1 horse power

[Robin_Usagani]

 

[manaheim]

hey!

deja view.

And.. again... I love this!

 

[Robin_Usagani]

1 out of 30 turned out OK lol. Panning a horse is a bad idea.

 

[Mully]

Hey Tonto wait up...what is your hurry.

 

[manaheim]

1 out of 30 turned out OK lol. Panning a horse is a bad idea.

I read that and imagined a gold prospector in a stream swishing a horse around in a pan, and thought "well, duh!"

 

[Robin_Usagani]

Added another one.. a lot sharper!

 

[pgriz]

That's pretty classic panning. Rodeo show?

 

[Robin_Usagani]

Yes... I should have panned the roping event.

 

[Derrel]

1 out of 30 turned out OK lol. Panning a horse is a bad idea.

Panning shots of horses is a CLASSIC way to shoot them. All you need is more practice. The second one has a lovely feel to it!!! I really like the way the horse is holding its head up higher in the second shot, and the rider's holding whatever the heck that is...that adds something to the shot. The shutter speed used is pretty critical. Too slow, and it looks weird, too fast is probably a better way to err on, at least if you're concerned with "sharp panning shots". I don't have EXIF reading capability in my browser, so I'm not sure what speeds you shot at. If you're complaining about sharpness either you panned too fast, or your speeds were too slow for the angle and focal length/image size of the horse, or maybe some of both. If you are shooting at very slow speeds, like say 1/2 to 1/8 second, an auxillary viefinder, or just "sighting over" the pentaprism can help keep the camera tracking along perfectly.

I used to shoot a TON of bicycle panning back in the 1980's; I loved slow,slow speed panning in the 1/3 second range, which gives a lot of blur, but that's the speed range where the SLR viewfinder's black-out makes getting the perfect panning shot much more-difficult than it is when you have a rangefinder camera, or a wire-frame finder, or an optical slip-in viewfinder in the shoe. With an autofocus camera and a VR or IS lens, panning has never been easier than it is today...

ACP - Universal

 

[Robin_Usagani]

Derrel, I think the problem is mostly because the horse goes up and down. Bicycle is more forgiving because the upper body is usually pretty still. Unless you are shooting the derby where the riders stand up and usually pretty still, it is pretty hard to get sharp panning shots IMO. Mine was pure luck. This shot was 1/40 with 135mm.

 

[Derrel]

Sharp panning shots are EASY...just shoot at a faster speed and pan perfectly in-synch with the subject. You can pan at ANY shutter speed you wish: 1 second, 1/3, 1/15, 1/20, 1/40,1/125, 1/250, 1/500. The "correct" speed to pan at depends on many factors. Subject, image size, direction of movement in relation to the lens axis, desired effect, and so on.

The idea with panning though is, quite often NOT to have it be "sharp", but to convey a feeling; a sense of movement; a sense of speed, or of motion...so...I'm not sure what the desired effect you were after was, but the idea that the horse is moving up and down is not a deal-breaker....it is in fact pretty normal. Most of the time when people use panning it's to give a sense of movement, but there are times when we pan simply because we MUST do it, just to get a marginally usable photo, like when you're at wide-open f/stop, max ISO, and the subject is moving fast....you pan then, and stop the still parts, and the moving parts are blurred.

Here's an article I think a lot of people might find useful, from a master photographer from National Geographic.
Jim Richardson on Panning to Capture Motion -- National Geographic

 

[manaheim]

And that great sense of movement is what I got from the image and what I liked about it. Without that it would have been just a boring shot of a horse.

 

[pgriz]

^^^ Agree with Manny and Derrel - the second shot really captures the feeling of movement and speed, without which the shot would be much less interesting. It's a skill, and the results aren't shabby.

 

[Rick58]

Nice shots Robin. I like them both, but I'd have to put my money on #2

 

[tirediron]

1 out of 30 turned out OK lol. Panning a horse is a bad idea.

I read that and imagined a gold prospector in a stream swishing a horse around in a pan, and thought "well, duh!"

My first thought, "Damn, that's a BIG pan!"