Panning at Car Rally

canon400d

Today I attended the Pendragon Stages Car Rally in Cumbria and this rally which is a very important venue with all the top drivers. Although I am only interested in my photos as a hobby. I took around 1100 shots between 9am and 3pm and I used my 40D with the 70-200 F.4.
This is the first time I have done any panning and I have received so much advice on how to pan and I remembered everything, I have been told. I had the settings on the camera as I usually have Al servo, continuous ISO 100 and 200 and in TV mode. As I have been told many times before to reduce my shutter speed I reduced it to 1/50 and every shot I took swivelling from the hips and keeping my upper torso rigid everything looked aboslutely perfect on the histogram and the LCD. I even checked zooming in and I thought I was in for a treat at the end of the day.
When I got home and put the 1100 images through the computer I was devastated every single one was blurred, although I could see there was potential for excellent shots.
Have I been using too low a shutter speed? Should I have been using a speed of 80 or 100?
I have another very important venue to attend next Saturday it is the Merrick Car Rally at Newton Stewart, South West Scotland so I just do not want to make the same mistakes again or just what the hell do I do I really am disappointed with todays results as I honestly thought I had done so well.
I must say at first when I started the panning I always had to delete the last image because it was blurred and then I obviously cured that aspect.
Any help would be most grateful as obviously panning is the answer if I am taking rally shots.
Regards
Bob
1

2

3

2whlrcr

Practice, practice, practice. It may seem simple, but it takes a knack to match the speed in the view finder exactly. I still have more blown shots, when panning. But the keepers are worth it. If you have an L lens, there are two different modes of panning you can set. Can't remember the term without looking it up, but only use the horizontal panning mode.

From the looks of your background, I would say you weren't using an excessively low shutter speed for the conditions. I think you just need more practice. Maybe go out to a vacant parking lot and have a buddy drive around while shooting him?

nipprdog

canon400d wrote:

I reduced it to 1/50

1/50 might work for Curling, but it won't work for a rookie panner at motorsports. No offense.

I pan MX at 1/200-1/500





Moto GP and NASCAR at 1/500 to 1/800





As mentioned, PRACTICE. Raise your shutter speed. All you need is wheel blur. Not "Whole frame blur". Also, while I'm a big fan of monpods, they can hamper panning results.

canon400d

2whlrcr wrote:

Practice, practice, practice. It may seem simple, but it takes a knack to match the speed in the view finder exactly. I still have more blown shots, when panning. But the keepers are worth it. If you have an L lens, there are two different modes of panning you can set. Can't remember the term without looking it up, but only use the horizontal panning mode.

From the looks of your background, I would say you weren't using an excessively low shutter speed for the conditions. I think you just need more practice. Maybe go out to a vacant parking lot and have a buddy drive around while shooting him?

Yeah I appreciate it is all down to me but I tucked my arms in and swivelled from the hips, I did it them many times I just don't think I can improve on that nbecause I was realising what I was possibly doing wrong and deleted the blurred shots if you know what I mean. I only kept the good shots, well that I thought looking through the histogram and LCD.
Regards
Bob

canon400d

2whlrcr wrote:

Practice, practice, practice. It may seem simple, but it takes a knack to match the speed in the view finder exactly. I still have more blown shots, when panning. But the keepers are worth it. If you have an L lens, there are two different modes of panning you can set. Can't remember the term without looking it up, but only use the horizontal panning mode.

From the looks of your background, I would say you weren't using an excessively low shutter speed for the conditions. I think you just need more practice. Maybe go out to a vacant parking lot and have a buddy drive around while shooting him?

Yeah I appreciate it is all down to me but I tucked my arms in and swivelled from the hips, I did it them many times I just don't think I can improve on that because I was realising what I was doing wrong especially with the last shot. I then carried my body through as explained like a golfer. I was thinking of this all the time. I just don't know. But next Saturday is a big day for the Merrick car rally as you will see on the internet so I just don't know what to do.
Regards
Bob
Bob

canon400d

nipprdog wrote:

1/50 might work for Curling, but it won't work for a rookie panner at motorsports. No offense.

I pan MX at 1/200-1/500





Moto GP and NASCAR at 1/500 to 1/800





As mentioned, PRACTICE. Raise your shutter speed. All you need is wheel blur. Not "Whole frame blur". Also, while I'm a big fan of monpods, they can hamper panning results.

Yesss Jim your shots are brilliant and I expected something within that region. I really was devastated when I got back and put them through the computer. I will never ever go as low as 1/50 although some may think it is ok, All I want is the wheels as you say not the rest of the frame.
I appreciate your reply and your kind words.
Regards
Bob

Jathnael

1/160th of a second..


But ya practice practice practice!

Gary752

Hi Bob! I think the biggest problem you had was your selection on where you selected to click the shutter. At f4, you should have clicked off your shot as the car was passing directly in front of you. You shot the cars as they were coming at you at an angle, and this makes it a little harder to get the whole car in focus. This would have worked if you had selected a slightly higher f stop. The method you chose is great for areas where there is a lot of distracting objects in the background. As others have suggested, keep practicing, as panning is something you won't master over night.

GaryB

moose135

We were discussing this last week on another thread, here's what I posted then...I usually keep my feet planted, and twist at the waist to follow the action. Just like with hitting a baseball or golf ball, you need to follow through on your motion - start tracking the car before you hit the shutter, and continue the sweep after you stop shooting to get a smoother motion.

I fire off a burst of four or five shots as the car goes past. At Pocono earlier this month, I spent some time working on panning shots - here's a few samples - the first two were shot at 1/200 and 1/250, the third at 1/400. The cars were traveling in the 160mph range when they went past, you might want to try something on the lower end of that range for slower cars:







And more from Pocono here:
http://www.moose135photography.com/Sports/NASCAR/Pocono-August-2009/9112600_C6RXZ/1/607333932_4xTcZ

InsuredDisaster

One more thing.


Say you are facing perpendicular to a road. A car is on your right and approaching. As the car moves to where it is directly in front of you, it becomes closer to you, and thus, eppears to move faster. So your panning speed must increase as the car moves towards you, and then decrease as the car moves away. Or whatever it is that you are shooting.

Zege

I think going 1/60 is too low – at least for Beginners like me. I self also try get this panning right, but I think with 1/200 or 1/250. Of course depending where you are in track (and what you shoot) car speed is not very fast, so panning effect is not so good as you can see in photos on first page.

But I would recommend you to next time start 1/250 and keep looking camera’s tiny screen during the race what are the results. Zoom picture as big as you can and if it looks good keep that speed, but if you have any doubt take 1/320. I for sure would love to take nothing else but fantastic panning pictures, but I also like to come back home at least with some not-so-great-panning, but at somehow sharp pictures.

1/200


1/250

canon400d

Zege wrote:

I think going 1/60 is too low – at least for Beginners like me. I self also try get this panning right, but I think with 1/200 or 1/250. Of course depending where you are in track (and what you shoot) car speed is not very fast, so panning effect is not so good as you can see in photos on first page.

But I would recommend you to next time start 1/250 and keep looking camera’s tiny screen during the race what are the results. Zoom picture as big as you can and if it looks good keep that speed, but if you have any doubt take 1/320. I for sure would love to take nothing else but fantastic panning pictures, but I also like to come back home at least with some not-so-great-panning, but at somehow sharp pictures.

1/200


1/250

I would like to thank each and everyone of you for your reassuring words and the sound advice you have given me for which I truly appreciate. I have noted everything that has been said especially to the shutter speeds and the methods to use. I will practice until I get it right. Now I have got over the initial shock of yesterdays disaster I am looking forward to the Merrick car rally on Saturday to see if there is any improvement.
Regards
Bob

InsuredDisaster

Can I suggest one more thing? While it may be a bit late to do this before your next event, why wait until you go to these events to practice?

Just go out and practice shooting cars on the street, highways, etc. Some country highways will allow you to get very close to cars that are probably going 60-70mph. While it might not be quite the same as the real races and rallies, it will allow you to practice with lower speeds and give you lots of opportunities. And if you mess up, it won't matter since its just cars on the street.


This one was taken a while ago, and like the others it had a much higher shutter speed: 1/160th of a second. This was taken the first time I shot race cars. Before that, I just shot cars going down the street.

canon400d

InsuredDisaster wrote:

Can I suggest one more thing? While it may be a bit late to do this before your next event, why wait until you go to these events to practice?

Just go out and practice shooting cars on the street, highways, etc. Some country highways will allow you to get very close to cars that are probably going 60-70mph. While it might not be quite the same as the real races and rallies, it will allow you to practice with lower speeds and give you lots of opportunities. And if you mess up, it won't matter since its just cars on the street.


This one was taken a while ago, and like the others it had a much higher shutter speed: 1/160th of a second. This was taken the first time I shot race cars. Before that, I just shot cars going down the street.

Thanks Ben I never thought about that. I will be out every day this week and put that into action and I will start at 1/160 and see how it goes. I really appreciate that idea.
Regards
Bob

InsuredDisaster

canon400d wrote:

Thanks Ben I never thought about that. I will be out every day this week and put that into action and I will start at 1/160 and see how it goes. I really appreciate that idea.
Regards
Bob

I am so glad I could help. Please post the next race photos you take, as I'd love to see them, as I'm sure others would too.

nipprdog

InsuredDisaster wrote:

Can I suggest one more thing? While it may be a bit late to do this before your next event, why wait until you go to these events to practice?

Just go out and practice shooting cars on the street, highways, etc. Some country highways will allow you to get very close to cars that are probably going 60-70mph. While it might not be quite the same as the real races and rallies, it will allow you to practice with lower speeds and give you lots of opportunities. And if you mess up, it won't matter since its just cars on the street.


This one was taken a while ago, and like the others it had a much higher shutter speed: 1/160th of a second. This was taken the first time I shot race cars. Before that, I just shot cars going down the street.

That shot is soft. Not sure why you posted it. Maybe it should have been shot at a higher speed than 1/160th?

Or, it could be a result of using photobucket, instead of SM.

InsuredDisaster

nipprdog wrote:

That shot is soft. Not sure why you posted it. Maybe it should have been shot at a higher speed than 1/160th?

Or, it could be a result of using photobucket, instead of SM.

I agree, its not the best, but I only posted it to illustrate that practicing on cars in the street can help get reasonable results at the races.

apexonephoto

Thid is 1/640th. I rarely shoot cars on straightaways. No suspension movement is kinda boring. I prefer corner shots myself, it's just this track was super fast. I only really shoot ovals. But rally would be much different. Geographically it isn't possible around where I live. I have only been shooting for 3+ years. Go to my site and look at the 2005-2006 galleries.

If you are shooting 1100 shots in a day, try to different stuff. Like a static shot at 1/50th or less, with a car blurring through.

The hoizontal panning is setting 2. The speed of the car is a consideration. I also try to live by the rule of never shooting slower then my focal length. 1/250- 1/300 is a great starting point.

InsuredDisaster

apexonephoto wrote:

The hoizontal panning is setting 2. The speed of the car is a consideration. I also try to live by the rule of never shooting slower then my focal length. 1/250- 1/300 is a great starting point.

I'm going to try that and see what happens. Good tip for me.

BWP

Some good tips in this thread.
This is what works for me maybe you'll find something in here useful.

Select the shutter speed used as a function of the speed of the object and the focal length of the lens. Start around 1/(3 X Focal Length) and work down to 1/(Focal length) depending on the speed, surroundings, and effect you like.

Try keeping the f stop higher (numerically) than you normally would. The motion blur will help isolate the subject while the smaller aperature will make the focus a little more forgiving. Plus, I think it acentuates the motion. To me, an overly soft background tends to reduce the sense of speed.

Try not looking at the whole scene the whole time. Concentrate on a small well defined detail on the subject and match the speed of that detail. Compose the shot and then keep the relationship between some detail in your viewfinder and the detail on the subject constant while smoothly pressing the shutter. Shotgunners call this maintained lead shooting. The same technique works with a camera. Sounds difficult but with practice becomes instinctive.

The subject doesn't always need to be 100% blur free. Leaving a small amount of motion on subject can be interesting.

canon400d

BWP wrote:

Some good tips in this thread.
This is what works for me maybe you'll find something in here useful.

Select the shutter speed used as a function of the speed of the object and the focal length of the lens. Start around 1/(3 X Focal Length) and work down to 1/(Focal length) depending on the speed, surroundings, and effect you like.

Try keeping the f stop higher (numerically) than you normally would. The motion blur will help isolate the subject while the smaller aperature will make the focus a little more forgiving. Plus, I think it acentuates the motion. To me, an overly soft background tends to reduce the sense of speed.

Try not looking at the whole scene the whole time. Concentrate on a small well defined detail on the subject and match the speed of that detail. Compose the shot and then keep the relationship between some detail in your viewfinder and the detail on the subject constant while smoothly pressing the shutter. Shotgunners call this maintained lead shooting. The same technique works with a camera. Sounds difficult but with practice becomes instinctive.

The subject doesn't always need to be 100% blur free. Leaving a small amount of motion on subject can be interesting.

Thanks once again for the continuing sound advice which you are giving me. I really do appreciate it. However, following Ben's suggestion of getting out and photographing cars on the road I did just that and I went to a wide open junction on a busy A75 road where the traffic was travelling at 60mph. I rattled off a 4gb, raw and ended up with 371 shots. I used 40D with the same 70-200L F.4. The settings were TV mode continuous in Al Servo and used an ISO of 200 as it was quite dull. I started off with a shutter speed of 1/160 and ended up with 1/80.
The first six shots are 1/60 the 7th shot is at 1/100 and the remaining five were at 1/80. If my photos had turned out like this on Sunday I would have been quite happy although I am not being too complacent as I will continue to practice until I get it right.
Regards
Bob
1 1/160

2 1/160

3 1/160

4 1/160

5 1/160

6 1/160

7 1/100

8 1/80

9 1/80

10 1/80

11 1/80

12 1/80

moose135

Looks like you are getting the hang of it there, Bob! The Jag in the first shot is a little blurry, but the rest look pretty good! You can see that even at 1/160, you still get a pleasant blur on the wheels and the background. Certainly practice at other speeds, but I don't know that you really need to go much below that. Looking forward to seeing your rally shots!

canon400d

moose135 wrote:

Looks like you are getting the hang of it there, Bob! The Jag in the first shot is a little blurry, but the rest look pretty good! You can see that even at 1/160, you still get a pleasant blur on the wheels and the background. Certainly practice at other speeds, but I don't know that you really need to go much below that. Looking forward to seeing your rally shots!

Thanks Moose for those reassuring words. I still think they are way short of the photos you posted on here but I will continue with the practice and will stay in the very close region of 1/160.
Regards
Bob

moose135

apexonephoto wrote:

If you are shooting 1100 shots in a day, try to different stuff. Like a static shot at 1/50th or less, with a car blurring through.

I gave that a try at Pocono, was quite pleased with the results:

tom_o

canon400d wrote:

Thanks Moose for those reassuring words. I still think they are way short of the photos you posted on here but I will continue with the practice and will stay in the very close region of 1/160.
Regards
Bob

Really a big improvement from the rally shots to these. Good job and keep practicing!

InsuredDisaster

tom_o wrote:

Really a big improvement from the rally shots to these. Good job and keep practicing!

I agree

canon400d

InsuredDisaster wrote:

I agree

Thanks Tom O and Ben for the thumbs up. I went out today again and I rattled off two 4GB cards at varying shutter speeds between 1/160 1/100 1/80 and I am getting the best results from the 1/160 speed and I must admit I am approaching the situation with much more confidence thanks to you guys and for that great suggestion of yours Ben which I really do appreciate. I will be out again tomorrow to my favourite road junction. I am hoping now that the weather takes up for Saturday for the Merrick car rally.
Cheers
Bob

InsuredDisaster

canon400d wrote:

I will be out again tomorrow to my favourite road junction.
Cheers
Bob

I'm sure by now, the police are wondering who is this weirdo, and will be waiting for you.

apexonephoto

For cars on the freeway, 1/160 might be good. You really seem a little hesitant to make the jump up a few stops. If you are filling (2) 4gb cards, try 160, 200, 250 and 300. I shot heavily for 2 years, afraid to even try ISO 800 at an indoor race, and once I did it wasn't that bad.


this 1/250. And yes your panning is a lot better!

canon400d

apexonephoto wrote:

For cars on the freeway, 1/160 might be good. You really seem a little hesitant to make the jump up a few stops. If you are filling (2) 4gb cards, try 160, 200, 250 and 300. I shot heavily for 2 years, afraid to even try ISO 800 at an indoor race, and once I did it wasn't that bad.


this 1/250. And yes your panning is a lot better!

Thanks James for replying. Yes you are right I was thinking I would get less blur if I went higher than 1/160. When I went below 1/160 I found that the blur in the background became much stronger. I would have been out today again to try some higher speeds as you have advised but typical Scottish weather it is raining again.
Regards
Bob

canon400d

InsuredDisaster wrote:

I'm sure by now, the police are wondering who is this weirdo, and will be waiting for you.

I must admit Ben some of those drivers appear to be giving me a funny look!!!
Yesterday I shot a speed camera van going past. Nevertheless, as far as I am concerned your suggestion is paying off.
Regards
Bob