Add-ons and Special Features

Once you’ve purchased your telephoto lens, you’ll want to think about some appropriate accessories for it. There are some handy add-ons available that can be valuable. Here are a couple of them to think about.

Lens Hoods

Lens hoods are an important accessory for all lenses, but they’re especially valuable with telephotos. As I mentioned earlier, lens hoods do a good job of preserving image contrast by keeping bright light sources outside the field of view from striking the lens and, potentially, bouncing around inside that long tube to generate flare that, when coupled with atmospheric haze, can rob your image of detail and snap. In addition, lens hoods serve as valuable protection for that large, vulnerable, front lens element. It’s easy to forget that you’ve got that long tube sticking out in front of your camera and accidentally whack the front of your lens into something. It’s cheaper to replace a lens hood than it is to have a lens repaired, so you mi....