I receive many questions related to all sorts of photographic topics and when I’m asked the same question multiple times, it makes more sense for me to write a quick blog post and point people here when it comes up.

As the title suggests, this post is about how to get the sharpest photos possible when using a telephoto lens. Easier said than done on a telephoto lens as when zoomed in, even the smallest of movements are exaggerated and with a smaller depth of field, getting acceptably sharp photos can be tricky.

In this article, I’ll list some of the main causes of camera shake or out of focus photos and make some suggestions as to how you can overcome these challenges and get the tack-sharp photos you set out to take.

A sharp, telephoto view of Snowdon taken with the tips listed in this article — Fujifilm XT5 | XF70-300mm | 300mm | 1/100th Second | f/11 | ISO125

Blurry vs. out-of-focus photos. An important distinction.

Before I dive into it, I think it’s worth explaining what the difference is between blurry and out of focus photos as they are different, but it can be easy to confuse the two.

Out of focus simply means that the subject you intend to be in focus is not. Also sometimes called “missing focus”. You won’t get ghosting caused by camera or subject movement, instead, the subject will appear soft and lack clarity. Even when focus is missed, it’s rare that an entire image will be out of focus, particularly when taking landscape photos as we tend to use smaller apertures and have a larger depth of field. One way to check if you have missed focus is to scan the rest of the image to check if any of it is sharp. If objects in front of your subject are sharp, you’ve focused too close and when areas behind the subject are sharp, the focus is too far back.
Blurry photos are usually the result of camera or subject movement and the shutter speed not being fast enough to freeze it. The telltale sign that a photo is blurry caused by camera shake, is that it will be across the entire image and look more like ghosting than just soft. Alternatively, if the subject moves, this usually looks like camera shake, but only to specific parts of the image.

A sharp telephoto photo of an autumnal woodland — Fujifilm XT5 | XF50-140mm | 140mm | 1/8th Second | f/9 | ISO125

Tips for avoiding camera shake when using a telephoto lens

Small vibrations caused by subtle movements of the camera or lens is a common reason why photos can lack sharpness. As I mentioned, even the smallest vibrations are exaggerated when using a telephoto lens, making it even more important to ensure the camera stays completely still at the critical moment the image is taken. Here are a few tips or techniques to help avoid camera shake when using a telephoto lens.

Use a tripod

It's obvious for good reason. Having a solid base for your camera to rest will help ensure your images are free from movement, particularly in low-light situations. As a landscape photographer, I spend a lot of my time taking photos in low-light situations and having a tripod allows me to use the most optimal camera settings while still getting pin-sharp photos.

A sharp, in focus view of a lone tree in the landscape taken on a telephoto lens — Fujifilm XT5 | XF50-140mm | 140mm | 1/20th Second | f/9 | ISO125

Use the built-in timer

You might not realise it, but pressing the shutter will move the camera and once pressed, it usually needs a second or two to settle before the photo is taken. This is why, in most situations when taking landscape photos, I use the built-in timer set to 2 seconds. When I fire the shutter, I will have a 2-second delay before the image is taken which is usually enough time for the camera to stop moving. If I’m zoomed in at 200-300mm, I might even use a 10-second timer to allow the camera even more time to settle.

Use a remote cable release or a mobile app

The problem when using a built-in timer to delay the shutter is that critical moments such as photographing wildlife in the landscape or waves crashing on the rocks can be easily missed. In those situations, you will want to take the photo at the precise moment you click the shutter, but how do you do this without re-introducing camera shake? For these situations, you can use a remote cable release. These are essentially a cable with a shutter button at the end, which will plug into your camera and allow you to take the photo at the precise moment you want without touching the camera at all.

Remote cable releases are incredibly useful but for those without one, then most modern cameras come with an accompanying smartphone app. These apps will typically connect wirelessly to the camera (using Bluetooth or Wi-Fi) and have a built-in shutter button. Working in the same way as the remote cable release, they will allow you to take the photo at the precise moment you want to but once again, without touching the camera directly and avoiding any of the resulting camera shake usually introduced when firing the shutter.

A sharp sunrise view of an undulating landscape taken on a telephoto lens — Fujifilm X-T30 | XF50-140mm | 140mm | 1/60th Second | f/8 | ISO160

Use OIS or IBIS

Not all situations will lend themselves to using a tripod, they can add some weight to your gear and some landscape photographers will avoid using one as they feel tripods “root” them to spot and prefer to take photos hand-held. There are of course certain poses to adopt when taking photos hand-held which limit the amount you move when pressing the shutter, but with the introduction of OIS (optical image stabilisation in the lens) or IBIS (in body image stabilisation) in modern cameras, this has made it even easier for photographers to avoid the impact of camera shake in their photos. So, in almost all cases, if you don’t use a tripod and have these features, they will go a long way to helping to avoid blurry photos.

Use a lens collar

Most higher-end telephoto lenses come with a lens collar which allow you to mount the camera and lens combo onto a tripod underneath the lens. With a more balanced setup, it will inevitably be more stable, and this will minimise the amount of camera or lens movement while taking the photo. The issue with less expensive/lighter telephoto lenses is that not only are they less likely to come with a lens collar, but they can often extend as they zoom, making them more sensitive to vibrations as well as pushing the centre of gravity further and further away from the tripod.

You can buy after-market lens collars that fit most telephoto lenses, so if this is something you suffer with, it’s worth considering, but the main reason I mention this is that it happened to me and it took me a while to release that the reason my photos were soft was down to the instability of the lens as it extended out while I zoomed.

Distant pine trees with sharp focus using my tips for telephoto photography — Fujifilm XT5 | XF50-140mm | 124mm | 1/15th Second | f/10 | ISO400

Avoid the lens hood in high winds

Lens hoods are great to help keep rain and glare from ruining your photos but that extra bulk can come at a cost when using telephoto lenses. Apart from adding further weight to the end of the lens, potentially destabilising it, they can also act as a sail when it’s windy. The bigger the lens hood, the more it can be affected by the wind, making it almost impossible to avoid vibrations at the end of the lens. So, my advice is to use them only if you absolutely have too, particularly in high wind and if you do, try to use some of the other tips in this post such as increasing your shutter speed if you can.

Use the electronic shutter

I remember the time when I was out taking photos and no matter what I did, I could not work out why my photos were soft. There was no wind, I was using a remote cable release, and my shutter speeds weren’t too long. I was scratching my head for a while before I realised it was the movement of the mechanical shutter causing small vibrations while the image was taken. When I changed the shutter to electronic, my photos were sharp again. Ever since that time, I exclusively shoot with an electronic shutter and having given it some thought, I can’t think of one reason why, for my photography specifically, I would ever need to use a mechanical shutter. It’s been three or four years since I stopped using a mechanical shutter and I have not once had a reason to switch back.

With modern cameras doing away with the mechanical shutter altogether, I guess I was just a bit ahead of my time!

Freeze the subject by using a fast shutter speed

Sometimes it won’t be camera shake causing a blurry image, instead, it could be subjects within the scene that are moving. Typically for me, this might be branches or leaves moving in the wind while photographing the woodland and this is where shutter speed becomes critical when trying to freeze moving subjects in the frame.

This section touches on something most photographers should know, and that’s the exposure triangle. Shutter speed, ISO and aperture; changing any of these settings will affect the exposure and can be used to your advantage when using a higher shutter speed while still letting in enough light onto the sensor to obtain the exposure you desire. I won’t deep-dive into the exposure triangle here, but if you’re reading this and you’re not familiar with it, I encourage you to add it to your list of things to look into.

Like many of the suggestions in this article, it’s worth noting that these can be used no matter what lens you use.

A tree in the mist taken using my tips for getting sharp photos with a telephoto lens — Fujifilm X-T30 | XF50-140mm | 140mm | 0.5 Seconds | f/7.1 | ISO160

Increase the ISO to ensure the fastest possible shutter speed

In days gone by, you would be forgiven for being reluctant to increase your ISO due to the noise it could generate in the image, but times have changed, and modern cameras manage noise so much better than they used to. My advice is to be more confident in increasing the ISO to help you achieve a faster shutter speed as a photo with a little noise can still be used whereas a blurry photo usually cannot.

Not only are modern cameras far better at minimising noise at higher ISOs, but software makers have also introduced more advanced tools to reduce or even remove the noise from your photos in post-production. So, even if your camera does struggle in high ISO, low-light situations, the image can likely be cleaned up back in post-production.

A sharp intimate landscape photo of ferns moving int he wind taken with a telephoto lens — Fujifilm X-T30 | XF50-140mm | 140mm | 1/6th Second | f/8 | ISO160

Use a wide aperture to let in more light

Like increasing the ISO, increasing the aperture by using a lower f-number can also help achieve sharper images when the subject is moving. With a wider aperture, more light can reach the sensor, resulting in faster shutter speeds to achieve the correct exposure.

There are, however, things you need to be aware of when choosing to use a wide aperture to achieve a faster shutter speed. First off, the more you open the aperture, the shallower the depth of field will be. The depth of field is the area between the nearest and furthest points in the image that are acceptably sharp and the wider the aperture, the narrower that area gets. In landscape photography, the depth of field is typically a creative choice, so using the aperture to achieve a faster shutter can be useful depending on the look you are trying to achieve.

Secondly, another consideration when using a larger aperture is that most lenses will suffer from some degree of edge softness when at their widest due to optical aberrations. Granted, modern lenses suffer to a lesser degree and the higher-end lenses with superior construction less so, however, most photographers will experience this at some point when taking photos when using a wide aperture.

The important point to note here is that to freeze a moving subject, a faster shutter speed is needed, and you should be aware of how the ISO and aperture can help achieve this, but at the same time, be mindful of how changing these can affect the look of the resulting image.

A well focused, sharp photo of the tip of Tryfan in Wales taken with a telephoto lens — Fujifilm XT5 | XF70-300mm | 300mm | 1/320th Second | f/6.4 | ISO125

Avoid missing focus when using a telephoto lens

Getting sharp images isn’t just about freezing the subject or avoiding camera shake, it’s also about ensuring parts of the image you wish to be sharp are in focus. I talked about the differences between motion blur and an image being soft before and this section of the post provides a few tips to help avoid missing focus when taking a photo.

Use a smaller aperture to increase your depth of field

OK, I know I’ve already talked about using a wide aperture to help get sharp photos but bear with me while I expand a little. I explained before that although using a wider aperture will let more light in, allowing you to use a faster shutter speed, there is a potential downside, that being a shallower depth of field, resulting in less of the photo being acceptably sharp.

It’s probably a good point to note at this stage that although the “depth-of-field” and the “focal plane” are similar, there is a subtle but important difference. The focal plane is the area of the scene in front of the lens where the sharpest focus is achieved. Depth-of-field is the area in front and behind the focal plane that is considered acceptably sharp and the smaller the aperture, the deeper this area of acceptable sharpness is.

So, if the light levels are good and you can achieve the shutter speed you desire while still using a smaller aperture, this will mean more of the image will appear in focus and acceptably sharp.

On top of a larger depth of field, a smaller aperture can limit or even eliminate the edge softness when using wider apertures, again, helping to achieve sharper photos.

Beachy head taken with a telephoto lens using my tips for getting sharp photos — Fujifilm XT5 | XF50-140mm | 98mm | 1/60th Second | f/8 | ISO125

Check and then re-check your focus

I’ve been caught out by my cameras a few times in the past by relying solely on auto-focus but since adopting my current workflow when out taking photos, thankfully the days of missing focus are behind me.

Firstly, I assigned the autofocus function to another button on the back of my camera and then switched the camera to manual focus. This means the camera will no longer try to focus when the shutter button is pressed. This is often called “back button focus” or BBF and most cameras will have this option available.

With BBF enabled, I have the best of both worlds where I can manually focus and take the image, knowing the shutter button won’t try to refocus for me as well as having the option to autofocus as and when I need by pressing the assigned button on the back of the camera. It also means that when photographing a scene as the light changes, I can get my focus right and then fire the shutter as many times as I like, knowing the focus will remain locked on throughout.

When I feel I have the photo I’m after, the first thing I will do is zoom in on the back of my camera to check it is sharp. Even using the method I outlined above; things can still go wrong. If you come away from a shoot and you find you’ve missed focus, you can’t typically recover from that so do whatever it takes to make sure you know the image is sharp before you leave.

A sharp photo of some tree tops in the mist — Fujifilm XT5 | XF50-140mm | 140mm | 1/5th Second | f/8 | ISO125

If you’re struggling with focus, particularly when using a telephoto lens then I hope this article goes someway to help you get consistently sharp photos and if you have any suggestions or techniques others might find useful, feel free to leave them on the comments.

Until next time

Trevor.

How to get sharp photos when using a telephoto lens