Please help me to pan.

hillwalkinggirl

hillwalkinggirl

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Barbara
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I'm trying to master panning, but not being very successfull yet. Any help would be much appreciated. This is my first rubbish attempt. Please tell me where I am going wrong.


DSC_1632-Edit by hillwalkinggirl, on Flickr

Exif:
Nikon D80
Shutter Priority 1/60
f13
AF-C
Iso 100
meter multi segment
ISO 100
57mm focal length, but photo has been cropped quite a lot.
 
Thats a pretty good first attempt. The skill is matching the movement of the car to the sweep of the cvamera as you knw well! Choose your spot & practice before your main shot if possible

Practice is all thats needed- simples!
 
johnb said:
Thats a pretty good first attempt. The skill is matching the movement of the car to the sweep of the cvamera as you knw well! Choose your spot & practice before your main shot if possible

Practice is all thats needed- simples!
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Thanks John. I wasn't very happy with the background. I've seen lots of photos where the background gives smoother motion - if you get what I mean. Would this be improved by faster or slower shutter speed?
 
You can lower your shutter speed but be prepared for a lot of blurry shots. It is much easier when the subject is travelling faster but not much chance on a public road. Your stance will play a big part too, try facing square on to where you plan to take the shot then twisting towards where you subject appears from. As you track you are at your most stable point as you shoot.Also try follow through smoothly after the shot.
 
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Did you use a tripod for the shot? UsIng a tripod will help smooth out the background and keep the subject in focus.
 
Tripod would not help panning would it- too constricting. I personally feel that the shutter speed is ok looking at the motion blur in the wheels. I guess the roof in the background is the problem which is easily solved.
 
The vehicle speed is probably too slow for an effective pan at that shutter speed. I'd recommend finding a faster stretch of road.

Here's an example at 1/50 - not much difference in shutter speed, but a big difference in result....

20110226_191807_7448_LR.jpg


Here's one at 1/80....

20110424_185356_4214_LR-2.jpg


Both were shot hand held, no tripod or monopod.

Shooting at a wider aperture may also help soften the background, even if it doesn't add further to the blur. Obviously you can't open up without causing a problem for exposure, so use an ND filter or shoot in less bright conditions.
 
The background blur is how much (distance) background the sensor moves over, to cover more background you either need to pan faster (so faster subject) or have a slower shutter speed, which will make it harder to get the subject sharp.

The main things with panning are keeping the motion smooth, practicing, finding an uncluttered background (if possible) and more practice!
 
Assuming your stance is good (I try to stand at 45 degrees to the subject) and hand-holding technique is sound (a monopod helps) and IS on mode 2 or off...

Then the blur is down to the speed of the subject, the shutter speed, and also the shooting distance. If your position is fixed and you can't control the speed of the subject, at a motor race for example, then you only have shutter speed to play with.

But if you can control the speed of the car, then that's another option, and if you can shoot from a closer position the speed of the vehicle relative to the background is increased.

Really good panning, subject pin sharp and filling the frame perfectly, is a bit of a skill. Shoot plenty, try continuous mode to increase your hit rate.
 
Thank you all for your helpful comments, it looks like I'm off to find some boy racers. Seriously though I imagined that slow vehicles would be easier to pan. I'll have a try on a faster road and see how that turns out.
 
tbh in terms of technique i think thats great, personally i don't like massive blur and as the car is in perfect focus and has no blurring on it it works for me :)
as said above, if you were shooting with a wider aperture it might have worked better :)
Jack
 
For long pans, stand facing the end of the pan then turn your upper body back to the start.
 
Llama said:
tbh in terms of technique i think thats great, personally i don't like massive blur and as the car is in perfect focus and has no blurring on it it works for me :)
as said above, if you were shooting with a wider aperture it might have worked better :)
Jack
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Stratman said:
For long pans, stand facing the end of the pan then turn your upper body back to the start.
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Thank you both for your comments.

Are these any better?
1.

Nice Car by hillwalkinggirl, on Flickr
2.

This one didn't see me. by hillwalkinggirl, on Flickr
 
Not sure what part of Wales you are from but this on Saturday would be cheap and great practice and there will be loads of Tp members there to offer help.

I think one problem you may have is the lens you are using as it's physically quite short. From my experience the longer the lens the easier it is to pan as one hand is on the body and the other usually on the lens hood.

Do you have a longer lens?
 
foggy4ever said:
Not sure what part of Wales you are from but this on Saturday would be cheap and great practice and there will be loads of Tp members there to offer help.

I think one problem you may have is the lens you are using as it's physically quite short. From my experience the longer the lens the easier it is to pan as one hand is on the body and the other usually on the lens hood.

Do you have a longer lens?
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HoppyUK said:
Move back a bit, use a longer lens, much faster car :thumbs:
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I did try earlier with my 55-200 but as I was taking photos on very narrow country lanes I couldn't get far enough back, so reverted back to my 18-50. I could only get a whole car in at the short end.

It looks like I'll have to make a trip to a main road to get back a bit and find some faster cars. I do find it very difficult though to pan fast cars, though I wonder if this is because the roads where I live are very bendy. Would it be easier on a straight road?
 
This is the toughest module by far isn't it Barbara :( I think you are doing very well so far though, my shots are not good at all, nowhere near as good as yours, don't be too critical on yourself :)

Carole
 
Molly47 said:
This is the toughest module by far isn't it Barbara :( I think you are doing very well so far though, my shots are not good at all, nowhere near as good as yours, don't be too critical on yourself :)

Carole
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I'm finding it really difficult, but I'm sure we will all get there in the end. I would have never even tried this technique if it was this months project. It's a good discipline for us though.
 
It looks like you are shooting in a "village" environment, where you will not get cars travelling faster than 30mph. Try parking up in a layby beside a dual carriageway and have a crack at the cars passing you at 60 or 70. There is no doubt that practice is the key to making your pans successful. A smooth action is everything. It looks like you're doing pretty well on that front, but you need faster vehicles - or slower shutter speeds. Personally I'd go and find some faster vehicles. :)

I did try a 30mph vehicle this morning. This is not a great pan (very hard to do when peeping through the front door from your hallway) but shows the amount of blur possible if you get the shutter speed slow enough. This was at 1/25 using a 100mm lens on a full frame body. The shot is uncropped and unedited....

20110521_061333_9032_LR.jpg
 
Thank you Tim. I don't know whether I am getting this right but if you shot at 100mm on a full frame then that would be equivalent to using 66mm on my Nikon D80 (equiv factor 1.5x) or 50mm on my Panasonic GF1 (eqiv factor 2x)

I tried shooting with my 55-200 lens but could never get the whole car in. I assume I wouldn't have this problem on a dual carriageway (not easy to find around here).

I am finding the AF-C difficult to use as unless I track the car from a long way away I can't seem to get it to lock on.

Any suggestions on best way to use AF-C. I am using AF area mode - dynamic at the moment. Is this the best one to use?
 
I'm not sure on the names of Nikon focus modes, but I usually just use one focus point on the focus mode that keeps readjusting the focus, however it is better to make sure that you have the focus point on the car for around a second to make sure it will be in focus.
 
Craikeybaby said:
I'm not sure on the names of Nikon focus modes, but I usually just use one focus point on the focus mode that keeps readjusting the focus, however it is better to make sure that you have the focus point on the car for around a second to make sure it will be in focus.
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Thanks Lewis - I will give that a try.
 
When you do shoot faster cars, try upping your shutter speed to around 1/200 or so, until you get the hang of it.
 
hillwalkinggirl said:
Thank you Tim. I don't know whether I am getting this right but if you shot at 100mm on a full frame then that would be equivalent to using 66mm on my Nikon D80 (equiv factor 1.5x) or 50mm on my Panasonic GF1 (eqiv factor 2x)

I tried shooting with my 55-200 lens but could never get the whole car in. I assume I wouldn't have this problem on a dual carriageway (not easy to find around here).

I am finding the AF-C difficult to use as unless I track the car from a long way away I can't seem to get it to lock on.

Any suggestions on best way to use AF-C. I am using AF area mode - dynamic at the moment. Is this the best one to use?
Click to expand...

For good tracking/servo focus you need a good camera and lens. Some of the cheaper combos are not very good at it but I would have thought it wouldn't have too much trouble in this situation. Try centre point as suggested.

The other technique is to pre-focus and lock it (or use manual AF) on the spot on the road where you know the car is going to be when you press the shutter.

Slower shutter speeds are more difficult because camera-shake can become an issue, though the panning action itself usually smooths this out a bit.

Another problem with being too close to a wider subject like a car is that the ends of the vehicle are travelling at different speeds relative to the arc of the pan, so you can get uneven blurring at each end, which is evident in some of the images here. It can sometimes look quite good in a creative sense but to get everything sharp you should move back, use a longer lens, and find a faster car.
 
hillwalkinggirl said:
Thank you Tim. I don't know whether I am getting this right but if you shot at 100mm on a full frame then that would be equivalent to using 66mm on my Nikon D80 (equiv factor 1.5x) or 50mm on my Panasonic GF1 (eqiv factor 2x)

I tried shooting with my 55-200 lens but could never get the whole car in. I assume I wouldn't have this problem on a dual carriageway (not easy to find around here).

I am finding the AF-C difficult to use as unless I track the car from a long way away I can't seem to get it to lock on.

Any suggestions on best way to use AF-C. I am using AF area mode - dynamic at the moment. Is this the best one to use?
Click to expand...

Yep, 100mm on full frame would be equivalent to a 66mm focal length on a DX body in terms of field of view.

I used a single focus point and continuous focusing. Certainly with Canon it is best to be focusing for at least 1/2 a second, perhaps a little more when using continuous focus on a moving subject. That give the focus time to establish the pattern of movement in the subject and work out where the focus should be by the time you release the shutter. The more quickly you "grab" shots the lower the chances that the AF will catch on. For the AF to work you need to aim at an area of contrast - a door handle, the edge of a window frame, the join between door panels - not a flat, smooth sheet of painted metal like a wing or the side of the door. If you are shooting racing cars then decals should offer plenty of scope for focus points. On a plain black 4x4, not so much.
 
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