Horse Races - Panning - For Grahame

[Brownbear]

First try of the year, and it is just as challenging to do. I'm trying to learn to pan with a slow shutter speed to capture the motion of the horses with beautiful dancing blurred legs and to obliterate the distracting background at the race track, yet grab focus on the horses head and ideally a jockey or two. The race track added a new, super large big screen TV so just another thing to blur away... And the usual challenges of leaving enough room in the frame for the horses to run into and/or not cropping bits.

Focal Length 300 mm for all...

Normal Shot 1/2000 F8



Auto ISO set to a max of 800 Aperture from f/8 to f/16


Panning 1/60 sec

1.



2. It's kind of strange how the focus is sharpest on the jockey at the back, but the background is nicely blurred




3. Here the forward horse is sharpest, which is what I want but the rear jockey has lots of motion blur. The background is distracting (:



1/80 Sec

4. (Note replaced double image with correct image)




5.


6.


Lots of images and I'm simply sharing for the sake of learning... The feedback I would appreciate most is whether I should try for having the horses or the jockey's head in focus, if it is agreed that the backgrounds at 1/60 second are nicer, and/or any tips for panning race horses. The next time around I'm going to try and use a tripod.


Thank you.

[Shadowman]

Only for Grahame, I'm jealous!

Nice series, was the first shot just a teaser for what came afterwards?

[Stagecoach]

Wow Christina you appear to have cracked it !

The first thing that strikes me with this series is a general improvement in image quality from previous attempts, no idea why but it's noticeable.

It looks to me as if the 1/60s for the speed the horses are travelling is just about spot on for what you are trying to achieve, I do not think there is anything to be gained by shooting slower, you will just get more failures. 1/80s is going to give you a slightly better keeper rate but at the cost of losing some of the motion.

With regard to having the jockeys or horses head in focus I suspect ideally it needs to be both and perfect examples are No's 1 & 4 but achieving it I suspect comes down very much to luck although they are likely the objects of least movement out of sync with the camera.

As for No 2, the focus is not just sharp on the jockey at the back but also on the right flank of the front horse No 3 suggesting that your DOF is spot on and anything 'fuzzy' in between is not actually out of focus but 'motion blur'.

I'm not sure if you know where your shooting position is going to be or you have any option in the matter but for my drag racing I measured my position in relation to the track/cars and worked out the DOFs I would get at varying apertures to give me some confidence of how tight focus would be. For measuring I used google earth, surprisingly accurate and a very worthwhile exercise.

Not sure about the tripod but it's certainly worth a try, but the fact that where these are sharp where theres no motion blur shows your panning is pretty good.

Well done

Grahame

[Brownbear]

LOL Simply because Grahame helped me a lot last Fall when I first tried panning horses at the race track. The next decent shot I manage will be for just for you.

The first shot was simply because Grahame likes close-in action shots, and also to show that I can grab focus at a normal shutter speeds.

Only for Grahame, I'm jealous!

Nice series, was the first shot just a teaser for what came afterwards?

[Brownbear]

Hi Grahame,

Thank you. These are not quite what I'm dreaming of capturing but a decent start.

I agree that 1/60 seems to be the best compromise... 1/40 is a nicer blur but so hard to do.

I appreciate the explanation of the focus. I would prefer that the motion blur was at the back end of the image but oh well.

I have 2-3 favoured shooting positions but they change depending on the crowds. The apertures I choose are what I think will be sharpest for my lens but I can hardly ever use them because of the harsh sunlight and the white pants favoured by the jockeys. After I posted this I went to the race track and ended up using apertures of about f/18 most of the time.

I tried using a tripod this afternoon and it was far too difficult to compose the shot... Headless jockeys and headless horses... Two races with the tripod and never again.

This is something that I'm just doing for the fun of the challenge, and of course that dream photo in my head. In hindsight my dream image would have just running horses. Nevertheless this spring and summer I will try a few more times and see if I can improve. Perhaps I will start a thread just for this so I don't have to explain what I'm trying to do each time.


Thank you Grahame!

Wow Christina you appear to have cracked it !

The first thing that strikes me with this series is a general improvement in image quality from previous attempts, no idea why but it's noticeable.

It looks to me as if the 1/60s for the speed the horses are travelling is just about spot on for what you are trying to achieve, I do not think there is anything to be gained by shooting slower, you will just get more failures. 1/80s is going to give you a slightly better keeper rate but at the cost of losing some of the motion.

With regard to having the jockeys or horses head in focus I suspect ideally it needs to be both and perfect examples are No's 1 & 4 but achieving it I suspect comes down very much to luck although they are likely the objects of least movement out of sync with the camera.

As for No 2, the focus is not just sharp on the jockey at the back but also on the right flank of the front horse No 3 suggesting that your DOF is spot on and anything 'fuzzy' in between is not actually out of focus but 'motion blur'.

I'm not sure if you know where your shooting position is going to be or you have any option in the matter but for my drag racing I measured my position in relation to the track/cars and worked out the DOFs I would get at varying apertures to give me some confidence of how tight focus would be. For measuring I used google earth, surprisingly accurate and a very worthwhile exercise.

Not sure about the tripod but it's certainly worth a try, but the fact that where these are sharp where theres no motion blur shows your panning is pretty good.

Well done

Grahame

[Scouse]

Nice series Christiana. You've covered most of the shots with focusing, motion and DOF. What I'm liking is you composition. In all motion/sport shots it's nice to see that the "horses have room in front to run. Not nose against the frame..

Your first 4 shots are great for that.

[Rita]

Christina, from what I remember of your track shots last year i must say these are far better. Isn't it great when we are learning and we see improvement

[Brownbear]

Ken... Thank you. The timing is challenging. Lots of shots with just the back ends of the horses running out of the frame. Of course the shot with the nose against the frame is the one I wish I had managed. 3 horses with dancing hooves!

Rita... Thank you. I will try a few more times this year and hopefully it will get easier. Truly appreciated.

[Stagecoach]

The apertures I choose are what I think will be sharpest for my lens but I can hardly ever use them because of the harsh sunlight and the white pants favoured by the jockeys. After I posted this I went to the race track and ended up using apertures of about f/18 most of the time.

Christina, when I have come across this problem I have used an ND filter to allow me to open up for the purpose of less DOF helping the background and secondary the sweet spot of the lens but in all honesty I do not think the advantage made that much of a difference between keepers and non keepers.

Grahame

[Bobobird]

Hmmmmm, now go and do that with the birds....
Nice series and great explanations all round on the technicalities.

[deetheturk]

Hi Christina,i have never tried this type of photography (yet) so don't think i am qualified to critique,but from what i can see,you have done a good job,well done you

David

[Donald]

Wow Christina you appear to have cracked it !

The first thing that strikes me with this series is a general improvement in image quality from previous attempts, no idea why but it's noticeable.

As soon as I started looking at these that was my exact thought as well. For me, more than anything, this series of pictures, when compared to where Christina started on this journey, demonstrate what dedication and commitment to learning your craft is all about - Improvement. These are a real pleasure to view.

Lots of images and I'm simply sharing for the sake of learning...

And that's fine. But I think a step that needs to start coming into the learning soon is about editing.

What I'm meaning is that, so far as I'm concerned, Pictures 1 & 4 above (it is the same picture I think) is as good as it gets. That's top quality photography. I suspect that the rest are no more nor less than what any pro is going to have at the end of shoot like this. They're close, but not close enough to the standard that you are wanting. So, at the end of the day and when it's not a case of showing them for learning purposes, they would be dumped. I think, #1/#4 shows us that the 'goal' (to answer Christina's question) is that the head of both horse and jockey is sharp, but we have motion blur in the legs and in the background. I think it's a beauty.

[dje]

Great work Christina, you seem to be getting the hang of it !

Dave

[Wavelength]

Excellent images; liked them very much

[jamn4ex]

Awesome Christina! all great 2&4 maybe a little greater.

[Brownbear]

Thank you to Grahame, Bobo, Donald, Dave & David, James and Nandakumar.

And just to say thank you to all. Your replies inspire me not to give up on trying for these types of shots.

David... I tried to do these types of images last September and August simply because I love horses and there is a racetrack not too far away from where I live. My first shots were normal but the background at the racetrack is very unattractive (lamp posts, dummy men, fences, etc) After seeing some blurred artistic images of horses running I thought I would give it a try. I'm going to try a few more times this year... A little luck is always needed.

Grahame... Thank you for sharing the tip on using the ND filters. I don't have any yet simply because I'm saving to purchase a higher quality filter... However I did buy a step up ring which means I can use my polarizer on all my lens. And a BIG thank you to you for all your help and advice last year.


Donald....

Thank you so much for your encouragement and advice on the images. Your advice is exactly what I need to hear to improve. So now I know that when I try again I need to strive for (and cull the images that don't meet the criteria)

1. The heads of the horse and jockey need to be in decent focus (which likely means that I should try for shots with just 1 or 2 horses, 3 is just too hard to do)
2. horses with dancing blurred legs
3. blurry background
4. room to move

And if the above criteria are not met I will delete the photo, no matter how beautiful the horse is... ie; the grey horse in the last image is just so beautiful... Next time I will try to catch this beauty by himself

Also thank you for letting me know about the double photo post. I replaced that image with another that I worked on post processing (the others I didn't do very much to because they were just for feedback)... I dodged the shadow of the post.

[Brownbear]

Hi Bobo,

Are you serious? If yes, do you have any links to share or images of your own of birds photographed this way?

Hmmmmm, now go and do that with the birds....
Nice series and great explanations all round on the technicalities.

[bnnrcn]

Hi Christina . I haven't tried panning yet and I don't know very much about the technique. But I can tell you that #1 is such a nice image

[Kaye Leggett]

Christina - they're great - you should be proud of yourself.

[Brownbear]

Thank you Kaye. Truly appreciated.

Christina - they're great - you should be proud of yourself.