A post by: Darlene Hildebrandt
This is a technique that I learned years ago in photography school and have fun with lately. Hope you have as much fun playing with it like me!
Zooming during a long exposure tips
Works well on night scenes and those with many light sourcesSet your camera on a tripod with a remote trigger or releaseSet your camera to manual zoom in at all, then your focus by modeSet lock the focus (using a back button focus or focus with Auto-focus and then switch it to manual focus) zoom out so you can see the entire imageframedThen, if you want to start your exposure and your lens out while the shutter opens (you may need to practice a few times to make it supple) experiment with different zoom speeds and timing, as an example: If you enter a 5 seconds exposure with 3-4 seconds at the beginning, then zoom to the end; Enter another when you zoom immediately and have most of the exposure in the endExposure 2 seconds or longer to make this work, otherwise it is really difficult to zoomIf it is also clear to get a 2 second exposure, make sure that your ISO is as low as your camera and you set to your smallest aperture setting (f/22 or f/32). If it’s still too bright you may need to use a neutral density filter to cut down the amount of light through the lensHere are a few samples done using this technique.
I encourage you to experiment and play around with technology and other similar variants. Share your images in the comments section below and do you have other tips tell us!