Saturday afternoon cricket - panning

[oldgreygary]

I was trying to capture the essence of the speed of the bowler before delivering the ball. I tried setting a low shutter speed 1/80 (actually I thought I'd set it to 1/60?!). It feels as it has captured the speed element but not certain about the background being 'blurred' enough. Bearing in mind that I was using the Canon G2, so options are limited. The image has been heavily cropped. Any thoughts? Comments or advice?

Cheers for now

Gary

[Donald]

Gary

I looked at this earlier today, but didn't comment then because I couldn't put my finger on it, but ...........

I think the idea behind this and the execution of it are good except .......... the other players and the umpire.

Having the background blurred and the bowler more of less sharp whilst in motion is great and you caught him beautifully. But, given the other people were not moving in the same direction, at the same speed as the bowler they get blurred. And I think that throws the image off balance. We don't expect to see them blurred like that and the sense is created (and I know it is not the case) that them being blurred is an accident.

I cannot imagine how, unless you had very long and expensive glass, that you could isolate the bowler and have him as the only person in the shot

[oldgreygary]

Donald, I was very pleased to have captured the bowler up in the air before delivering the bowl. But, the more I kept looking at it the less convinced I became. So, I thought it was worth posting to get other thoughts which would clarify my own.
I guess it is also expecting too much of the Canon G2 as well. I have read in some articles that a 300mm lens is recommended for cricket images. Even then I'm not sure that the shot would work from the point of view that the probability of other people being in the shot would be quite high. But, it was certainly worth trying and it sort of builds up a memory bank of ideas and situations that work.

Cheers for now

Gary

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Gary,

Shooting a cricket match is on my list of "to do"s for the summer

Convention would dictate having the majority of people in shot sharp and the bowler blurred because of his speed.

However, I can see the opposite working, and you might have pulled it off but for 2-3 things;

there is a blurred pair of legs behind and below the bowlers
the bowlers face is hidden by his hand
it isn't quite level

The first two are pure luck of unfortunate timing, given what you are shooting with, unavoidable other than shooting lots of different bowls, as you only get one exposure per bowl.
The latter could have been straightened while cropping in PP, but is very minor point.

Hope that helps,

[oldgreygary]

Thanks for your reply Dave. It's interesting that there are things other people notice that I as the photographer become slightly blinkered about. I guess part of that is that I want the shot to work so I lose a bit of objectivity. All valid and constructive points raised. I hope that the weather holds for a while and I will have more opportunities to apply lessons learnt.

Addition to post:

I thought I would crop very tightly to see result (see below). It highlights the issues that have been spoken about. I guess that it would be fair to say that if I had a lens capable of taking the shot as per crop. I would also be able to achieve a shallow depth of field. In turn I could use a higher shutter speed to 'freeze' rather than 'pan' the shot?

Cheers for now

Gary