3rd attempt at panning

Well, another track day at snetterton down. Today I tried shooting at some slower shutter speeds. I shot mostly at 1/80th all day just to see what would happen. My panning technique is getting pretty decent. But as I discovered, there's a limit to how slow you can go and still get the whole car in focus. About half my pictures would have been pretty nice if I'd shot at 125th or 160's instead of 80th. But it is always good to learn something when you go shoot. Here's a few of the pics from today. And I think I need to clean my sensor again.
1.

I hear ya with the focusing issue on the slow shutter pans. Damn parallax.
Hopefully someone chimes in with a technique solution.

My solution to it is to try and take the shot when the car is slightly to one side and by the time the shot is taken have it around the same distance on the other side of you. Not great really but it seems to work for me so far. I'm no pro though.

I think the first is better focused as the car is going across your field of view more so than in #2 and #3 where they seem to be going and coming which changes your focus on the front or rear of the car. Some of the unsharp portions could be due to track bumps, don't know if that is an issue there.

The only way to cure paralax is to close the shutter when the centre of the car is directly opposite the camera - anything other than this will produce paralax. How visible it is depends on the shutter speed.

Here is a shot taken from the pit wall at 1/60 (if I was doing what I normally do) http://www.motorsportm​edia.co.nz/details.php​?gid=164&pid=3337

The car is almost perfectly placed but if you look at the nose you can see it has just started to drift off slightly.

Second shot here http://www.motorsportm​edia.co.nz/details.php​?gid=204&pid=5566 will have been taken somewhere between 1/10 and 1/40. The focus point is on the airbox just behind the drivers head. The distance to the front wheels is greater than the rear hence the bigger distortion.

Hope that helps.

Cheers Dave

Dave, you got some great photos on your site! Thanks for the info and tips. Ive got LOTS of practice to get as good as you.