Rab-Eye Loc: Indiana

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allanj Loc: New York City

This confuses me. Shouldn’t the shutter speed depend on speed of subject — runner vs bicycle rider vs race car?

bleirer

It depends on the effective focal length, so accounting for sensor size, the distance to the subject, and the speed of the subject relative to the left and right side of the frame. Check out the calculator.

According to that a crop camera with 70mm lens at 50 feet moving 10 mph would need 1/1000 to be sharp.

cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

One other thing you can do to increase background blur is to open the aperture to the widest setting. Best of luck.

Grahame Loc: Fiji

Yes that certainly helps from my experience and to do this whilst panning in good lighting conditions often requires the use of an ND.

Timmers Loc: San Antonio Texas.

This will come as completely new information.

There will be nay sayers about this, but then most do not both putting this into the mix.

When you are planning to photograph motion combined with the camera put into motion you truly need to take stock of two points. Please understand that as you view through the view finder of a camera you see a car drive from one side to the other side of your view finder. This is true for the observed motion, BUT your lens is delivering the image altered in three dimensions. The car you see driving from one side of the view finder is I fact being delivered to the film/sensor in the OPPSITE direction.

So if a car in your view finder drives from right to left in that view finder, that car that is captured by the lens and placed on your film/sensor is in fact moving in the opposite direction moving left to right).

Further, the focal plane shutter of your camera will also have an impact. Say your shutter moves from the right side of your camera to the left side. There will be an effect if the shutter is moving in the same direction that the image is being when inverted by the lens. This can elongate or compress the image die to the direction the shutter moves with regards to the physical motion of a pan.

Finally, bear in mind that your sync speed is the fastest speed allowed by the shutter. Increasing the shutter speed will only alter the timing of when the first and second shutter curtain are in motion. Twice the shutter speed above the sync speed will see the second curtain released after the first curtain has made half the passage and the shutter is 'painting' the image on the receptor part of the shutter time.

These factors will effect the outcome of an image.

Grahame Loc: Fiji

Well you have certainly almost achieved it in my view, albeit perhaps not 100% of what you strive for.



You can experiment with a slightly higher and lower shutter speed but I suggest your result is very much going to depend upon head and body movement (which travel in all directions) at the actual instance the shutter operates. Some suggest taking a burst.

The lower shutter speed is going to increase the background blur, but, reduce the hit rate of getting the head sharp.

bleirer

I'd have to agree, and made more complex by many cameras now with electronic first curtain shutters or fully electronic shutter modes. I'm not sure which mode might be best for motion, I think fully mechanical if you have it. My camera has only electronic first curtain so my only choice is either all electronic or electronic first followed by mechanical.

Howard5252 Loc: New York / Florida (now)

You're doing fine. If you use a really slow shutter speed like 1/25 second (or slower), you begin to get less of an image and more of just speed. Try this both with and without panning ... remember, you're experimenting and film is cheap.

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

Yes, it is possible to get the face sharp and the rest blurred. Takes a bit of experimentation and practice.

Howard5252 Loc: New York / Florida (now)

There are other visual clues that tell the viewer there is speed; both feet off the ground. Same goes for horses at a gallop - take a look at some photos, notice blur AND where the feet are. Go through other shots you took, look for one where both feet are off the ground - even if you don't like it for other reasons ... just look at what the photo says about action.

Bill P

Holy crap, this can get overcomplicated. First of all, I like the result. In no way is there too much blur in the hands and feet. I wouldn't change a thing. It clearly shows extreme motion and any sharpening of hands and feet would only diminish that effect.

But the part that just floors me is the amount of complication involved. When I was young, I wanted this effect in shots from SCCA races and airshows. So, using the tools at hand, I burned through a lot of tri-X trying different techniques. Auto focus issues? CAF issues? I spit on your AF and your focus lock, I did this using a Nikon F and an Olympus OM1. I focused on the subject as I panned, or I preset the focus and pressed the button at just the right moment. How much easier this would have been with digital.

Bill P

I'm happy you see motion in this photo, but it looks like a poorly made composite to me. Blur disturbs the sharpness hounds, but artists feel differently.

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

But the distance from the subject and the speed of the subject factor in. I like to shoot bicycle races, and I get on the inside of a turn so the riders are coming by very close and very fast. I use a wide angle lens, but I get good background blur at shutter speeds up to 1/250.

Pixeldawg Loc: Suzhou, China

Hi there,

You can pan just about anything. I used to shoot NASCAR for the Associated Press, and panned vehicles at the largest track- Talladega Superspeedway. There, the cars go about 195 mph, so panning them is a bit different. You can use about 1/15th of a sec and F11 with 400 ISO as your settings. The technique is the same- be perpendicular to the object that your panning (if you are shooting the races, the "straightaway" for any track is the best for this). Follow the car until your movement keeps the car in one locations and shoot. The interesting thing about shooting these very fast moving vehicles is that you can really see the difference in speeds. So, if you have a grouping of cars, they may be going different speeds and one will be very sharp while the others around that vehicle will blur. It is a pretty cool effect, actually.

Hope this helps and I think you did pretty well with the runner. The image needs some cropping, but you seem to have the technique down. Panning, to do it consistently anyway, takes a lot of practice. Best of luck and post the race car shots here if you do this. Would love to see what you come up with.

Mark Lent