Part 2: Zoom Trick Shot - Photography with Imre

Part 2: Zoom Trick Shot - Photography with Imre - Episode 20

May 14, 2010

Before I get into the supplemental post, I just want to say that I've been getting some great feedback for Episode 20 and I'm always happy to get comments - thank you all!

Now something I did not mention in the video relates to where this effect is and could be used. Funny thing is as I was running through my video before uploading it, my father walked in the room with a pamphlet. He opened up the leaflet and to my surprise there was a photo of a couple of people riding on a motor-scooter, with a similar zoom effect I showed off in the video. Neato! Indeed this effect is not one that I believe would work in many places, but it's a clever way to illustrate or add movement to a photograph, as well as to convey mood in some cases. Aside from two wheeled vehicles, I've also seen such shots with cars and aircraft, along with zoomed shots through sunlit forests. Flickr is a great site to conduct some searches to see what photographers are coming up with.

Another point I'd like to add is that if you're using a tripod for these type of shots, then you most certainly could use long exposures (e.g. several seconds or even minutes). In fact, click here for an example of such a photo. A solid tripod and steady hands could yield some very interesting outcomes. Imagine what a lengthy exposure of stars would look like while slowly zooming in or out. Without a tripod though, your images would turn out like some of mind did as I was out in my backyard snapping away taking shots for the episode - blurry. Simply said, we humans are just too wobbly.

Lastly, my father had a really neat idea for a motioned zoom shot, and by that I mean a photo where you not only zoom, but also pan in a direction (like that pine tree photo in the video; also displayed below). My dad's idea was to rotate the camera around the optical axis of the lens while zooming. I love the idea, which would create an effect mimicking the radial blur filter in Photoshop, but we contemplated that it might be a bit difficult to produce. My dad mentioned rotating the camera, which might work if you had a lens with it's own mount. Then you could attach that mount onto a tripod (versus the camera to the tripod), and if the ring around the lens could be loosened enough to allow free rotation, then the trick might just work... I'll have to try that out someday soon!

To close off this post, here are some of the shots taken for the making of this episode, with links to their respective homes on Flickr where you can see them at a larger size. If you haven't already, please subscribe to my humble YouTube channel, and there are links to the side pointing to my pages on Facebook and Twitter. L8r!