Picture of the Day - 12/27/2010

"Zoo Lights" at the Denver Zoo - While the Denver Zoo also has an annual "holiday light safari", I couldn't help but try out some abstract photography this evening. There are many ways to create interesting abstracts and most cameras (even the small compacts) can be set up to do this. While "zoom blurs" may only be done with lenses that can be manually zoomed during the shot, the "jiggle" or (horizontal or vertical) "pan" blurs may be done with any camera. Remembering that the actual image ends up on the imager upside down, to achieve the "swirl" blur as pictured (a series of "smiles"), you need to swirl up and down in a circular fashion. For the best effect, it helps to look for a multitude of multi-colored and closely-spaces lights. Trial and error is the order of the day for these and it usually takes several tries before I like the result. Camera settings: ISO 1600, aperture 5.6, shutter 1/6 second. Be sure to pre-focus first.