Is imitation the sincerest form of flattery? You judge.

[pgriz]

And of course, we need to thank Judi (Pixelrabbit) for providing the inspiration behind the following image. I found her moving pictures quite appealing, and so tried to imitate her technique to see if I could get anything worthwhile. This is probably the best one I have to date. Still not anywhere as soulful as Judi's but there's some promise there. But darn, you go through a lot of images to get one or two that are OK.

 

[CaptainNapalm]

I think this is an excellent photo however personally I would clone out the two objects in the trees which in my opinion are a bit distracting and take away from the image.

 

[pgriz]

I think this is an excellent photo however personally I would clone out the two objects in the trees which in my opinion are a bit distracting and take away from the image.

Yeah, you're right. I'm going to have to figure out how to clone those two things without making it obvious.

 

[Dagwood56]

I think its a good shot, but agree about the objects. I'm not as bothered by the red spot as the large object on the left. because I keep looking at it wondering what it was flying through the air. - lol I'm guessing it was probably a birdhouse? As a person who tends toward square crops myself, my suggestion would be to just crop that area off the image because I doubt cloning will work very well.

 

[mishele]

Good stuff, Paul! Love the motion and colors. Have to agree with the others about the distracting elements. =) Good luck removing the birdhouse...hehe
When I tried some shots similar to this last year, it was crazy how many shots you had to take before one worked!! It made for some very long disappointing trips. Ahh, but when one works it's very rewarding! Keep it up! I want to see more!

 

[PixelRabbit]

Way cool Paul! It's fun to see what you are coming up with lately and yes I'm very flattered that you enjoy it and spending time working out the kinks
I agree about the stand/birdhouse? Our structures are so hard to integrate but keep at it, there are ways to do it!
As for keepers, it takes a while to figure out what is going to work and what won't, I'm happy to say I'm up to more than 1 or 2 keepers per trip but boy was it a process to get here

 

[pgriz]

I think its a good shot, but agree about the objects. I'm not as bothered by the red spot as the large object on the left. because I keep looking at it wondering what it was flying through the air. - lol I'm guessing it was probably a birdhouse? As a person who tends toward square crops myself, my suggestion would be to just crop that area off the image because I doubt cloning will work very well.

That thing appears to be a turkey or grouse blind, located about 8-10 feet off the ground, and large enough to accommodate at least two people. I think you are right with respect to a square crop being somewhat better. Need to find some time to play with this, but you (along with CaptainNapalm and Mishele) have given me some ideas on how to proceed.

Good stuff, Paul! Love the motion and colors. Have to agree with the others about the distracting elements. =) Good luck removing the birdhouse...hehe
When I tried some shots similar to this last year, it was crazy how many shots you had to take before one worked!! It made for some very long disappointing trips. Ahh, but when one works it's very rewarding! Keep it up! I want to see more!

The trick so far seems to select a manual focus distance (so the lens doesn't hunt around trying to achieve focus) at the distance you are expecting to have the "stationary" elements, a deep enough DOF to compensate for whatever focusing errors you may have, a slow enough shutter speed that gives you adequate blurring without being completely impossible to get anything sharp, and flawless panning that allows the "stationary" objects to be more-or-less stationary. It seems to work better on country roads (slower speeds, you can back up and try again if it didn't work - although it helps to have a tolerant driver who'll put up with this) than highways. It also requires some scouting, so that the view has both interesting verticals and textured backgrounds, while still being simple enough to be recognizable when blurred. So yeah, I can see why it takes so many attempts before you get something usable. And then, there's the element of chance - you can never really predict how it will turn out. A long pan gives one type of blurring. A short pan has another effect. A pan of closeup stuff gives still other effects. If you inadvertently rotate the camera during the pan, it'll show up as a semi-twisting pattern. It is taking a while for me to figure out what moves give what result. Even when you get a sense of "how" to do it, you still have no guarantee of having a visually-interesting result. In other words, frustrating, but fun!