An exercise in panning

pixeldawg · Nov 29, 2008

This is a shot I did a while back for the Jacksonville (FL) Transit Authority, or JTA. This shot was used as a graphic on the sides of their buses to advertise their new bike carriers. It was cool when, during the Superbowl broadcast from Jacksonville, one of the JTA buses was shown, and my image was plastered on the entire side of the bus.

For those of you who may not be familiar with panning, this is when you use a slow shutter speed to "track" a moving object. That object, because it's moving at the same "speed" as the camera is sharply focused. This in turn, blurs everything else that's not moving at that same speed. I find that it generally works best when an object is perpandicular to your shooting position. Anyway, hope you like it!

LaFoto · Dec 1, 2008

I tried my very first, very moderate panning on a bicycle rider, too, but either "mine" was slower than "yours", or my settings were still set to faster shutter speeds, but in the end I was still proud that I captured the bike rider sharp with the background just a tad blurred (like I said, different settings from these) and my sister only got blurred bike riders, heehee (she was my big photography mentor for years, but I might have taken over by now, who knows

). Anyhow, cool that this went on all the buses. Must be a great feeling to see one's photo all over the place

! With this green background, it is very nice!
It sure made me proud to once see one of my photos make a poster advertising a dancing performance, and still makes me proud to see my photo on the leaflet of yet another dancing school.

MBasile · Dec 1, 2008

pixeldawg said:
This is a shot I did a while back for the Jacksonville (FL) Transit Authority, or JTA. This shot was used as a graphic on the sides of their buses to advertise their new bike carriers. It was cool when, during the Superbowl broadcast from Jacksonville, one of the JTA buses was shown, and my image was plastered on the entire side of the bus.

For those of you who may not be familiar with panning, this is when you use a slow shutter speed to "track" a moving object. That object, because it's moving at the same "speed" as the camera is sharply focused. This in turn, blurs everything else that's not moving at that same speed. I find that it generally works best when an object is perpandicular to your shooting position. Anyway, hope you like it!

very nice! I would love to get my work on the side of a bus! haha

LaFoto said:
I tried my very first, very moderate panning on a bicycle rider, too, but either "mine" was slower than "yours", or my settings were still set to faster shutter speeds, but in the end I was still proud that I captured the bike rider sharp with the background just a tad blurred (like I said, different settings from these) and my sister only got blurred bike riders, heehee (she was my big photography mentor for years, but I might have taken over by now, who knows ). Anyhow, cool that this went on all the buses. Must be a great feeling to see one's photo all over the place ! With this green background, it is very nice!
It sure made me proud to once see one of my photos make a poster advertising a dancing performance, and still makes me proud to see my photo on the leaflet of yet another dancing school.

Yeah, sounds like your shutter speed was still a little too fast. It really is something you have to play around with, and every situation is different. I did some panning with a friends car moving at slow speeds, which was very different from panning race cars!

Here is what I feel is my best panning shot. I have another one with a crisper car, but the background is less blurred.

(or i this not a show and tell post?)

Camera: Sony DSLR-A100
Exposure: 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture: f/18
Focal Length: 150 mm

LaFoto · Dec 1, 2008

MBasile said:
(or i this not a show and tell post?)

Depends on what Mark thinks ... normally we would not post our own work into someone's photo thread, other than linking to it, maybe, but... this is not my thread... (and I have later tried my - totally undeveloped! - panning 'abilities' - cough-cough - on faster things like ICE trains, too).

(ETA: I think this was the panning I was thinking of, though today I no longer think it is that good, but then ICE trains are FAST ... but race cars are FASTER, I must admit...)

LaFoto · Dec 1, 2008

Oh... erm ... the more I think about it, the more I begin to believe that I restored the thread I am linking to in my previous post with the wrong photo ... I haven't taken the photo which now shows in the thread as early as when that thread was started. I believe it was this_photo which had originally been in there. Though today I no longer recognise that engine as one for ICE trains... :scratch: ... but the one I put (back) up into that old thread of mine is one, for sure ... confusion all over!

Sorry, Mark. Actually, this thread is all about YOUR photo of the panned bicycle rider against the wonderfully green background!!!

pixeldawg · Dec 1, 2008

LaFoto said:
Depends on what Mark thinks ... normally we would not post our own work into someone's photo thread, other than linking to it, maybe, but... this is not my thread... (and I have later tried my - totally undeveloped! - panning 'abilities' - cough-cough - on faster things like ICE trains, too).

(ETA: I think this was the panning I was thinking of, though today I no longer think it is that good, but then ICE trains are FAST ... but race cars are FASTER, I must admit...)

Doesn't bother me at all! Heck, you can even post the image in this thread and it would be fine with me. I'm here to talk about photography! :hug::

MBasile · Dec 1, 2008

pixeldawg said:
Doesn't bother me at all! Heck, you can even post the image in this thread and it would be fine with me. I'm here to talk about photography! :hug::

thats what my thought was, I'll edit my post AGAIN :lol: