This week’s photo assignment is about recording motion.  Photographically speaking, motion can be recorded two ways: frozen or blurred.  Sharp motion images are fairly straight forward and easy to produce when combined with a fast shutter speed and good timing.  Successful blurred motion shots, on the other hand, are much more difficult to create.  In this assignment, our goal is to use panning techniques to incorporate a sense of motion into the images.  Panning is a technique whereby a slow shutter speed is combined with fluid tracking of the subject to produce a blurred image in which the subject is still recognizable.  The result is the creation of a sense of motion in a still image.

The first key to panning involves selecting the correct shutter speed.  To successfully pan, the camera’s shutter speed must be set to a fairly slow setting.  The ideal setting will vary with each pan, depending on the subject’s speed.  Slower subjects will require slower shutter speeds to enhance the blurring effect.  With fairly quick moving subjects (running animals or moving cars) I usually recommend shutter speeds in the 1/10 – 1/15 of a second.  This is a good starting point from which you can experiment to find the best results.

The second key to creating good pan motion shots involves tracking the subject.  Rather then holding still, panning requires that the photographer follows the subject while taking the shot.  Usually a smooth twisting of the hips while shooting is all it takes to keep the subject within the frame.  A frequent mistake photographers make is to stop tracking the subject as they press the shutter button.  This ruins the smooth blurring effect we are after.  For a pan to work, it is essential that the movements be smooth and continue until after all of the images have been taken.  One great way to combat this tendency is to fire multiple frames of the subject as you pan.  Don’t settle for a single image when you can create multiple images to choose from (you never know which frame will be the best).

Good pan motion images are not easy to produce, but when successful they help to depict movement in a unique way to brings a sense of motion and energy to the image.

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