Learning Panning Photography

Panning is a photography technique in which the objective is to capture a photo of a moving object while capturing the speed as well i.e. the resulting photo will also show the fact that the object was a moving object.

In the last post, Learning the Shutter Value, I have noted that how you can control the speed of a moving object using different shutter values. We touched base with how a fast shutter can freeze a moving object as well. Panning, although is related but, altogether a different concept as mentioned above. In panning you work on 2 objectives; 1st is to capture a sharper image of the moving object and 2nd is to also capture the speed of the moving object.

Panning is done by moving the camera along with the moving object to shoot. This can produce amazing results depending on how skillful you are at this technique. Using panning technique, the main object comes out sharp while the background gets blurry effect evidencing the movement of the object. This requires a lot of practice and patience along with good handling of the camera such as it should not shake vertically while you are panning horizontally along with the moving object. You should 'pan' the camera at least at the same speed as the moving object i.e. along with the movement.

I am new and learning this technique myself. Last week I have tried it for the first time and here are a couple of photos that I can share here (i.e. that came out better than others :P)

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I took this shot near Bondi beach while standing at the road side where our car was parked. I quite like this one as this was a curvy road (wasn't straight which is recommended for a better panning shot).

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This shot was taken from the back seat of a moving car and the bike was crossing the car on the left side. This may not be called as "Panning" (i'm not sure) but still this does blur the background slightly while the image is comparatively sharper.
Nevertheless I still like it :)

As I said I am a photography enthusiast, student myself and this is my first ever attempt at this technique, therefore I don't claim whatever I wrote above is 100% true but I know some of it is valid. I am recording this for my own learning and will be adding more as I learn more.

Here is a blog-post "Mastering Panning - Photographing Moving Subjects" where from I have learnt some about this technique. I hope you can also learn some and please do share / leave a comment on the post if you have benefit from it.


Happy Panning !!!

Happy Learning !!!

Learning the Shutter Value

Shutter Speed is one of the most important setting on a digital camera - in this case I am talking about a DSLR. It is one of the famous trio settings i.e. Aperture, ISO and Shutter.

It is the property of the camera (body) that controls the time duration for which the light enters through the lens onto the sensor. It is represented in seconds or fraction of seconds i.e. 1sec, 1/2sec, 1/4, 1/8 and so on.  Keeping other settings (i.e. Aperture and ISO) unchanged, different shutter speeds can produce different different output images when the object is non-stationary. 

Most of the digital cameras and dslrs have a Shutter Priority (or Tv) mode on it which is used when you want to control the speed of the shutter while your camera controls all other settings based on what shutter speed you choose. A good example of using Shutter Priority mode is when you are shooting kids who are constantly moving/playing and generally do not stay in the same pose for long enough to be captured. Even if they do then most of the pics come out blurry because they like to move just on the last moment when you press the shutter on the camera :-). 

A fast shutter speed freezes the moving object and hence produces a sharper image (based on the shutter speed). Last weekend I tested the same in an attempt to understand and experience how it comes out. Below are three different images that were captured at different Shutter speeds with different output. This may not be good quality photos as I was actually helping a friend to understand the affect of shutter speed therefore just took these rather randomly without much attention to overall composition of the image.




Image 1:

Running water from the Tap:

I deliberately opened the tap only a bit to get an appropriate flow of water as shown here in this image.


Camera has following settings:

Manual Exposure:
Tv (Shutter Speed): 1/50
Av (Aperture Value): f/16
ISO: 400











Image 2:

Water dripping from the Tap

In this photo, notice the affect of a faster shutter speed on the output. The running water looks like dripping only i.e. the movement of the water was slowed by the faster shutter speed.

Camera has following settings:

Manual Exposure:
Tv (Shutter Speed): 1/320
Av (Aperture Value): f/16
ISO: 2500











Image 3:

Water leaking from the Tap

Notice the affect of an even faster shutter. It now looks as water drops are being leaked from the lose tap. The fast shutter speed has frozen the movement (of running water) and made it look like a drop of water. Note closely there are at least 3 water drops in this photo.

Camera has following settings:

Manual Exposure:
Tv (Shutter Speed): 1/640
Av (Aperture Value): f/16
ISO: 3200


The ISO settings were different on all these photos as well (just ignore that bit as that is not our topic today). There is lot more for me to learn and try out still and I have different ideas that I want to try with different settings.

I will post more about shutter speed effect in later posts only after when I’ve had tried the different settings/variations of Tv values.

Happy Learning !!!