Assignment #7: Panning

[matthew]

You will never get out of pot or pan anything fundamentally better than what went into it.
- Martha McCulloch-Williams, Dishes & Beverages Of The Old South

Panning is a challenging but useful technique, and one of the best ways to capture movement with a still camera. The key is to track a moving subject with enough stability to keep the subject sharp while blurring the background, which requires a steady hand and a certain amount of skill. But as with any photograph, you won't get something good out of a pan unless you have a good subject to put into it.

For this assignment, look for subjects that will suit a good pan and share your successes, misses, and tips.

[matthew]

Okay, this is a good example of a bad photo, but I wanted to show it simply because I'm astonished that panning worked at all. I was shooting at a 28mm equivalent and didn't think I'd get much of anything. (I didn't -- but it's blurred with a reasonably sharp subject.) Now all I need is a better background, a bette subject, and more practice.

[Hokuto]

While having new tires put on my car this morning I walked about Hachioji and got these:









I started out with a slow shutter around 1/20, hoping I'd be able to stop the vehicle action with aid of IS, while adding blur to the background, but wasn't very successful, the ones here are all shutter priority at 1/50 or 1/60, with IS2.
All E-3 + 14-54mm, ISO 100, ORFs developed with Silkypix and CS3

[Blu-by-u]

Was the the Malaysian F1 and his is the only good shot..

[Noise_Filter]

Was the Malaysian F1 and his is the only good shot.

Maybe your only good one but, wow what a nice shot.

[Viperman500]

Was the the Malaysian F1 and his is the only good shot..

Great sense of speed in this one! Very good! What camera did you use? I would also love to know about lens, F number, shutter speed, you know the technical stuff... Thanks and have a good day!

[JohnM]

This is the first time I have tried panning. Took about 50 shots this afternoon. Mostly front of a car, rear of a car, sometimes no car at all. Took a couple that are nearly passable and thought I must practice this more and more. On looking through the shots on the computer I came across this one. One of the better ones, I know by no means good but thought others might find the drivers silent comment amusing. It just about sums up the quality of my photos

[matthew]

Mostly front of a car, rear of a car, sometimes no car at all.

I have to say that that sums up my first experiences with panning as well.

[jjakober]

Here are some of my attempts:







The first one is kinda cheating(sorry about the ugly guy in the picture), but the others are true panning shots!

My son was kinda tired after this Assignment

[Brian Hebert]

Taken from a sony point and shoot...

[Blu-by-u]

Maybe your only good one but, wow what a nice shot.

How did you guess!!! hehehe I only got less than 10% keepers after 2 days. Some of it in my flickr signature

Great sense of speed in this one! Very good! What camera did you use? I would also love to know about lens, F number, shutter speed, you know the technical stuff... Thanks and have a good day!

Sorry for the late reply. I did not notice you asked.
E-330, Sigma 70-300 (300), f7.1, 1/320s and EV-0.3

Processing done on the Oly master 2, rotated and crop to size with Faststone Image viewer

What else??

[flipGTO]

My first time autocrossing and taking pictures of it. I was actually out on track watching one of the corners before this shot and I wished I had my camera, but I was assigned to "work".

[Stetr24]

[BAG]

Here's a shot i took in New Zealand at the street bike races.

[Roadstergal]

These are two of the pictures I took at MotoGP last year with my 510. As I am going back this year, I would appreciate concrit to make them better.

[JRM60]

My only comment here would be that I would like to see a little more of the background. The second has a slower shutter speed which to me gives the image more of a feeling of speed. If these are crops, maybe look at showing a little more background. When I shoot race cars (Indy & Nascar at Infineon), I try to use 1/125th to make sure the background is blurred!

Very nice images anyway and the above is just what works for me.

[Roadstergal]

Thanks - ja, I think I have a tendency to go in too close in general. That's something to work on. The second picture was taken the next morning, with less light, so I had to slow down the shutter - a happy accident, but I can learn from it.

[harmbr]

My first real attempt in panning and high speed motor sport.
From the Shakedown WRC rally of New Zealand, last Thursday. (May 6)



and

(both posted before in the photos section)

And the winner of the event is:


All my other attempts were to static, to high a shutter speed and or iso.

Cheers,
Harm

[om-4]

I'd like to ad a panning shot.

My son Akira on a tricycle. Shot with a Ricoh GX200.
Took multiple shots, 3 out of ten or so were okay. His speed and line were not consistent so it was a bit hard to track.

[luis391]

[Don Baldwinson]

Luis, I like your shot very much, perfect focus and lovely tones.
Myself, I think I would crop some off the right hand side because I find that a distraction, and maybe to have the girl entering the image a little more rather than exiting. Others may think differently of course
But your image is a standout for me
Cheers,
Don

[Gazza_DJ]

One from today:



Quite a fast shutter speed, but it is a lot harder to get a nice shot with a longer shutter speed with a bird than it is a vehicle. Not really done much to it apart from cropping.

and some older ones:

(apologies for compression, linked from facebook )