Panning help / suggestions

[Manfred M]

I spent some time practising shooting at slow shutter speeds while panning the camera to get images that show motion blur while maintaining reasonable sharpness in the image.

This shot was taken with a 1/8th second exposure. I shot fairly wide to give me some space to crop. The one mistake I think I made is that I left the image stabilization in normal mode, rather than in panning mode. Other than that, this is one of the best shots I got that day.

A question for the experienced panning shooters out there. Any suggestions as to how to get the subject to be even sharper. I found that slightly faster shutter speeds did not give me enough motion blur, although the subject was a touch sharper.




This is the type of shot I would love to do with a combination of dragging the shutter and a couple of studio lights using rear curtain / 2nd curtain mode, but suspect that the motorcycle riders and other vehicles would not take to kindly to being blinded by me as they drive by...

[Shadowman]

Nicely done, I've tried panning on a few occasions and you do need to keep the shutter speed at least near 1/60th second to get some sharpness on the subject and you want to anticipate movement and use your sweeping motion to zero in on a particular portion of the body or contraption.

[Stagecoach]

I would suggest 1/8th is far too slow for the subject speed Manfred. Additionally, that looks like a 'V Rod' so if it is, every part of the bike is going to be moving in a different direction

Here's an example of an earlier one I did whilst learning the procedure. It's useful with respect to the guessed speed of the bike, the FL used and the background blur achieved at such a small aperture.

1/60s, f/20, ISO500, 105mm


For panning cars up to drag strip speeds I have used between 1/60 to 1/160 with success, and generally around 75 to 90mm. Looking at your example I'm suspecting a wide focal length due to the curvature in the road foreground, the closer you are to the subject the harder they say.

Edit : Just checked the exif and the VR was on for this shot.

[george013]

I spent some time practising shooting at slow shutter speeds while panning the camera to get images that show motion blur while maintaining reasonable sharpness in the image.

This shot was taken with a 1/8th second exposure. I shot fairly wide to give me some space to crop. The one mistake I think I made is that I left the image stabilization in normal mode, rather than in panning mode. Other than that, this is one of the best shots I got that day.

A question for the experienced panning shooters out there. Any suggestions as to how to get the subject to be even sharper. I found that slightly faster shutter speeds did not give me enough motion blur, although the subject was a touch sharper.



This is the type of shot I would love to do with a combination of dragging the shutter and a couple of studio lights using rear curtain / 2nd curtain mode, but suspect that the motorcycle riders and other vehicles would not take to kindly to being blinded by me as they drive by...

This shot was in the winter 2012. Panning in the evening with flash, shooting from the belly. It's not a good picture but more interesting for what happened with the combi panning and flash. Keep in mind this was at night so most of the picture is exposed by the flash. The lights are exposed by ambient light to and have a kind of rythm I don't understand yet.

If you want to pan and flash in daytime you might get your subject sharp without a ghost, but in the other parts of your image you will introduce a ghost. The combination panning and rear curtain might give a flash picture within that ghost picture but maybe on the other side as you would think. However I'm not 100% sure of that.

George

[William W]

A couple of observations regarding your Image -

1. You panned just a fraction faster than the bike (i.e. your camera's panning speed was a tad too fast). Practice solves that; I can't offer another fix - assuming the bike was not decelerating.

Note that rhythmic or repetitive (i.e. “expected”) motion is easier to get the panning speed correct and to get your hands into the sync of the Subject’s Motion. For example for a motor bike a straight stretch of road unimpaired by traffic lights and obstacles at a point in the road where the bike has reached its maximum (cruising) speed. I don’t know the circumstances of your photo, but, for example, it appears fairly certain to me that in Graham’s photo of the peddle bike rider - he has settled into a regular cadence on an unimpaired stretch of road.

So it might be worthwhile practicing getting your hands in sync for the correct panning speed by selecting a different practice Subject –for example a merry go round – OR – a friend riding a bike/driving a car, at a designated speed. That’s what I did for practice.

I reckon, after some practice, you will be able to nail a few motor bikes at city speeds at 1/8th second Shutter Speed, but consider the Camera to Subject Distance (and the Lens’s FL) are factors that require consideration regarding the speed of the pan: I find that as the speed of the pan increases the likelihood of stuffing up the shot increases. There’s a sweet spot (for want of a better word) for an optimum panning speed range. I think you’ll know that when you know it, probably different for you and for me and for Grahame… but too fast a pan, too close to the Subject or too tight a FL, any of those exceeding our limits, will stuff each of us up.

I hope that makes sense: my best advice is practice. Probably 1/8th is a good practicing Shutter Speed to use because it will highlight the imperfections.

2. (as per Grahame’s comment) I see some vertical blur – parts of the bike are moving up and down.

WW

[pschlute]

I am going to take a different stance and say that in my opinion you have captured both the subject and background blur perfectly. i think the blur on the biker gives an impression of speed and makes him part of the picture that a frozen subject/blurred background would not do.

[Manfred M]

Thanks for all the great comments. I suspected that more practice was going to be the key and that seems to be the case here. I am definitely looking at ways of improving my tracking.

The one thing I tend to look at in panned images is the amount of background blur and in general, I like it when the background has so much movement in it that those elements are unrecognizable. I realize that to get this level of motion blur, the shutter speed relative to the subject has to be slow. This increases the risk of not getting the shot. As an aside, the amount of blur I show in the posted image is roughly what I would like it to be.

As for the focal length, distance to subject, constant speed of the subject. I had considered all of those things when I took the shot. I used a moderately wide (45mm focal length on a FF camera) and left myself plenty of space. I did want to position the vehicle towards the left hand side of the frame to give myself a bit more visual space for the motorcycle to move into. The image I posted is a significant crop from the original and I suspect I could give myself even more leeway; this is the original image.



Bill - I like your idea of using a merry-go-round to practice on. Unfortunately at this time of year those are hard to find in this part of the world... I suspect I am going co-opt my wife or daughter into driving around the block a number of times for me to practice...

[george013]

Thanks for all the great comments. I suspected that more practice was going to be the key and that seems to be the case here. I am definitely looking at ways of improving my tracking.

The one thing I tend to look at in panned images is the amount of background blur and in general, I like it when the background has so much movement in it that those elements are unrecognizable. I realize that to get this level of motion blur, the shutter speed relative to the subject has to be slow. This increases the risk of not getting the shot. As an aside, the amount of blur I show in the posted image is roughly what I would like it to be.

As for the focal length, distance to subject, constant speed of the subject. I had considered all of those things when I took the shot. I used a moderately wide (45mm focal length on a FF camera) and left myself plenty of space. I did want to position the vehicle towards the left hand side of the frame to give myself a bit more visual space for the motorcycle to move into. The image I posted is a significant crop from the original and I suspect I could give myself even more leeway; this is the original image.



Bill - I like your idea of using a merry-go-round to practice on. Unfortunately at this time of year those are hard to find in this part of the world... I suspect I am going co-opt my wife or daughter into driving around the block a number of times for me to practice...

No flash anymore?

George

[Manfred M]

No flash anymore?

George

Not at that distance in the daylight. To put that much light output at a driver would be quite dangerous because it could distract the driver.

The reason I mentioned flash is very much along the line of the shot of the skater that you took. Part of the reason I am starting to practice now is that I would like to do some panning shots of skaters during the annual Winterlude festival that runs in February. I am also thinking of bringing along a studio flash and dragging the shutter using 2nd curtain mode to get the motion blur as well as freezing the skater. What I am looking for is a sharp skater and a blurred background. The risk of an accident with a skater is far lower than with a car or motorcycle driving along.

I'm thinking of a technique somewhat along the lines that I used to create this image, but without the blank studio background, I will want to add panning motion to the camera to blur the background.

[george013]

Not at that distance in the daylight. To put that much light output at a driver would be quite dangerous because it could distract the driver.

The reason I mentioned flash is very much along the line of the shot of the skater that you took. Part of the reason I am starting to practice now is that I would like to do some panning shots of skaters during the annual Winterlude festival that runs in February. I am also thinking of bringing along a studio flash and dragging the shutter using 2nd curtain mode to get the motion blur as well as freezing the skater. What I am looking for is a sharp skater and a blurred background. The risk of an accident with a skater is far lower than with a car or motorcycle driving along.

I'm thinking of a technique somewhat along the lines that I used to create this image, but without the blank studio background, I will want to add panning motion to the camera to blur the background.

What I meant is that if you do panning and using the flash, like I did in the night, you might get 2 exposures in the background, the one with ambient light and the one with flash light. First or second curtain for your subject is not important when panning, only for the background. There you will have that flash light image within the ambient light image. I still think the place of the flash image is not where you might expect it since it's not the background that's moving but the camera. If you want to accent the direction of movement in the same direction of your subject than you should use the first curtain.
I'm curious for the result.

That last picture is a long exposure with a little ambient light and finishing with a flash?
The lady walking in the mean time?

George

[Manfred M]

That last picture is a long exposure with a little ambient light and finishing with a flash?
The lady walking in the mean time?

George

Correct - the lady was lit by a video "hot light" and the final shot was taken with a strip box on a studio light using rear curtain settings (total exposure was around 3 seconds).

What I meant is that if you do panning and using the flash, like I did in the night, you might get 2 exposures in the background, the one with ambient light and the one with flash light. First or second curtain for your subject is not important when panning, only for the background. There you will have that flash light image within the ambient light image. I still think the place of the flash image is not where you might expect it since it's not the background that's moving but the camera. If you want to accent the direction of movement in the same direction of your subject than you should use the first curtain.
I'm curious for the result.

I wasn't thinking about using on-camera flash, but rather mounting a studio light on a light stand shooting toward a specific location. I was also looking at mounting the camera on a tripod, levelling it and allowing the ball head to rotate. That would give me an in-focus and sharp figure, with motion blur on both the skater and the background.

If I get interesting results, I will definitely post them here, but that won't be for months. Generally the canal opens for skating in January and Winterlude runs in February.

[rpcrowe]

Manfred...

I pan with the upper part of my body swinging around on my hips rather than trying to keep my torso still and panning with my arms. This way, I am able to wedge my elbows into my torso just like when I am shooting still images (well - I guess that a pan is a still image also).

I also use this technique when I am shooting hand held shots to be assembled into a panorama. The only difference is when I am shooting sequences for a panorama, I use single shots and when I am panning, I will use a burst mode.

The most difficult for me is thing is to correctly judge the shutter speed I am are using. This is especially true when my subject is moving in more than one direction; ie: a horse in comparison to an automobile or a bicyclist in comparison to a motorcyclist. The horse and bike riders legs are moving, at least when the bike is being pedaled.

The car was moving in one direction. The only thing I could have done is shot at a slightly slower shutter speed to allow more spin of the wheels. I did this at 1/125 second because I was quite close to the cars and they were going quite fast. but, I think that this background blur is effective and there is a slight blur to the wheels.



I shot this one at 1/40 second in an attempt the keep the horses head and the jockey somewhat sharp while letting the horses legs and the background blur with motion...



I shot this one at a very fast shutter speed since I figured that the splash of the wake would portray the impression of speed. Additionally, I don't think that empty water is worth much as a background for a panning shot at a slow shutter speed...



The shutter speed is, of course, dependent on several variables including the speed of the subject, the focal length used and the angle of subject movement in relation to the camera...

I always (when I remember to) use the pan mode (#2 on my Canon telephoto lenses). I don't like the Canon Mode 3 (designed for erratic action} because the IS doesn't kick in until the shutter is tripped. I also try to vary my shutter speed in the hopes that I will get some images the way that I like them...

[Manfred M]

I pan with the upper part of my body swinging around on my hips rather than trying to keep my torso still and panning with my arms. This way, I am able to wedge my elbows into my torso just like when I am shooting still images (well - I guess that a pan is a still image also).

That is very good advice Richard. That is exactly how I shot these images and I use the same technique with hand-held panos. That is definitely the technique I was taught in the film days when slow shutter speeds were often necessary given the relatively low ISO speed of films.