Quick tip - panning · Mar 29, 07:47 PM by Simon Mackie
While at the Commonwealth Games Road Race in Melbourne the other day, I decided to try out some panning. Panning’s a useful photographic technique that can add an impression of movement and speed to moving objects. Check out this image:
to take this picture, I use a slower shutter speed than I would normally do to freeze the action of the moving cyclist. Normally, I’d use a shutter speed of 1/250 or 1/500th of a second or more, but in this case I used 1/100th of a second. As the cyclist was speeding past me (luckily, he’d just come from a corner, so he wasn’t going too fast) I smoothly moved (panned) my camera with him, pressing the shutter release when he was next to me. By doing this, the movement of the camera blurs the background, giving an impression of speed, but hopefully keeps the moving cyclist reasonably sharp. If I had taken the picture with a high shutter speed and “frozen” the rider, it wouldn’t have looked nearly as dynamic.
It’s a tricky technique to get right, but fun to practice, and adds a new dimension to your photography. Give it a go!
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