First attempts at panning.. Where did I go wrong?

[Revels]

Right, was waiting to get picked up yesterday so thought id have a little play and take some pics of the traffic! lol.. Didnt get half as many strange looks as I expected!

I went with 1/10sec speed. Is that too fast? Too slow? Was using my trusty 50mm. As you can see its not the best location for it. But gave me something to do..

A lot of them ended up looking like this, did I just not pan properly? Shaking? too slow/fast?

Doesnt look as bad now its smaller but the back blurry and the wheels look like theyve wobbled and are 2ft from the car..

Had a few "better" ones..

Please can we avoid the "thats a shed" type comments. I didnt choose the traffic or what pics came out best

Any hints/tips would be great appreciated, although im going to blame the quality of the pics on photobucket. Wont be putting these on flickr! lol..

 

[Feirny]

I'd have personally gone with a slightly quicker shutter speed, probably 1/40 or 1/50.

Ukaskew is the man for this though!

 

[Andy.]

The shutter speed is all related to the focal length. i.e. a 200mm lens with a 1/100 shot will show more motion blur than a 50mm @ 1/100.

There is probably a graph somewhere showing the relation of the two but I know that the rule of thumb is that you should shoot at the focal length of the lens x the crop factor of your camera to help eliminate camera shake. So, 200mm x 1.6 (canon) = 1/320 (obviously not to be used for capturing motion blur)

The main thing is, it is easier to pan smoothly for a quicker shutter so you will generally get better results using a longer focal length.

disclaimer, I could be making all of this up..... it was quite a long time ago that I did the "panning" section of my photography class.

 

[BenWall]

TBF rev, there pretty good, it's just the focal length that's letting you down, the subjects are pin sharp and nice blur. Shutter speed is dependent on a number of factors including light etc. Do what ever you can get away with really without blurring the subject. Practice makes perfect, Chris's guide on here tells all the correct camera settings, which you've probably already read. Very good 1st attempt.

Better than mine anyway, your a natural tog

Mine -

 

[Revels]

Cheers Andy. I need to get a zoom lens and get to a track day instead of playing with traffic! lol..

I didnt realise shutter speed was related to focal length. Ive never been taught anything, I just pick up and play! I'll have a look and see what I could find.

I had read Chris' guide but it was quite a while ago and obviously didnt have it with me so just had to do what I remembered..

Cheers Ben. Thats not a bad effort at all. I wouldnt go that far!! I took about 80 shots and I only had about a dozen "decent" ones! lol..

 

[Andy.]

No worries, I just wish I could remember stuff like that when I am actually taking photos and not when I get back and look at them on the PC thinking that I should have done something differently. Playing is definitely the best way to learn, and the most fun. Your 365 has more creative images in it than I have in all of last year so you are definitely doing something right!

Chris is the panning master so may come along and correct everything I wrote.

 

[GaryS]

It's best to start at a higher shutter speed to begin with and get a nice smooth action sorted. Then work down the shutter speeds from there.

As someone else had said, it's easier to get good panning effects with a longer lens too.

 

[ukaskew]

I was expecting some awfully blurred panning shots, yet the subjects are actually reasonably sharp waaaay off in the distance, especially considering your shutter speed.

You appear to be a natural at this photography stuff, tbh. All I can suggest is more practice as it looks as though you've probably nailed the basics. As others have mentioned though, when you do use a longer focal length, bump that shutter speed up a bit (try 1/50 or something) as 1/10 at anything beyond 50mm is pretty challenging to say the least. The speed of the subject is another factor, town traffic is probably fine at 1/30 - 1/50 even at longer focal lengths, get out to a circuit and try using 1/10 at 300mm or something and your world will be full of fail, quite frankly.

 

[Justin]

These were my proper first attempts..

 

[Jungle_Jim]

for a first attempt there not nearly as bad as i was expecting, you seem like you have got the technique right. i would suggest using a longer lens or getting closer as i find you get better results when you can track one part of the car like the wing mirror rather than just tracking the whole car in the frame. also setting the cameras autofocus function to AI servo on a canon (or the nikon equivalent) means that the focus will continously adjust whilst panning.

my 2 favourite pics

Ben that motorbike shot is nice, were you actually panning though or taking it out of moving car alongside it.

Justin nice pics, the last one could have benefitted from a slightly slower shutter speed to get more blur though

 

[BenWall]

Panning, lol. Was bored at work one lunch so went to a nearby dual carriageway. I wouldn't dare do it out of a car window, would get some dodgy looks lol.

 

[DanFreemanPhoto]

1/10th!!! No wonder you didnt get many sharp subjects, thats mega low!

Stick to the 1/60th 1/50th mark, and you'll get much better photos, depending on how far you are from the subject of course!

This was about 1/60th I think:

This was 1/30th I think.

But they were moving pretty fast, so you dont need a super low shutter speed to get nice blurry backgrounds. But at 1/10 you will rarely get the subject sharp too!

 

[Revels]

lol, youve gota challenege yourself. I didnt know what do to, so gave the thing a scroll down on shutter priority and took a pic. Looked okay so stuck with that speed. Thats how the pros do it IIRC :clown:

Okay, cheers guys. I do seem to have shaky hand syndrome normally, so that might have been why..

So expect a "What lens.." type thread in a few days

 

[capturedbyjames]

So expect a "What lens.." type thread in a few days

Join me in the hunt for a Sigma 70-200mm f2.8 with a TC. Watched loads on ebay...

 

[Reyes]

Panning can be a c**t. x

 

[Revels]

Join me in the hunt for a Sigma 70-200mm f2.8 with a TC. Watched loads on ebay...

Bit more than I wanted to spend.. But maybe I should do it properly! Hmmm lol..

 

[DanFreemanPhoto]

Just be aware that panning takes A LOT of practice, Ive been doing it for years and Im still no expert.
Just look for a good telephone lens, if you can try to avoid the lens that TRY to cover all the focal ranges, like the 50-500mm. They are hopeless (or the ones I have seen are!).
The 70-200 would be good yeh!

 

[dunganick]

I have never had any real success much slower than 1/40

Also my 50mm f1.8 is useless for panning unless the subject is staying exactly the same difference from you (i.e it doesnt need to focus)

Ive also not found that you need much more than about 1/60 to get some really 'blurred' images.

This is 1/50

 

[Revels]

Cracking shot!!

What focal length is that?

 

[ukaskew]

Mr. dunganick makes a very good point, the 50mm is pretty useless for this kind of thing unless the subject stays as parallel as possible to you.

I've tried it a few times with the 50mm (and your body ), even at 1/250 I was struggling tbh...

1/50 is definitely a nice shutter speed for very blurred motorsport shots when you're talking 100mph+, but it's worth experimenting with even slower speeds (which will help improve your faster shots anyway) as the effects can be very interesting. 1/60 - 1/80 is probably my average, but I tend to forgo sharpness for sense of speed, there are a few photographers I know who seem to get a reasonable sense of speed out of 1/250 with the same focal lengths and equipment as me, but I just can't get to grips with shooting that quickly.

A nice 1/60 example, whilst we're all sharing

On top of that, it's also remembering that when you're at angles when the car is coming towards (or away from) you, the rules change again.You can comfortably take the shutter speed up a few notches to 1/100 - 1/200 and beyond and still get ample blur, any slower and you start to lose big chunks of the subject due to the changing focal plane.

1/100 (back end fairly blurred despite a sharp front end)

 

[Mark One]

modest thread title tbh. I think they're pretty good.

 

[Tom@JMS]

Interesting thread revels, I like doing these although I didn't realise it could be so complicated to do correctly! I always find it hard to get the entire car in focus. I think this was something like 1/30 but very little light so they are quite noisy and have got very shallow DOF (probably why the backend is out of focus)