How to create zoom bursts

Zooming is a great way to add impact to pictures whether your subject is moving or not.

Most photographers with a zoom lens try zoom bursting at some point – with varying degrees of success. In a nutshell, all you do is zoom the lens through its focal length range, from longest to shortest or vice versa, while making an exposure. Result? Your subject records as a series of colourful streaks that appear to explode out from the centre of the image.

Any bold, colourful subject is suitable for zooming and they don’t actually need to be moving because the zooming itself introduces motion. Flowers, cars, groups of people – pretty much anything is fair game.

If you do attempt to zoom moving subjects, start off with things coming towards the camera such as a jogger or a cyclist. For subjects moving across your path you’ll need to pan the camera while zooming, which is trickier but can produce great results.

The key to success is zooming smoothly through the focal length range so you get even streaks, and also to set a shutter speed slow enough so you can zoom through the range – anything faster than 1/8sec will probably be too fast.

Essential kit... Gear for zooming

Zoom range
Obviously, you need a zoom lens. Wide-angle, standard or telezoom - all are suitable so choose whichever you need to suite your subject.

One-touch zoom
Most interchangeable zooms are on-touch these days - twist to focus and pull/push to zoom. These are ideal for zooming.

Integral zooms
The focal length of integral zoom is usually adjusted using T and W buttons. The zooming rate may not be fast enough for everyday use, though in low light with long exposures you should be okay.

* You can mount your camera on a tripod to prevent additional blur being created by camera shake, but this isn't essential if you have a steady hand.

How to shoot dynamic zoom bursts

Here's a guide to zooming the action

Choose a colourful, bold subject that doesn't rely on fine detail for its appeal. The background isn't too important as it will be blurred, but don't go for anything too cluttered. Mount your camera on a tripod.

In sunny weather outdoors try stopping down your lens to f/22, setting minimum ISO and using a polarising or ND filter to reduce the exposure. In low light such measures won't be necessary.

To lock the exposure, set your zoom to its longest focal length, take a meter reading and use the exposure lock to hold it so the exposure doesn't change once you start zooming.

Focus the lens on your main subject. You may want to do this with the lens set to manual focus so there's no chance of the focus point changing during zooming.

Set the zoom to its longest or widest focal length, and then just as you're about the trip the shutter release, start zooming. Zoom smoothly through the exposure.

An alterative idea is to zoom for part of the exposure so that you have a sharp subject surrounded by blurred streaks.

Once you've mastered the technique try adding a burst of flash to record a sharp image among all the blur. With 1st curtain flash zoom from wide to long, with 2nd curtain flash zoom from long to wide.

Zooming in the wrong direction when using flash creates bizarre results.