Horse Races - 2nd Try at Panning with a Slow Shutter Speed Part 1

[Brownbear]

Hi Robin,

Here is another shot that I didn't post because of the background. The full horse is in the shot and I think the lead horses head and the jockey is in okay focus, but I'm not sure. Your thoughts on this one and the background? I guess the whole panning thing started for me because I'm trying to blur the backgrounds away...
Thank you.

For me - 7 and 3 are good for focus. For me 7 is my pick.

The bunch of horses, with the nearest one in good focus, and with space to run into.
The background, for me it is a choice, I want some background at a race track (see my motorsport shots on another thread on panning) so that we can see it is a shot taken on a day where there was a race meeting going on. A sense of event, not just a race car going at speed on an otherwise empty track.

However some backgrounds can be distracting, I hope not so much that it draws the eye for too long.
For me it is a balancing act.

For horse racing you have different challenges, lots of movement going in different directions.
I imagine SS can not be as low as with motor racing.

Rbn

[rawill]

I think this one is quite good.
Riders in focus, first horse head in focus, rear horse trying to catch first horse, space to run into, and first horse completely off the ground.
Rear horse rear is cut off, but in this case not quite so important as the first horse is the main subject.

Or is it? depends on your own subjective view.
Perhaps the pole is a bit distracting, but this is sometimes the issue. These shots are not posed, not time to remove "twigs etc".
Except in PP! and like you I want the shot as close to right first.

However, look at this shot, and compared with the one you put in the link.
I think the one in the link has a real sense of event, whereas this one is kind of like "in a bare paddock".

Lots of my motorsport practice shots are "bare paddock shots", taken on race days when there are very few spectator vehicles in the background to my favorite spot. Just the way it is sometimes.

[Brownbear]

Thank you for your very informative and helpful analysis. I guess a pretty background one of the things I'm striving for and when I get close I will post process to the best of my ability, keeping in mind that the background is a racetrack.

I think this one is quite good.
Riders in focus, first horse head in focus, rear horse trying to catch first horse, space to run into, and first horse completely off the ground.
Rear horse rear is cut off, but in this case not quite so important as the first horse is the main subject.

Or is it? depends on your own subjective view.
Perhaps the pole is a bit distracting, but this is sometimes the issue. These shots are not posed, not time to remove "twigs etc".
Except in PP! and like you I want the shot as close to right first.

However, look at this shot, and compared with the one you put in the link.
I think the one in the link has a real sense of event, whereas this one is kind of like "in a bare paddock".

Lots of my motorsport practice shots are "bare paddock shots", taken on race days when there are very few spectator vehicles in the background to my favorite spot. Just the way it is sometimes.

[Brownbear]

Hi L Paul,

I tried this in post processing, a first for me and I found it surprisingly easy to do in Elements as it is a lot easier to select around the smooth lines of horses and jockeys (vs birds) and then I just hit motion blur and chose the amount... Albeit the bottom right hand portion needs more work but this was just a quick first try for me.

It doesn't seem fair to the art of panning but good to know and I'm glad I tried it... But yes, I still intend to learn how to do it in camera as I think if it is an art one should learn how to do it, but for sure if I need a little help with an almost there photo and the photo was wanted by someone, it is a good thing to know how to do.

Thank you.

Christina I think your priorities are wrong. The shutter speed and panning actions primary purpose is to capture the subject clearly. If you want the background to be blurred by the panning action you will need to be closer and sweep the pan at a higher speed. The movement of the horse and jockey will force you to use a higher shutter speed (1/200th minimum?) if you want to have an acceptable success rate. Less tightly framed photographs and cropping later will also give you a higher success rate and more options with the final composition.

The background can always be modified if you must in PP but a blurry horse and rider or a chopped off tail cannot. As I said in another thread SOOC is a worthy objective but not a reliable technique and even less so for demanding subjects.

P.S. You can sometimes rescue a chopped of tail in PP but it is much easier not to.