for those of you who do not know what panning is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panning_(camera)


It´s really an interesting way of shooting photographs I never really tried out before. the shots above were just an attempt to check out wether the technique actually works or not and how it does so. so I just grabbed my camera with my 50mm 1.8 on, aimed out of my window and shot a few cars passing by. I gotta say it´s not easy. What you need is a really fast and precise autofocus. So I had alot of trouble with my 1000D which has quite a poor autofocus itself, and the 50mm 1.8 without USM. I guess for really really perfect panning shots you´ll have to use one of the full format cameras or at least a 7D, which is pretty damn fast, plus a fast focusing lens like the USMs are for canon etc.

PS: As you can see, my biggest problem was to focus correctly. In these 2 shots, only the back of the cars are really in focus, the front is blurry. I didnt find out how to prevent that yet, but I sure will soon I guess it alos has to do with the position you´re shooting from, and the perspective.

Anyway, I´ll be trying out that shit alot more in future and hopefully I can bring it to my utmost possibilities. feel free to post your attempts of panning shots in here aswell, wether they´re good or bad. Let´s just share and talk about it in here.

Regards

This post was edited by RecoveryChannel on Oct 8 2010 07:07am

ready for the contest XD?

not yet, but me trying it out sure has something to do with it


here´s another one:



pretty good focusing here imO.


E:

another one with tele lens:




This post was edited by RecoveryChannel on Oct 8 2010 07:39am

Is there a special thing I have to do to achieve a photo like this? Some info about how you did it would be great! They look pretty interesting.

actually what you´re doing is following your subject with the camera at the same speed. if you synchronize perfectly with the speed of the moving object, you should get a blurred background and a pretty static and sharp object. to achieve this, you have to work with a fairly slow shutter speed. I guess everything longer than 1/100 should do the job. I used 1/50 for my attempts. I guess the better shots come with alot of practicing and abit of luck.

You also might wanna check out karl taylors tutorial video on action shots. he explains it pretty well and he´s a great photographer. also check out his website. You can subscribe and get access to free 15 photography tutorials. He´s really good at what he´s doing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIYh9jaypYQ

You expose the picture for like 1/30 or 1/20 and glide your camera to immitate the same motion as the vehicle or other moving object. Doing it with a dog is hard. If someone can get a panned Snail, i declare autowin.

The last one is pretty cool

You used a pretty short shutter time but still nice.

I'm on it!

you guys are killing my idea for the contest haha

have you tried with a unipod? i'm going to be getting one sometime soon..

the last picture is awesome.