Movment photos?

[sactown024]

Hey guys, I have a wedding coming and at the reception they have a carousel and I wanna do pics of the bride and groom on it.

How do I make it so the bride and groom are tack sharp but the background is moving? Will I have to do a composite image or is there a camera trick?

If I lower my shutter speed everything will be blurry including the bride and groom and If raise it it will freeze the subjects.

Do I use rear curtain sync on the flash?

 

[ceejtank]

I believe what you're referring to is called "panning".. lots of people do it at sporting events like nascar. You keep the focus point on the subject (on a tripod) and just move the axis left or right to follow them, while keeping the shutter open for long enough to create blur as it moves. You can google it.

 

[BobSaget]

Get on the carousel with them and shoot towards the outside background. bounce the flash off the ceiling of the carousel to keep them tight and balance their exposure with background. This is a full size carousel right?

 

[Josh66]

If I lower my shutter speed everything will be blurry including the bride and groom and If raise it it will freeze the subjects.

This is exactly what you want (long shutter speed). Follow the subject with the camera while the shutter is open.

As long as you pan smoothly, and at the same speed as the subject - they will be sharp and the background won't be.

Obviously, it'll take some practice...

 

[squirrels]

Get on the carousel with them and shoot towards the outside background. bounce the flash off the ceiling of the carousel to keep them tight and balance their exposure with background. This is a full size carousel right?

I've been trying unsuccessfully to do a carousel shot from the sidelines. Am I thread hijacking if I ask how your advice would be different if it is not full sized?

 

[BobSaget]

Get on the carousel with them and shoot towards the outside background. bounce the flash off the ceiling of the carousel to keep them tight and balance their exposure with background. This is a full size carousel right?

I've been trying unsuccessfully to do a carousel shot from the sidelines. Am I thread hijacking if I ask how your advice would be different if it is not full sized?

I was actually asking or rather making sure it was an actual carousel he could get on with the couple as opposed to something that was brought to a reception like a mini carousel.

 

[sactown024]

It's a full size carousel, getting on it with them is a good idea. To me, even panning seems like I would get a lot of blur, ill have to practice in something else, thanks

 

[bratkinson]

Considering it is a full-sized carousel, I'm assuming there are wooden horses they will be riding as well. So you'll have to pan up and down with the horse(s) to effectively 'stop' the bride and groom while the rest of the 'world' zooms by (blurred) behind them.

Hopefully, this is some kind of public carousel. Is there any way you could go there and practice a couple of times before the wedding? Trying to get the timing 'right' first time out on any panning is exceedingly rare, based on my lack of decent panning results.

 

[mattbaume]

It's pretty hard to do this successfully. But the steps outlined above look good to me: stabilize the camera as much as possible with a tripod; turn down the shutter to maybe 1/15th or so, and pan with the subject. You'll need to have a steady hand, and get really good at matching the motion of the subject. I'd spend some time practicing ahead of time to get the hang of it.

Here's a similar look that I got with a cyclist. I used a small speedlite on the camera to help sharpen the subject. Because he was very close, the flash was able to hit him without affecting the blurry background. This might not work on a carousel where everything is very close together.



Alternately, you could use a very strong flash on 2nd-curtain to freeze the action with a trail. Here's a photo I got a few weeks ago using that technique. (I'm not thrilled with this look, I think I'd have preferred the panning technique.)

 

[runnah]

Photoshop.

 

[JeremyDueckPhoto]

Runnah is right, Photoshop is an option for shots like this. You might spend 1/2 hour panning unless you're good at it. The other thing you have to think about is that panning while you are off the carousel is going to make them and the carousel in focus. If you shoot on the carousel like Bob Saget said you can get all blur outside of them. The only thing I probably wouldn't do is bounce flash off of the carousel because most of them have colored roofs which will taint some of your subject lighting (unless you want it).