Can I have more control over when zoom closes?

[robskrob]

The problem I am having:

When I zoom on an image, I have a side image carousel that I would like to let the user click through, switching out the zoomed image as they click. Right now, whenever zoom is activated and I click on the side carousel the zoom closes -- this is not what I want.

The solution I'd like:

Ideally, I'd like to click on the carousel without closing zoom. The carousel has a z-index of 1000 so it is visible and one pixel higher than the zoomed image (z-index: 999).

Does anyone know how I can not close the zoom when clicking on another element on the page, like my carousel of images?

Alternative solutions:

If isolating where on the page closing zoom is too complicated, I would be open to a dedicated icon whose only responsibility is to control closing the zoom. In other words, if it is too complicated to close zoom everywhere else besides on my carousel image elements, then a dedicated icon / element for closing zoom could be ok.