Panning Motion

[jjeling]

MA this post is really for you, but anyone else that wants to chime in feel free to. My cousin races dirt bikes on occasion and when he does I go up to take pictures of him and others for practice. This thread was inspired by your images and the new member kstrong. The image of the biker riding through the air was nice and wondered how to get that effect. It seems like the flash was used but I thought that might stop the action of the whole shot. Anyways, here are a few of my shots in a similar nature, but would like some advice as to how and to make them better.
During the dirt bike races, I continually moved to get a better shot, but the course was small so I did what I could. Thanks again.

[jjeling]

a couple more to go along with this thread. Another thing I forgot to mention, I will be photographing a street hockey league this coming spring and want to get prepared for that, which is the other half of the reasoning behind this. Stopping the motion of the subject while still having the motion of the background is what I would like to learn from this. They seem to make striking images and I have an idea about it but would like to learn more. Thanks in advance for the advice.

[Mad Aussie]

With panning to get that blurred/speed effect you have to adjust your shutter speed according to the speed of your subject and the amount of blur you want.
To get mountain bikers in this way I usually use shutter speeds of around the 1/60 - 1/125 mark and then pick a spot where they aren't actually going that fast at all. If they are in a spot where they are moving quickly then a faster speed is possible.
I do often use the flash (sparingly) and it gives a nice effect usually.
Combining the above technique with a 2nd sync flash abd shutter speeds of around 1 sec gives even weirder effects. It needs to be fairly low light though.
I find my best pan shots are taken in low light.

With focus I usually (but certainly not always) set up my focus on the place the rider is going to be when I hit the button and switch to manual focus.

Motos are something I haven't tried yet but drove passed a race a few weeks back and thought it looked like fun to shoot. I reckon some really high speed shutters could yield some cool photos of mud flying off wheels.

[jjeling]

This was about the best 'mud' shot I had. Thanks for the help. Ill dig through the originals and see what the shutter speed and was on these. I was kind of pressed that day, as you can tell the conditions were pathetic but it made for an interesting race. Its something else I wanted to practice, figured I would ask the 'Bike Man' Thanks for the input.

[Mad Aussie]

I reckon mud and motos should give you great opportunity to get those fast shutter shots.

Here's one of mine ... not mud but the effect is the same ...
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3430/3215265463_cce4e917d0_o.jpg

And the other side of the coin ... the slow shutter pan ...
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3106/3215278779_5eb012d9f8_o.jpg
Takes a bit of practice and you'll likely delete several before you get a good one.

[jjeling]

That first shot is pretty sweet. The light was gloomy a fast shutter speed was not really the way to go for me. It was the first time I went out to shoot bikes. Your second shot is nice. Looks like a flash was used, but then again there might be a light pole behind you? Looks kind of dark out. That was the general effect I was talking about. Do you know or can you find out the exif data on that?

[Mad Aussie]

I'll try to remember what race it was and find the exif data. I remember it was early morning and nowhere near lighting, pretty sure I used a flash, in fact almost certain.

[kstrong]

For my panning pictures I do use a flash (it freezes what it hits, so it freezes the rider, and blurs the rest due to the slow shutter speed.) I've tried the moto panning shots and I find they are a lot harder to due....I find that usually if your doing motos, your out in the direct sunlight and you have to use a bit of a faster shutter speed then you do mountain biking. Because most of the time you have the trees blocking the sunlight so you do have to use a bit of a longer shutter. And not to mention the speed difference between the two.

Heres my personal favorite panning picture that I have taken to date.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2046/2717540018_9c81959ed5.jpg?v=0

One more thing to add that I just noticed looking though some pictures. To get a really defined crisp/ blurred image I find it a lot easier if you are close to the subject, the image above I was really close to the biker, and in the bottom picture I was further away, and being farther away the flash will not hit the subject and freeze it better. Hope that helps some, by the looks of it you'll have it down in no time.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3111/2813761931_530ebff293.jpg?v=0

[Mad Aussie]

Found it ... it's stil lattached to that photo ... http://www.flickr.com/photos/astrovisual/3215278779/meta/

It was with my Canon 400D (Rebel XTi) on manual

1/25th
f8
18mm focal length (so it was my EFS 18-55mm f3.5 which is a cheap lens)
ISO 400
Flash used

[Mad Aussie]

One more thing to add that I just noticed looking though some pictures. To get a really defined crisp/ blurred image I find it a lot easier if you are close to the subject, the image above I was really close to the biker, and in the bottom picture I was further away, and being farther away the flash will not hit the subject and freeze it better.
I absolutely agree.

It's a good point about the motos and sun too. A Neutral Density filter might be an advantage there.

[jjeling]

Thanks a lot guys. At the moto race I was using a 70-300mm, and of the biker. They were really just practice shots. Now that I have an actual assignment, its nice to get some advice. The only problem is I know I will be in direct sunlight in a parking lot. Im not too sure how much I will be able to slow the shutter speed down, but never thought about adding filters. Ive always done that to slow the shutter speed down for running water, but never thought of that for cars or bikes, go figure.

[Mad Aussie]

Yeh same principle of course ... Create some artificial darkness. Low ISO, high aperture and add filter if you need.