Have you ever tried photographing your dog? As your dog, Fluffy, runs about in the park is it almost impossible to capture a good shot of him isn’t it? How about being in a F1 race and you are dying to get a photo of the Ferrari. Tough luck. All you get is blur shots of it or road, sky, and grass - everything but the car. How is it possible then, to get a good photo of your dog running about, or your favourite F1 car?
You may try the panning technique. Panning is a term used in photography and it certainly does not mean frying something edible on the pan to eat. Panning is a skillful technique where one tries to capture a moving subject horizontally. A technique used to capture racing cars, bikes, man on a bicycle cycling, dogs dashing around. Basically, a technique that gives the shot a feeling of movement and speed with your subject being relatively sharp.
This technique requires a lot of patience and a sharp sense of accuracy in terms of timing to place and capture the moving subject and most importantly, a pair of steady hands. Most of the time, one may find himself moving his camera horizontally from left to right or vice versa repeatedly. If not, endlessly.
Sit yourself at your favourite coffee place or mamak stall. Order your favourite cup of coffee or your chilled teh-ais and let the panning begin. Take a look at moving cars, bikes or even bicycles. I am sure you’ll see a number of them in less than a minute. You may feel like a JPJ officer on a speed trap mission - stalk and snap. As you hold your camera for the past hour or so, don’t be alarmed if a curious crowd stares at you every five second. Just concentrate and snap away. You may feel that you are looking quite silly too but practice makes perfect and it will be worth it once you get the hang of the technique.
Now, let’s get down to business. Let’s take an aim on cars. As a car is about to pass by you at the speed of 40km/h, what I assume that you will normally do is, you take a good aim using your view finder and would press on the shutter release button just as the car is positioned in the view finder. Now, chances are that you will get everything you see - the road, the sky, the grass, but not the car. Well, if you are lucky you may just get a portion of the moving car. However, moving means in motion. In motion means not still. Not still means, yes – blur.
What you need to do is, firstly set your camera settings to shutter speed priority. If you want to completely freeze the car so there is no motion blur, choose a fast shutter speed e.g. at 1/2000. All objects will be at still. If you would want to photograph the car and have some motion blur to illustrate how fast the car is moving you would want to choose a slower shutter speed e.g. 1/125. Keep on reducing or increasing the shutter speed to see the visible differences.
Setting a slower shutter speed will take the shutter a longer time than your initial shot to shut. Then set a spot where you will press the shutter release button to capture the car. It could be in the middle of the road or a lamp post by the road or even a bin. Half press the shutter release button on the spot that you have set. The objective is to make sure you shoot when the car reaches that spot. As the car is approaching, trail it from afar. As it reaches the spot that you have set, land your thumb on the shutter release button to completely press it and do not let go. Anticipate where the car will go next. Mostly likely in this case, the car has come from your left and will be moving forward to your right, unless if the driver decides to cause an accident and turn left at you. With the shutter release button completely pressed down, ‘follow’ the car. Trail the car with your camera.
You may need to do this many times until you have achieved a shot which is satisfactory with you. Enjoy you cup of coffee and pan away.
