Panning Technique

[sf_1857]

Those of you who are good at the panning technique, for motorsports, etc - do you pan mostly with or without monopod?

I just rec'd my Sigma 70-300 APO lens, have the monopod and am ready to start working on panning, so I was wondering about this.

Seems like it would be more difficult, or take more practice to rotate the camera on a center point WITH the monopod.

OTOH, it would seem more difficult to keep a level pan W/O the monopod.

[CyberDyneSystems]

Shooting hand held is allways "easier"
...but getting better results hand held is not in most cases...

That said, for panning, I would say beginning your learning curve hand held is a good way to start.

[KennyG]

Hand-held. You would only use a monopod for bigger lenses (300 and up) and only then for three quarter pan shots. However hard you may try to do otherwise, panning when following a race car or bike with a monopod mounted lens you will end up panning in an arc.

[Harry Settle]

Sometimes with both my 10D and my video cameras I will use the monopod retracted for a stabilizer.

[Loki1117]

Sometimes with both my 10D and my video cameras I will use the monopod retracted for a stabilizer.

Harry,
Just for my own clarification, your Monopod is attached to your camera, but not touching the ground? Used basically as a bottom weight?

[spoolin_photography]

Harry,
Just for my own clarification, your Monopod is attached to your camera, but not touching the ground? Used basically as a bottom weight?

i use my mono pod like this some times, with my 70-200L 2.8 IS, but it just gets too heavy after a while, most of the time i just hold it free hand, and use shutter speed any where from 125 to 50 with good success, some times i will go as low as 15/30 but they get hard