Project - Medium Telephoto

Longer focal lengths make for objective 'across the street' compositions, and separate you from your subject, both physically in distance and in the sense of involvement. One of their strong advantages is that they keep you out of the way. This makes it relatively easy to shoot without being noticed. 50mm has always been considered standard as a focal length, and anything noticeable longer than this - basically from 80mm upwards - is classed as telephoto. Medium telephoto focal lengths are in the region of 80-200mm. In street photography, this helps you to isolate your subject from the surroundings, which tend to play less of a part in the image than they would with a wide-angle lens. Depth of field is relatively shallow, making accurate focusing important, but with the camera set to auto-focus this is usually not a problem.