I worked my first years with 400mm being my longest lens. I talk about the many lessons the 400mm taught me in Captured but one of the most important is working with small subjects. I’m not talking about the subject being physically small in real life, but small in the frame. Until you learn how to get close physically, another important lesson the 400mm teaches, most subjects are small in the frame and that’s ok! We just need to learn how to make them visually pop in the frame. There are many, many, many ways of making this happen and “ridge lining” is one of my favorite.
The elements in making a cool ridge lining photo is a ridge line, a really clean background (so subject pops) and a subject doing something interesting. The ridge line is very important as it needs to be “clean” and not taking the eye away from the subject. The background is sky and it can’t be any plan sky but have something unique about it. And finally the subject, it needs something working for it and not looking like some cardboard cut out. In these two example, the ridge line is pretty clean, no sticks, shrubs or rocks breaking the line to and from the Pronghorn. The sky is early morning blue so has that “black” tint to it. And the Pronghorn, two bucks busy sparing as they figure out how them new horns they are growing work. And both of these shots were taken with the D4s / 800mm w/.25 attached. Ya, a technique a 400mm lens taught me I still use today even with the bigger glass. Whatever the gear you have in your bag, when you make it work for you, it will teach you things that the smart photographer. You can make that great click when you connect the mind and the heart with the subject!