Panning Photos HELP!

I was just wondering how would I take a panning photo of a car with the background blurred. Do I just use a 1 second shutter speed and put my focus on Al Servo. Pan my camera with the car and the car will be in focus and the background blurred?

I use a Canon 7D, and I'm going to shoot with a Canon 16-35mm f/2.8 borrowed from my friend.

1 second is likely too long. I did my car on a sunny day at 1/50th sec. in AI servo type 2, on a tripod - it worked pretty good. I also used low-speed burst to capture 3 shots at a time. It may take a few tries before you're happy. I also tried 1/40th and 1/30th but found 1/50th worked best for me. I took some shots with the 17-55 and some with the 70-200, and was pretty happy with both.

hrmm what if I'm doing at night? is there any reference for that?

Well, you'll need a lot more light so you're back to your 1 second exposure - how steady can you pan? (Sorry, never tried it at night)

PandaPhotography wrote in post #11232582
I was just wondering how would I take a panning photo of a car with the background blurred...I'm going to shoot with a Canon 16-35mm f/2.8 borrowed from my friend.

Using similar focal lengths:

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Wallace River wrote in post #11232791
Well, you'll need a lot more light so you're back to your 1 second exposure - how steady can you pan? (Sorry, never tried it at night)

Depending on the effect you want, start at 1/250 and work your way down.
The slower you go, you'll need to drop your aperture (bigger number) or drop your ISO or maybe even both.
It will take a bit of practice but you'll get there.
After a while, you can get down to as slow as 1/10sec or 1/5sec
At night the same thing applies except in reverse and depending how much light you're working with.

Have a look at this thread https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=325181

Here's some of mine

1/5 sec

hrmm maybe i'll try it out tomorrow night with my friends' cars

but here's what I'm going for

those were done with either a camera rig mounted on the car and driven (or pushed) slowly OR from a chase car.

PandaPhotography wrote in post #11234330
hrmm maybe i'll try it out tomorrow night with my friends' cars but here's what I'm going for

Those images are entirely different from panning shots. They're most likely "rig" shots, where a camera is mounted on a support post attached to an automobile. The car is driven and the camera remotely triggered, and then the post is removed by software manipulation.

Rig shots are far more complex than panning shots, and are best discussed in this forum's Transportation Talk section.

Oh... okay. Thanks for the clarification guys. I appreciate it!

"those were done with either a camera rig mounted on the car and driven (or pushed) slowly OR from a chase car".

And a lot of light!

Those were definitely rigs or chase car. For sure. Not panning.

when doing panning shots, what focus point do you use? center? or must it be set to auto focus pts

Depends... on where I am and the look I am going for. I have used every one of my focus points before when panning...

dru8p wrote in post #11464834
when doing panning shots, what focus point do you use? center? or must it be set to auto focus pts

Don't use 'all-points' if that is what you mean by auto focus points.

You can use centre, or choose any of the other points to suit the composition. The important thing is to make sure you keep the chosen point on the same part of the car at all times, or you will get 'camera shake' softness as well as background blur.

You should also be using AI servo for your autofocus.