With photo editing programs you can add motion blur and get the panning effect but I wanted to accomplish this technique without editing help. After 2 days of shooting (hundreds of shots) I got a few good ones. Since I live out in the middle of nowhere I didn't have passing traffic to practice on and my kids were not willing to run back and forth infront of me, so I went with falling leaves as my subject. My goal was to capture the feeling of the leaf falling. I didn't want the leaf frozen in mid-air but to have motion blur behind the leaf, yet keeping the leaf in focus. The first day I had the shutter speed too slow and got so much blur behind the leaf that the background blurred into one color. It looked like I took a picture of a leaf infront of a green background...not what I was going for. Today I changed the shutter speed to be a little faster. After many more shots I captured this:

I'm having fun learning and practicing this technique. I look forward to playing with slow shutter speed at night. Be warned, when learning this technique it can be frustrating because it is very difficult to keep the main subject in focus. Just have fun and experiment. Also, remember slow shutter speed the next time you are taking shots of fireworks. You can get some really cool shots! Use a tripod though or you will get unwanted blur.
Tomorrow (or the next day) I'll be posting more about triangle compostition so check back soon.
2 comments:
cool. I played with panning the other day with blake on the swing. After about 50 shots I think I got one where his face is remotely sharp. I wanted one of him running and me chasing him but that didn't work well! The one time I want him to run from me he doesn't!
Great shot! Next scrap day, let's take an hour and take some shots. Keep up the great work!
Post a Comment