pics of the moon and the neighbors horse trailer - it was fun to mess with but I didn't use it enough to make sense to keep the 'investment'. Sold it to a friend of mine that uses it to take pics of his son playing soccer.