[canajuneh]

I need to take a panning shot for a Camera Club contest. I prefer to do something 'a little different' from everyone else but I'm having a tough time thinking of 'what'!

I know there will be versions of bikes, cars (and other vehicles+machinery) and slightly blurry runners in the contest. What else is there I could try? Does anyone have some (or even ONE) suggestion?

[Deiberson]

A dog running/jumping off a dock would be pretty cool

[JimJohnson]

How much of a challenge do you want? The camera must match the speed and be (mostly) parallel to the motion during the exposure. There are typically two factors to difficulty: slower pan = easier, faster pan = harder; and longer pan = easier, shorter pan = harder.

I've always wondered what it would look like to do a close pan shot catching a driver just past the moment of contact with a golf ball. The camera has to move at the same speed and parallel to the club head. The ball and tee would be slightly blurred, the golfer's legs would be fully blurred. Hmm, maybe I'll have to talking to my nephew who lives and breaths golf.

[Anvh]

and longer pan = easier, shorter pan = harder.

Isn't it the other way around?
With long pans i always have problems keeping the subject in the same place...

[JimJohnson]

and longer pan = easier, shorter pan = harder.

Isn't it the other way around?
With long pans i always have problems keeping the subject in the same place...

Just the opposite for me. If the motion is a longer path, I have more time to both match the motion and compose. Unless the motion is really slow, If the pan is short, I have trouble achieving both.

[Anvh]

Ah like that i was thinking about the shutter time.

[rbefly]

Hello Canajuneh,
One thing you might try is using trailing curtain sync on a flash to freeze the subject at the end if it's movement. Very dramatic-looking.
Just an idea...
Ron

[andre-mz5]

I don't know if you can find them in your neighbourhood, but you might consider to do panning shots of kids on skateboards or rollerskaters.
You can real close and get some nice shots.
Just to give you an idea

[JimJohnson]

Ah like that i was thinking about the shutter time.

Okay, I see where you are coming from. Absolutely a longer exposure adds difficulty. No when I was thinking of a longer motion path, I was thinking in terms of matching the motion while I can see it in the view finder. As you can't see the actual exposure using an SLR, your movement of the camera during the exposure has to be on 'auto-pilot'. I was thinking along the line that with a longer path I have more time to get my movement in sync with the subject.

On this line, panning is also far easier with either a rangefinder or twin-lens reflex camera. On rare occasion, I've seen folks mount a sports finder (basically just a frame) on their SLR's hotshoe and shoot a bit wide. I don't think Live View will help much with fast motion because its frame rate is too slow. But if that's all you've got, it might be worth the try.

[HockeyDad]

What about a baseball? Probably not pros but little league kid-pitch? Pan with the pitch and try to capture the moment just prior to impact with the bat. Wouldn't take a very long shutter speed to get quite a bit of motion blur due to the fast speed of the ball...

Another idea: I once snapped some almost cool panning shots of figure skaters as they held a pose and skated past. Check out any local ice rink... you can probably snap photos right from the bench (no glass in the way) during an open skate or practice session. I was just trying stuff out when I 1st got the camera so nothing I did was noteworthy but I'm certain something cool could be captured with a little effort.

[Lowell Goudge]

While there may be cars etc, do a night shot

Take a tripod to get nice straight lines and pan something, person walking, or a car moving by and pan on that.

The fact it is a night shot gets you very long shutter speed.

For a car, the car will be sharp, but the wheels blurred (but circular and as sharp otherwise as the car), as well as the background streaked with bright lights/

For a person walking, the center body might be perfectly still, but the arms and legs will be arcs as they swing and the background will again be a straight line blur

I think either of these, showing two different blurred motions would be good

[atupdate]

DPChallenge.com recently had a motion panning challenge. This thread should provide a few ideas.

Motion Panning IV Challenge Results

And this link has links for 3 other motion panning challenges.

Motion Panning... Yes, yet again... - DPChallenge Forums

Tim

ETA: Each picture includes the primary EXIF data. Therefore, you can see what shutter speed to use for any given subject.

[steve1307]

With a faster travelling object you can get the appropriate amount of motion blur with a faster shutterspeed and that seems to be earier in my experience.

This is a car doing about 140km/hr slowing for a fairly tight corner

Shutter speed is 1/60, f8




Same car but taken in different light conditions so this shot is at 1/40s. f4 (i didnt get many keepers at 1/40) The background looks better for conveying motion.

Cars are boring anyway because you get blurry wheels and thats about it (a glowing brake disc in the last one though)

Cyclists are more interesting because of their legs moving.
How about a Kayaker(ist?)



This one is taken a 1/10s so I'm suprised i got anything at all. I tried a couple of other paddlers at 1/30 but it didn't look good enoughimppression of motion.
This guy was really pushing hard so I probably could have done 1/15 for a bit less blur in the arms.

How about a kid on a swing? This might be a challenge because the speed of the pendulum is always changing and the path is curved.
I think the way to approach it might be to pick a point in the arc to take the shot which would be interesting (maybe halfway down on the backward swing, as the person's body will be parallel to the focus line) at then and just follow through that section of the arc clicking at that point of the swing.

I remember there was a compettion challenge over on DPreview a while ago and the winning entry was a vertical pan of a Cheetah leaping up a tree trunk. That was good but perhaps a little difficult to do in your neighbourhood..

edit : here it is http://www.dpreview.com/challenges/Entry.aspx?ID=164624&View=Results&Rows=4

[canajuneh]

Thank you all for your helpful suggestions. Some of the examples I've viewed this evening are quite outstanding.

I don't know any dogs that might chase around for the camera, the ice rink is closed for the summer, we don't have a skate park locally. I was finding the thought of even getting a shot quite a challenge unless I took a shot of a bike or car or kid on a swing (I'd like something a bit 'different' if I can).

I'm thinking I probably try playing with some marbles and maybe also see if I can get someone to lift a 'cool one' for me to shoot away at. If all else fails - maybe get some kids to toss a ball around or bounce one for me to follow with the camera. Likely this will have to be done out in the garden because I don't have studio lights or anything fancy like that.

[HockeyDad]

I have no idea what it would look like but a fun experiment could be swinging a lightbulb from a cord and panning it. Might make a cool light trail with a sharp image of the bulb leading the way.