For this week’s “The Magic Lantern” theme, I thought I would share something I learned several years ago, called “zooming.”  It’s a fun technique that transforms any image into a kaleidoscope by adjusting your shutter speed to just the right timing (somewhere between 1/2 second and 1/5 second) rapidly “zooming”  your lens in/out on the subject as you click the “shutter release” button. The outcome can be pretty incredible creating a totally new work of art.

Here is one of my first images I took for a photography class.  It’s a picture of an oil painting of Havana, Cuba which was given to me and my husband from one of his co-workers who had traveled back to Cuba to visit her family.

Havana, Cuba – Shutter Speed 1/5 second; f-stop 7.2; ISO 200

It’s been several years since I took the above photo, so I was a little apprehensive about writing this blog and how my photos would turn out.   But, after a few failed attempts…hang on…….these are pretty bad:

American Flag – Zooming Fail

Darien Shrimp Boats – Zooming Fail

Bird Seed – Zooming Fail

St. Simons Lighthouse – Zooming Fail

I finally began to get the hang of things……and ended up with a few photos I like:

Bird Seed – Shutter Speed 1/5 second; f-stop f/22; ISO 200; Exposure Bias -3.7

Loquat Fruit – Shutter Speed 1/2 second; f-stop f/22; IS 200; Exposure Bias -3.7

Bird Seed – Shutter Speed 1/5 second; f-stop f/22; ISO 200; Exposure Bias -3.7

I took these photos in “TV Mode” and spent a lot of time messing with the “Exposure Bias.”  You’ll see in the above captions that the “Exposure Bias” for each was in the negative zone making the colors dull and dark.  Hopefully, once I open them up in the editing program I will be able to push the colors and saturation to make them pop.

If  you’re going to try “zooming” I would definitely recommend that you go straight to “Manual Mode” so that you can adjust both “Shutter Speed” and “Aperture” without having to spend a lot of time reducing the “Exposure Bias.”   Also, don’t get frustrated if you can’t get the hang of it right away…..just go with it and have some fun…..you will be surprised at the images you will create.