270 THE HASSELBLAD MANUAL
subjects, such as the face of a clock, remain perfectly circular if centered in the composition.
The fi sh-eye lens just covers a much larger background area diagonally than a wide angle lens
would. Such a lens can even lend a unique touch to wedding pictures (see Figure 14-33).
USING THE ZOOM LENS FOR CREATIVE PURPOSES
Zoom lenses offer unique possibilities for creating fascinating images by zooming while the
image is recorded in the camera using a shutter speed long enough to give you time to oper-
ate the zoom control. One second is usually a good choice. Zooming changes the size of
the subject recorded in the camera and converts highlights into streaks radiating either from
the center to the outside when you zoom to longer focal lengths or from the outside to the
center when you zoom from the long to the shorter focal lengths (Figure 14-34).
If you zoom for the entire exposure time, the image consists of streaks only. Most zoom
images are more effective when the subject can be recognized and is surrounded by streaks.
For such results, keep the focal length at a fi xed setting for about half the exposure time
(½ second when the total time is 1 second), and zoom only during the second half. To
produce effective zoom shots with bright streaks, you must photograph subjects with bright
areas. The streaks produced by the highlights are also more visible if they cross darker image
areas. You can make the streaks longer by zooming over the entire focal length range or
shorter by using only part of the zoom range.
Figure 14-32 Effective fi sh-eye photography. (Left) The tree trunk appears perfectly straight in
this fi sh-eye picture because it is composed to go from the corner to the center of the image.
(Right) Only the 180-degree diagonal angle of the 30 mm Distagon covered the entire range
of the two arches. (Photos by Ernst Wildi.)
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