Few can resist the vibrant explosion of colour presented by a beautiful sunset, although there are regrettably a few cynics who look down on sunset photography due to its sheer popularity and the relative ease of capture (especially when the foreground is thrown into silhouette).
So I thought I would combine the humble sunset with another simple photographic technique: zooming.
All you need for zooming is a zoom lens that you can control manually. A telephoto or medium focal length zoom is probably best, though a wide angle zoom could also work. Most dSLR owners will have the medium zoom shipped with their camera body.
Compact owners, if your camera allows you to operate the zoom controls whilst the shutter is released then you can try this too.
The idea is to zoom the lens in or out whilst taking the shot. To achieve this you will require a slow shutter speed - anything from about 1 second to 4 or 5 seconds. Since you are shooting a relatively bright scene, you will need to dial in the lowest ISO possible, and probably the smallest aperture possible. If that still does not give you the shutter speed required, try a neutral density filter, or even your polariser (which general swallows about 2 stops of light).
You do not need a tripod since the result image will be lovely and blurry anyway, but it does help if you stand in a stable position and perform a nice smooth zoom.
You can experiment with zooming in vs zooming out, different shutter speeds, zooming in and out, and even lateral movements while zooming.
The results are unlikely to win any Pulitzer prizes, but if you like simple pictorial art as much as I do, images created with this technique would look great as a large colourful canvas on your wall.
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