The magic of the telephoto lens is making the middle distance seem close and the distant seem a lot nearer than it is. When you combine the two elements, the compression is delightfully deceptive. Here’s a simple shot taken around early November to December, 2007 (I don’t seem to have an exact date available) on my one and only visit to the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, to the east of London. (Yes, I stood with a foot each each hemisphere, astride the prime meridian, as everyone does!) This is a zoom shot and the outdoor cafe area in the foreground is seen against the Millennium Dome, which must be a couple of kilometres away on the other side of the Thames. It's also an exercise in pulling information out of the dark foreground without burning out the background, so the chip handled the situation very well indeed, requiring only minor tweaks to gamma value, contrast and colour. Fuji S5600. Image by Mike.
