David Pogue's Digital Photography: The Missing Manual

The Exploding Zoom

You've probably seen this classic special-effect shot. It's a cool, artsy, abstract sort of photography—not what you'd want to illustrate your eBay goodies, but a lot of fun to make.

Oh—it's for SLRs only.

Steady the camera as best you can. Frame the shot with the widest zoom setting on your lens. Select a slow shutter speed—maybe 1 or 2 seconds.

The goal is to zoom in while the shutter is open. Be quick but steady. You may need to try multiple times to get the center reasonably sharp (if that's something you want).

The resulting picture looks as if it's exploding from the center, or as though you're flying at Warp 9 toward the subject.

Tip

There are hundreds more classic photo types that aren't covered by this chapter—or, indeed, by any one book. Snow shots. Tennis shots. Animal photography. Experimental shots. Virtual-reality shots. Infrared shots. High-dynamic-range shots. Architectural shots.

Subscribe to Popular Photography, a terrific magazine written in plain English. Each month, its How To articles tackle another one of these specialized photo ops.