Hi, when i take panning shots at around 1/50 at f4 from some cars in some shot the front of the car is very sharp while the rear is just motion blurred a whole lot. at the moment i can’t make 1/40th work, i do get some good shots but this issue has persisted for the past little while. for reference i shot around 2k panning shots in that past 2 months and around 100-150 keepers.
are there any suggestions for taking better panning shots of cars like settings?
are there any tips on how to make lower shutter speeds work? specifically when you see a ridiculously smeared background(like 1/10 second shutter) on a photo is it tool assisted?
and to make sure what is a normal keeper rate for you guys so i know how much i need to improve my technique.
any help would be appreciated thanks.
If your equipment will let you in whatever light you are shooting, try a smaller aperture. F8 -f11.
Moving further away and using a longer lens might improve results, although I don’t know what focal length your using now. With a panning shot if the car is fairly close to you, the camera is rotating a bit so your getting perspective twist as well as panning.
A bit of motion blur at the rear is probably helping the effect too.
If you’re post processing you can also add a bit more motion blur. Photoshop has excellent motion blurring that allows you to set the path and exact blur. I’ve used it on shots to help the motion blur effect.
I tried it out in this image, I even separated out the image so I could have less motion blur on some parts of the image. I think it came out all right on these parked cars.
i do add blur in post as just at needs a little extra, its because i can’t go lower than 1/50 which makes just a little bit of blur at best.
Unless the subject is a perfectly flat plane and moving perpendicular to you, you’re not going to get it all perfect. You have to focus on one point on the subject not the subject as a whole. For a car I say pick either the center of a one specific hub cap, or a side view mirror (at least to start with) and practice getting that sharp. If you go for something towards the center, it might make the front and back out just a little as opposed to picking the very front and making the back be more visibly blurred.
Be sure to follow through. Start panning before pressing the shutter and keep panning after the shot
Try to get the car when it’s most perpendicular to you and not coming at you at an odd angle (again at least to start) as it will make it easier.
But again, don’t try to pan to match the whole car, that’s a recipe for disaster. Focus on one point on the car. And follow through. And practice a lot.
If you don’t move, and especially if you’re close, you will only be abled to get a small part sharp because the perspective of the car changes. If you want the whole car in focus, you gotta stay in the same position relative of the car aka you need to shoot from any other vessle, moving the same direction and speed as your subject. If that’s not possible take a tele and get a good bit of distance between you and your subject. That might help
i position myself to shoot at around 70-100 mm focal length as i have 24-105. the further i get from the subject more shots are in focus but still sometimes front and back aren’t all in focus together just one them is.
The way that the camera rotates with the car as you pan will mean that the front and rear of the car dont have the same movement as you take the shot. The closer you are the more noticable this will be.
If you take the shot as its at 90 degrees to you it will have minimal effect and you can get the sharpest pan but thats not always the best composition!
Keep practicing! I dont add anything in terms of motion blur in post, this one is 1/6th
https://www.robertborowikmedia.com/portfolio/G000079ZKvWEyTgU/I0000G1fxnynYAHYSee how the car is similar level of sharpness front to rear as the car is roughly 90 degrees to the camera.
If the shot was more of a three quarter angle of the car you would see that part that I pan with sharp and the rest increasingly blurry due to the different relative angle and speed of the car in the shot like this one.
https://www.robertborowikmedia.com/portfolio/G000079ZKvWEyTgU/I0000ON_y235x_08
Thats at 1/100th but you can still see how at that angle its not phyically possible to capture the car sharp front to rear, if you see an angle like that with everything sharp its done in post and not in camera.
