Alright, so I decided to finally spend some time practicing that panning photography technique I keep seeing. You know, where the subject like a car or a bike is sharp, but the background is all streaky and blurred. Looks cool, thought I’d give it a proper try myself.
First thing was finding a spot. I didn’t want anything too complicated, so I just walked down to a moderately busy road near my place. Enough traffic to have subjects, but not so chaotic I’d get overwhelmed or be in the way. Found a decent stretch of pavement where I could stand back a bit.
Grabbed my camera, just my usual DSLR, nothing too fancy. Popped on a lens that gives me a bit of zoom, but not too much – think it was my 18-105mm. Figured that would give me some flexibility without being too heavy or cumbersome to swing around.
Getting Set Up
Okay, settings. This is where I usually fiddle a lot. I remembered the key thing is a slower shutter speed. So, I switched the camera dial to Shutter Priority (Tv or S mode). Started off setting the shutter speed to around 1/60th of a second just to see what happened. Let the camera figure out the aperture and ISO for the exposure.
Next, focus. I switched it over to continuous autofocus (AF-C or AI Servo). The idea is that the camera should keep tracking the moving subject as I follow it. Also set the drive mode to continuous shooting, low speed. Figured I could take a burst of shots as the subject passed, hoping one would be good.
The Actual Practice Run
So there I was, standing by the side of the road. Picked out an approaching car. The trick, I remembered, is to start tracking it smoothly with the camera before you press the shutter button. So, I pivoted my body, following the car in the viewfinder. Tried to keep the focus point right on it.
As it got kind of parallel to me, I pressed the shutter button all the way down, keeping that smooth panning motion going even after the shot was taken. This follow-through is supposed to be important to avoid jerky movements.
- First few attempts: Honestly, pretty rubbish. Either the whole picture was a blurry mess, or the car was blurry too. My panning wasn’t smooth enough.
- Made adjustments: Okay, 1/60th wasn’t giving much background blur. Dropped it down to 1/30th. That felt really slow, made it harder to keep the car sharp.
- More practice: Kept trying. Focused on twisting my body from the hips, keeping my arms tucked in, trying to match the speed of the cars exactly. Some were going faster than others, which made it tricky.
- Focus issues: Sometimes the autofocus just didn’t latch on properly, or it focused on the background instead. Switched to a single focus point in the center to give the camera less room for error.
Getting Somewhere
After maybe 20 minutes or so, things started to click a little better. I started anticipating the speed of the cars more effectively. My panning motion got a bit smoother, less jerky. I took a look at the back of the camera and hey! A couple of shots weren’t half bad. Got one of a red van where the van itself was reasonably sharp, and the background had those nice motion streaks. Felt like a mini-victory!
It’s definitely harder than it looks! Keeping the camera steady vertically while moving it smoothly horizontally at just the right speed takes real practice. My arms started to feel it after a while too.
Ended up spending about an hour out there. Got maybe 5 or 6 shots I’d consider keepers, or at least decent practice examples. Lots of blurry failures, but that’s part of the process, right? Definitely learned that the smooth, consistent motion and matching the subject’s speed are the absolute keys. Need to practice that swing a lot more. But yeah, good session overall. Glad I finally did it.
