Panning Shots

[Tom O.]

Panning shots. I am going to try some panning shots at the race this weekend. I was wondering to get the background blur, showing motion, should I slow the shutter speed some and follow through on the shots? I would like for the car to be in focus but show the motion blur on everything else. Any input is appreciated.

[Mike73]

Hi Tom,

I love the drag racing shots on your website. I must check it out some day.

Here's a crop of a pic I took at Goodwood with my Kodak DX4900 Easyshare. It's only got 2x zoom on it and the car wasn't even going that fast. Shutter speed was 1/362 sec. You can already see the crowd going sideways.

Your cars are going to be much faster so I don't think you'll need much help getting a bit of motion blur.

I had a look for other drag racing pic's and most of them are at the start, rear wheels spinning and the fronts up in the air. Exciting stuff but not exactly going anywhere (yet).

Do a search on pbase.com or sites like that for 'drag racing' and check out the exif's - i guess that'll give you an idea of what works. Happy shootin'!

[Mike73]

Hey, I just had a thought. If you're doing drag racing, just try to take pics as different points along the track. The cars are accelarating the whole time so you should be able to find a spot along the track where the speed is just right. Not tried it myself but I figure it's worth a try.

[adamsti]

Follow through after pressing the shutter. These are just past the starting line at 1/125 I think. Don't have the EXIF data here at work.

More stuff can be seen here. If the cars get moving, even 1/350 will show nice blur.
http://www.photo.net/photodb/member-photos?include=all&user_id=259090

[spud159]

standing close to corners - if you can get there, can help
This is 1/60th sec

[despot]

I tend to use centre AF point and AI Servo. Vary the shutter speed - start high and work your way down. As Tim said, keep panning after hitting the shutter release. You'll soon get a a good rhythm going. Practice, practice, practice! ;)

http://www.pbase.com/andyr/image/33514733.jpg

[KennyG]

Spud, that isn't a pan shot, it is a slow shutter speed shot, too slow unless you want the totally blurred effect.

Pan shots are OK but can get boring as they all look the same after while. Always mix your shots, some pan, some head-on and some three quarter.

The technique is not to start off with too low a shutter speed. 1/250 or 1/200 is a good place to start from. Single AF point, AI Servo and pick the vehicle up early. Follow it, keeping it correctly framed and take the shot as it is opposite you, then follow through like a tennis shot. Make the action smooth. Chimp away like mad if you want to as you will get noses and tails in your first attempts until you get the hang of it.

Taking pan shots at an angle can cause very strange effects and it is a hard to technique to get right. So, as I recommend, make sure you press the shutter when the car is directly opposite where you are standing. I may post the angled pan technique sometime, but I hate giving away my trade secrets. :)

Here is a nice simple pan shot. You can fire off these all day, like shooting fish in a barrel.
http://www.motorpix.co.uk/misc/MotorPix-088.jpg

[gmen]

Yep... Kenny's advice as ever is good... follow through smoothly. Keep panning all the way through the shot, before and after you've hit the shutter release... and work your way down through the shutter speeds. If you start too low you won't get a good success rate. These are shot at 1/100s.

http://www.tgsphoto.co.uk/forum_images/pfw000.jpg

http://www.tgsphoto.co.uk/forum_images/pfw001.jpg

[Pugdaddy]

Man, those are a bunch of impressive shots there, fellas. Inspirational, if I may say so.

[Ian_H]

As everybody else has said start with a speed of about 1/200 1/250 and practice getting it right at that speed and then slowly reduce your shutter speed but you need to keep practicing. I normally find when I am at a circuit it takes a while to 'get in the swing of things' so to speak, here's one from Knockhill taken at 1/60, this was taken while I was practising panning.




Cheers
Ian

[springbok]

All as above really, practice practice practice.
Whilst the teams were testing, I was practicing at Thruxton yesterday, see below. Taken at 1/125.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v669/springbok/IMG_4819.jpg
This was at 1/160 at Santapod (UK) last year
http://rallyphoto.co.uk/santapod2004/images/Img_7949.jpg

http://rallyphoto.co.uk/santapod2004/images/Img_7933.jpg

[Fills]

Great posts. If I was to try shots like this with an image stabilization lens such as the 100-400, would I be better turning it off, or put in mode 2?

[Alan B]

Agree with the shutter speeds posted.But when i was taking some on a crap light condition day,it was trial and error to get the right setting (for speed and exposure)

Heres a couple of mine
http://images.fotopic.net/?iid=y7y716&outx=600&noresize=1&nostamp=1

http://images.fotopic.net/?iid=y7yzhq&outx=600&noresize=1&nostamp=1

[juicyfruit]

hey guys I LOVE YOUR panning shots they look incredibly nice. i wish one day i could be able to get shots like that. i just had a photoshoot with a civic today in an ikea underground parking garage. i tried to get some panning shots in there but they never turned out nice like yours. i did like over 20 shots and not 1 turned out good.

i'm not sure what i'm doing wrong could someone please let me know. i set my shutter speed at 1/60 and followed through with the car but that didn't work. i set my shutter speed at 1/200 and followed through and it also didnt work. i tried these speeds with and without flash.

also the car was moving about 5MPH or less. someone please help

heres how dark the garage was
hey guys this is my first photoshoot and i did it in the ikea underground parking lot and then discovered that theres also a top level. well please let me know what i can do to improve my shots because I have another photoshoot tomorrow. These are all practices and I hope to improve more =P


Too many pictures so i uploaded them to yahoo and you can view them all

http://new.photos.yahoo.com/wetwillyebay/album/576460762333375476#page1

those are the shots i did

i'm about 5-10 feet away from the car and i have a lense that is 18-55mm

please let me know what mode i should be in i.e Tv Av, P, etc
and also what shutterspeed would be great at shooting 5mph
and also would i need to use flash or not
and also focal length and distance from the car

thanks a lot guys i really appreciate it.

[swrtoad]

What a great thread. Panning with perfection is very diff to pull off. The images posted in this thread by both Tim & Ian are over the top IMO. Nice shots, to say the least. If you keep practicing, every once in a while you will nail that OMG shot.

This isnt the greatest capture, but one that I like because of knowing how hard I tried to nail this based on the lighting.

http://www.dtexposures.com/Dunefest06gallery/images/IMG_1507a.jpg

[creamcorn]

Here is a nice simple pan shot. You can fire off these all day, like shooting fish in a barrel.
http://www.motorpix.co.uk/misc/MotorPix-088.jpg


Rule of thirds tells us that, the car should have a place to go....This photo has the car at the far left of the frame, not allowing the car any place to move....There should always be more space for the car to "go into". If this is fish in a barrel, must be Carp....

[juicyfruit]

how would you guys go about doing some panning shots at night. dark outside say in like a lit parking lot.

would you guys use flash?

[phillipsart]

Hi, Great tips posted so far. But one important tip I find that's not mentioned as yet.
Is how to pan. I love pan shots. When ever I capture just about any sports I always try some panning shots. Infact at times I solely shoot panning.

I find to get good results it takes practise, practise & more practise.
a good technique I try is to stand feet apx shoulder width apart, hold camera up tight against your body looking through the viewfinder of course with your arms in close to your body as support, than turn at the waist. You get a much smoother pan with this technique.
& very importantly start panning before the shot is taken & after the shot is taken continue panning.

I have just got back from a speed boat race in the past hour. I did lots of panning shots today. I will post a shot from today shortly.

[phillipsart]

hey guys I LOVE YOUR panning shots they look incredibly nice. i wish one day i could be able to get shots like that. i just had a photoshoot with a civic today in an ikea underground parking garage. i tried to get some panning shots in there but they never turned out nice like yours. i did like over 20 shots and not 1 turned out good.

i'm not sure what i'm doing wrong could someone please let me know. i set my shutter speed at 1/60 and followed through with the car but that didn't work. i set my shutter speed at 1/200 and followed through and it also didnt work. i tried these speeds with and without flash.

also the car was moving about 5MPH or less. someone please help

heres how dark the garage was
hey guys this is my first photoshoot and i did it in the ikea underground parking lot and then discovered that theres also a top level. well please let me know what i can do to improve my shots because I have another photoshoot tomorrow. These are all practices and I hope to improve more =P


Too many pictures so i uploaded them to yahoo and you can view them all

http://new.photos.yahoo.com/wetwillyebay/album/576460762333375476#page1

those are the shots i did

i'm about 5-10 feet away from the car and i have a lense that is 18-55mm

please let me know what mode i should be in i.e Tv Av, P, etc
and also what shutterspeed would be great at shooting 5mph
and also would i need to use flash or not
and also focal length and distance from the car

thanks a lot guys i really appreciate it.

It could be the fact that the car is only traveling at 5kmh. I myself find panning a lot easier the faster the subject is moving. I find it a bit dificult myself to get a smooth panning action if the subject is moving slow.

Try panning a faster moving subject & you should find it a lot easier.

The photos I posted above. The boats where doing almost 200kmph. So i had to pan very fast. But I found it easier panning the fast baots than I did the slower ones.