Panning help please!

[Schweppy]

Whilst at combe yesterday I practiced my panning shots, some of which turned out pretty well.....

Now side on panning I am ok but for the life of me i can't take photos of cars coming towards me or diagonally towards me! Every single photo out of about 150 was blurred!

I tried shutter speeds between 1/60 and 1/320 but just couldn't get it!

How do you get the sense of speed and blurry background from cars coming towards you?

Any ideas?

 

[Soph]

Slowly pan downwards?

 

[capturedbyjames]

change your autofocus to AF-C?

 

[ukaskew]

Do you mean this sort of thing...?

1/200

If so, just stick to what you're doing with side-on panning but force a bit more movement into it, I think I usually track the car, then before taking the shot pan more towards the nose of the car, then hit the shutter.

1/320 - 1/200 should get most of the car sharp, any lower and it starts to go a little bonkers...

1/80

 

[Schweppy]

Is that the same as AF-Servo?

 

[ukaskew]

Is that the same as AF-Servo?

Yup, but as your side-on panning is fine I don't think it's a set-up issue.

 

[Schweppy]

Yeh thats exactly it Chris.

Guess i just need to practice then. lol

Do you use it on auto focus or select the centre point?

I was tracking the car way before i took the shot but they were all coming out blurry.

 

[Longy]

Yup, but as your side-on panning is fine I don't think it's a set-up issue.

Is CONT.AF same as AF-Servo?

 

[f0xy]

yes

 

[ukaskew]

Do you use it on auto focus or select the centre point?

Auto-focus, but quite often for that sort of shot I change the point to one nearer the left hand side (for a car coming in from the right), as more often than not the nose of the car is nearer the edge of the frame.

But yes, practice practice practice unfortunately, no easy way around it.

 

[jimbo666]

if you're brave take some pics on a road near you. saves waiting to go to track again and when you eventually get to track, you've honed your skills

 

[SharkyUK]

Great pans mate... and thanks for capturing the DC5, too

 

[Schweppy]

I loved the DC5 mate! Hoping to buy one in the next few months so was on your stand for a fairly long time staring at it! haha.