Panning Exercise

[xpatUSA]

The gentleman who had a sleepless night and then went into a big calculation which you won't see in any book and a pro photographer would clearly not use.

Dave you're making it sound like I'm recommending that all panners do these calcs. I was really responding to the OP and trying to give some insight into the physics of motion blur. By "big calculation" not "seen in any book" and, of course a "Pro" mention, it seems that you were not impressed. Should the theory of relativity been in a book before Albert proposed it, d'ya think?

if you use a high ss all you will get is a car/horse/plane or whatever stuck as if somebody had stopped the object dead. Use a low SHUTTER SPEED and you will get the desired images and when you pan start at 180% then take your image at 90% and then keep panning to 0%. Simple.
Dave.

I already said that, but glad to see I wrote something right . .

"Back to a horse: The basic answer to your question, the compromise is most certainly in shutter speed. At an excessive shutter speed (1/4000sec?) you would get a still image."

Boy, we on a roll today . . . .

[Stagecoach]

Hi all,

Firstly, thank you Bill for the detailed analysis, very helpful. Secondly, Dave I believe the insight Ted gave on the theory side was very valuable and whilst it's obvious that some who are experienced would not need to know this there are many of us that do appreciate the technicalities at times that assist in our overall understanding.

Well today there was a chance for another session and the aim was to use a longer focal length, try some with VR off and for the first time ever use shutter priority.

Location proved difficult being further back from the road due to obstructions being in the way if I was to use continuous auto focus but I eventually found a good spot sat on the sea wall but still restricted to 105mm max.

Here goes .................................

No 1 105mm, 1/80s, f14


No 2 70mm, 1/80s, f18


No 3 70mm, 1/80s, f18, VR OFF


No 4 95mm, 1/60s, f14


And the one that has made this whole exercise over the past few days worthwhile for me because I had a second attempt and nailed it as he returned back .........................
No 5 105mm, 1/60s, f20


Grahame

[AB26]

Here we go again, Andre, with another provocative statement. Are you going to back up your claim with any proof? Is there a mistake in the calculation?
As to the 'golf swing' outside in the dark . . do I really have to tell you that it proves nothing? I know you're smarter than that - just trying to catch us out, eh?

. .

Come on Ted, do you always have to see the negative.
First Christina has to learn the limitations of her own ability and the equipment she is using. Panning needs lots of exercise if you wish to perfect it with using low shutter speeds. It is pretty much like a marksman shooting a running Springbuck, using a telescope. It takes a lot of practice.
Getting long streaks in the background might be a little to challenging for anybody learning to master panning. A running horse at 1/50sec, compensating for all the possible directions of movement? Have you tried it?

What I would recommend to Christina, if she is looking for long streaks in the background, is simply to move closer to the moving subject using a shutter speed of around 125-160sec. The further she is away from her subject the more difficult it will be to get long streaks.

How experienced are you with flash photography? Did you know that a flash freezes any movement even if you shoot at 1/30sec. Do you know the technique called "dragging the shutter'?

Now if Christina really wants to get it right my recommendation would be to stand no more than 5m away from the horse. Choose a night race. Use the technique of dragging the shutter. I will guarantee her to get long streaks in the background.

If my golf swing shot of the tree proves nothing to you, and you are of the opinion it a trick to "catch us out" you need to experiment a bit with using flash and then you might understand what it is all about.

Ted, I am not looking for provoke anybody. Have I said anything about your calculation? I am serious when I say only you will be able to calculate the effective speed the tree would have been moving at the moment I pressed that shutter button. Could have been around 250Kph.

Why don't you rather learn something from what I am trying to share in my tree shot?

[Brownbear]

Hi Bill,

Thank you very much for taking the time to do this. I think that your analytical skills are amazing and I find this very helpful for the insight and understanding it provides.

Christina

Hi,
Try this:

Look carefully at the EXAMPLE 01.
See how there is a leading edge of the WHITE Number Plate (Car Licence Plate) - it is blurred but if you look closely it appears as though there are actually three plates - you can see the edges.
Notice how these leading edges move forward and also downward.
These edges are a strong (courtroom evidence strong) indication that the NUMBER PLATE is moving (slightly faster than the PANNING SPEED and also that the NUMBER PLATE is definitely moving DOWNWARD (i.e. Vertically).

Now look at the EXAPMLE 02.
And carefully look at the blue writing in the sign and note that there is none or very little leading edges VERTICALLY - this is evidence that the car at the middle are is NOT moving up or down (i.e. vertically) and also that the panning movement is very even in an HORIZINTAL movement.

The door frame (in EXAMPLE 02) is just about vertical so look closely at the THICKNESS of it and note how it appears a consistent thickness from top to bottom, which is (when we COMPARE IT TO EXAMPLE 03) is another indication that the PANNING speed is consistent with the VEHICLE speed.

Now look at the ALL the door frame in EXAMPLE 03.Note how it becomes THICKER where the door frame is closer to the FRONT of the vehicle, yet at the back of that door (in EXAMPLE 03) the thickness of that door frame is about the same as the door frame in EXAMPLE 02. So this COMPARISON is further evidence that the FRONT of the vehicle is lurching both forwards and downwards at a speed greater than the panning speed.

***

Your horses:
In this image it you have nailed the panning speed to the horse’s speed (that is the horse’s HEAD SPEED) and you have none or little vertical camera movement, here:


***

But note the Jockey and particularly the goggles – the leading edge of the yellow circle on the side of the goggles indicates that that his head is either moving FASTER (forward) than the panning speed of the lens – OR – he is pulling his head backwards. It look to me on first glance that the Jockey is beginning his backwards movement, here:



***

And then look at this – Horse number three: His head is definitely moving DOWNWARD and FORWARD faster than the panning speed of the lens that would be expected as that horse is in the part of the stride where his head is moving forward, faster than the speed of his body, here:


***


There are MANY movements happening in horses when they gallop. (And the Jockeys too).

There is the general overall movement in a forward motion of the horse – and that is the one that you follow with the pan.

But throughout any one full gallop stride, there will be moments in time when (especially the head) will move FORWARD faster than the body and also when the head will move BACKWARDS relative to the body.

WW

[Brownbear]

Hi Grahame,

Thank you for sharing... I think all of these are exceptional and that the images of the cyclist are exceptionally stunning. Exactly the type of inspiration I need

Hi all,

Firstly, thank you Bill for the detailed analysis, very helpful. Secondly, Dave I believe the insight Ted gave on the theory side was very valuable and whilst it's obvious that some who are experienced would not need to know this there are many of us that do appreciate the technicalities at times that assist in our overall understanding.

Well today there was a chance for another session and the aim was to use a longer focal length, try some with VR off and for the first time ever use shutter priority.

Location proved difficult being further back from the road due to obstructions being in the way if I was to use continuous auto focus but I eventually found a good spot sat on the sea wall but still restricted to 105mm max.

Here goes .................................

No 1 105mm, 1/80s, f14


No 2 70mm, 1/80s, f18


No 3 70mm, 1/80s, f18, VR OFF


No 4 95mm, 1/60s, f14


And the one that has made this whole exercise over the past few days worthwhile for me because I had a second attempt and nailed it as he returned back .........................
No 5 105mm, 1/60s, f20


Grahame

[xpatUSA]

Come on Ted, do you always have to see the negative.

OK, I was a bit grumpy.

Getting long streaks in the background might be a little to challenging for anybody learning to master panning. A running horse at 1/50sec, compensating for all the possible directions of movement? Have you tried it?

No. However, Grahame seems to have done quite well at 1/60 sec in the bike shot.

How experienced are you with flash photography? Did you know that a flash freezes any movement even if you shoot at 1/30sec. Do you know the technique called "dragging the shutter'?

Very little. Does anyone not know that a flash freezes any movement even if you shoot at 1/30sec? I have absolutely no idea what 'dragging the shutter' is. Are you going to explain or is one of those things that 'everybody knows'?

What I would recommend to Christina, if she is looking for long streaks in the background, is simply to move closer to the moving subject using a shutter speed of around 125-160sec. The further she is away from her subject the more difficult it will be to get long streaks. Now if Christina really wants to get it right my recommendation would be to stand no more than 5m away from the horse. Choose a night race. Use the technique of dragging the shutter. I will guarantee her to get long streaks in the background.

Does Christina know what 'dragging the shutter' is?

Couldn't resist another calc: this time to get speed of panning for your example above. To get 0.5m streaks at the recommended 5m distance, using the recommended 1/125 sec shutter speed, Christina will be panning at 12.5 rad/sec which is about 120 rpm, irrespective of the speed of the horse or of the use of flash. Good luck, Christina!

You said "The further she is away from her subject the more difficult it will be to get long streaks." Are you sure about that? It looks wrong, somehow. Anybody?

If my golf swing shot of the tree proves nothing to you, and you are of the opinion it a trick to "catch us out" you need to experiment a bit with using flash and then you might understand what it is all about.

Ted, I am not looking for provoke anybody. Have I said anything about your calculation? I am serious when I say only you will be able to calculate the effective speed the tree would have been moving at the moment I pressed that shutter button. Could have been around 250Kph.

Why don't you rather learn something from what I am trying to share in my tree shot?

Ah, now it is clear. you're sharing that using flash 'freezes' motion due to the short exposure time of anyway between 1/1000 and 1/40,000 flash duration (depending on model settings). Point proven. But, I already knew that - I thought you were trying to prove something other than that, sorry.

[AB26]

You said "The further she is away from her subject the more difficult it will be to get long streaks." Are you sure about that? It looks wrong, somehow. Anybody?

Come on Ted, use simple old common sense. If your calculations show the opposite I am afraid you are wrong!

Good luck to Christina when standing 5m away from the horse. Why?

Panning a landing aircraft with a 70-300mm lens. I had to zoom out to 70mm to get the aircraft in the frame. The aircraft was no more than 50m away from me. Landing speed? 140Knots? 250Kph?



It is all about practise.

I will try and find the shot I got of a F1 car passing me at Kyalami at around 270Kph, I was about 15m away from it and got the shot when it was right in front of me, panning with a camera that had no motor drive on it.

PS. Sorry, "dragging the shutter" Google it and find a photographer by the name of Neil Van Niekerk. Do yourself a favour and read his tutorials on using flash. Great guy sharing very valuable knowledge.

[RustBeltRaw]

Very little. Does anyone not know that a flash freezes any movement even if you shoot at 1/30sec?

Lots and lots of people. This understanding's also critical to understanding why only film/ISO speed and aperture affect flash exposure (assuming a manual-power flash). Andre's golf swing example was actually a pretty good illustration.

I have absolutely no idea what 'dragging the shutter' is.

"Dragging the shutter" is deliberately setting a longer shutter duration than the metering system specifies. It's designed to increase the sense of motion, lengthen blur streaks, brighten the background in flash photography, or increase exposure compensation. The term's a bit of an oldie, but like a lot of old knowledge, still very relevant.

If your calculations show the opposite I am afraid you are wrong!

I think you'll find that Ted's calculations do not show the opposite if you run them separately for the foreground and the background. Subject-to-camera distance is obvious, but subject-to-background distance also plays an important role.

It's hard to determine the quality of your technique (which I suspect is quite good, based on the forthcoming F1 shot) with the plane. Yes, it's moving quickly, and yes, you may have nailed the pan, but it's very difficult to tell with a totally uniform background and no shutter speed information.

It is all about practise.

With that, I agree unequivocally. Unfortunately, panning is probably the most luck-based photographic technique out there. Depending on your predictions about the subject's motion, 1/20sec may be fine for one shot, the next may need 1/300sec, at which point the background blur's nonexistent.

Christina, one thing no one's mentioned so far is that driving your camera at full burst speed is perfectly acceptable here, provided it continues to focus between shots. Spray and pray isn't, in general, a technique I advocate, but here, it works. In shooting about three hours of drift racing this summer, I filled 53GB of SD cards with a mix of 18MP and 12MP RAWs. Definitely got some good shots, but with that many, I was basically guaranteed to. Nothing wrong with upping your odds in tough conditions.

[drjuice]

Hi, Grahame -

I looked at No. 1 for quite awhile before I figured out that the mirror on the same side of the door is moving around because of bumps in the road (that seems to be pretty common on busses in LA county where I live as well). So, while I'd suspect that as the main reason for the fuzziness, it could be lots of other things as well. It could be also that particular mirror is a little in front of the setting for your DoF which makes its fuzziness not match with any of the other fuzzy bits.

Just this morning's random thought.

virginia

[Rob Ekins]

PS. Sorry, "dragging the shutter" Google it and find a photographer by the name of Neil Van Niekerk. Do yourself a favour and read his tutorials on using flash. Great guy sharing very valuable knowledge.

For those of you that don't have the time to indulge Andre and go crawling the interweb to keep up with him....

"Dragging the shutter" is a technique used in flash photography where you adjust your camera settings to balance ambient light input verses the bursts of light from a flash, you literally drag your shutter wheel up or down to compensate for what you want ambiently exposed compared to the flash..

Bugger Neil Van Niekerk..... Check out http://strobist.blogspot.com.au/2006...hting-101.html if you are interested in learning the basics of flash photography..


Robbie.

[AB26]

"Dragging the shutter" is deliberately setting a longer shutter duration than the metering system specifies.
Christina, one thing no one's mentioned so far is that driving your camera at full burst speed

Thanks Lex. "Dragging the shutter" technically not perfectly correct but very close.

The burst rate, I think I did mention it to Christina.

The Aircraft was pretty much an exercise for BIF. Shutter speed 1/1600.

Subject to background distance will be a critical factor and the closer you are to your subject the faster the background will "move" when you are panning. The faster you can make the background move the longer the streaks will be.

[AB26]

Bugger Neil Van Niekerk..... Robbie.

OOPS! I would suggest you do yourself a favour and learn something from Neil by studying his tutorials.

[xpatUSA]

Andre said "The further she is away from her subject the more difficult it will be to get long streaks."

Ted said "Are you sure about that? It looks wrong, somehow."

Come on Ted, use simple old common sense. If your calculations show the opposite I am afraid you are wrong!

Oh, come on, Andre! Simple old common sense tells me that, if I'm up there in the space station, the streaks on the ground will be measured in km rather than meters. Simple old common sense also tells me that if my cam is 1m from something, the streaks will be measured in mm. A factor of one million different and in the opposite sense to your statement, all other things being equal.

"Good luck to Christina when standing 5m away from the horse." Why?

Why? Did you miss the significance of a panning speed of 120 rpm which would result from your recommendation? That's panning pretty fast, making syncing with the subject quite difficult, I would have thought. She would be spinning at the rate of twice a second Aieee, caramba! And that is why I wished her luck.

Panning a landing aircraft with a 70-300mm lens. I had to zoom out to 70mm to get the aircraft in the frame. The aircraft was no more than 50m away from me. Landing speed? 140Knots? 250Kph?

It is all about practise.

I will try and find the shot I got of a F1 car passing me at Kyalami at around 270Kph, I was about 15m away from it and got the shot when it was right in front of me, panning with a camera that had no motor drive on it.

I am most impressed.

PS. Sorry, "dragging the shutter" Google it and find a photographer by the name of Neil Van Niekerk. Do yourself a favour and read his tutorials on using flash. Great guy sharing very valuable knowledge.

I will not be obeying your instruction. I don't use flash enough to justice pursuing an indirect reference.

[William W]

Now if Christina really wants to get it right my recommendation would be to stand no more than 5m away from the horse. Choose a night race. Use the technique of dragging the shutter. I will guarantee her to get long streaks in the background.

A few questions:

1. Are there any night horse races in B.C.?
2. Can a member of the public (i.e. not an official) get 5mtrs from the inside rail?
3. Is the use of Flash Photography, allowed?


WW

[William W]

Another question:

Grahame – was it generally easier to panning-shoot the cars, with a longer lens and (assumed) greater Shooing Distance?

***

An Historical Note:

I think that with research, one will find that the etymology of “Dragging the Shutter” has very little to do with the moving of the shutter speed wheel on a digital STILL camera and much more to do with FILM MOVIE CAMERAS.

In Film Cameras (where it is possible), the shutter can be ‘dragged’ such that the EXPOSURE TIME fills a longer portion of the INTERVAL TIME for each the individual FRAME.

This longer exposure TIME (per frame), increases BLUR.

WW

[Stagecoach]

Bill,

In my opinion, through my exercises to date, I found no difference in ease between using the shorter or longer focal lengths with their corresponding difference in distance from the subject.

I base and support this on my success rate which was also way higher than I was expecting and did not use burst mode at all. Out of interest for the session where I used the longer FL with greater subject distance I also managed keepers at 1/40th but unfortunately not very appealing motors.

Grahame

[William W]

Thanks for then reply.

***

. . . and did not use burst mode at all.

Interesting.

I think / have found that burst mode is deleterious to many panning situation as one cannot time the shot to fit the rhythm of the motion, for example the point of full stride in the horses' gallop.

WW

[Stagecoach]

Bill,

I was aware that burst mode is commonly used in panning situations but did not try it as it would have added extra unquantifiable results to my learning curve. Should I have been taking shots of a car race with the aim of getting 'keepers' I suspect I would try it.

Agree that it is preferential if you can time your shot at a point when you know there will be the least movement in something such as a horses leading leg.

Grahame

[Stagecoach]

Christina,

Thanks for complimenting my cyclist image.

I think this is an example more closely related to your horses than the car ones have been as the cyclist has similar moving parts to his body.

Taking the final image No 5 see how noticeable the difference in sharpness caused by the motion in his left foot between the top of the sock and the toe. A faster shutter speed would have reduced this but at the cost of freezing the background more. A slower shutter speed would have increased it but blurred the background slightly more, all a compromise.

Another area I have been thinking about is aperture and its affect on the background assuming we have it so that the entire subject (horse, car, cyclist) is within the DoF. Using a wide aperture to reduce DoF with the intention of focus blurring the background may not be the best way to go. It is the objects farthest away from the subject that will give the longest motion blur streaks on your finished image and if these are already focus blurred you can not change a total blur into a streak.

Would be interesting to hear other views on this theory.

Grahame

[Brownbear]

Hi Bill,

1. Right now there are no night horse races. They do hold them on occasion during the summer. That said my night photos are pretty sad, and I have no experience with flash, and no external flash, and it is not the look that I am striving for.

2. Yes, not always easy to find a spot but I have managed it on a couple of occasions.

3. No, and if it were I would not use flash because I think it would disturb the horses.

A few questions:

1. Are there any night horse races in B.C.?
2. Can a member of the public (i.e. not an official) get 5mtrs from the inside rail?
3. Is the use of Flash Photography, allowed?


WW