5D Mk IV – EF24-70 F/2.8L – 5 seconds, f/10, ISO 100, Eval Meter

I had a weird idea this morning and I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before. I thought “what would happen if you changed the focal length of a picture during the course of taking that picture?”. The initial results were kind of dismal. Similar to an out of focus double exposure. But I remembered that when taking fireworks, you take long exposures. I set up the tripod in the living room with the 5D and the 24-70 lens in front of the Christmas tree. I set the starting focal length at 70mm with a shutter speed of 5 seconds. I had the timer set for a 2 second delay. This helped me in that once I pressed the button, I had a little time to get my hand on the lens zoom wheel. I then slowly rotated the zoom ring out to 70mm finishing about 2 seconds before the picture was done.

To say I was surprised is an understatement. I think this is pretty cool. Now this isn’t an award winning PotD, but this technique has possibilities. I’d like to get a tree that has no distractions around it. The biggest issue with this technique is rotating the zoom wheel while avoiding excessive camera shake.

Merry Christmas!