capturing motion

Marisa Heymach

Here are some shots I took to practice motion blur. I'd love feedback.

Marisa
http://bindingimage.smugmug.com/

mercphoto

Marisa Heymach wrote:

Here are some shots I took to practice motion blur. I'd love feedback.

Amost nothing is sharp in these photos. In my opinion this never works well for capturing the motion of people in sports.

winger

Hehe this is where the fun of subjectivity in art comes in. I like these photos. The second two would be better if you try to keep an eye out for cleaner backgrounds next time. And trying to keep a point in focus would make them that much better. (Like the 2nd too, how much cooler would they look with the track in focus).

johng

IMO, motion shots work well when the FACE is clear. That, to me is the challenge - having enough blur in arms/legs to show the motion but keeping the face sharp.

#2 is probably the closest to achieving that.

Also watch your post processing - in #3 it appears you cloned sky right over the runner's face. And in general I think a bit too much over-processing to the backgrounds.

Get the faces sharper and reduce the artificial processing a bit and I think you'll get some much better results.

Stigg

johng wrote:

Also watch your post processing - in #3 it appears you cloned sky right over the runner's face. And in general I think a bit too much over-processing to the backgrounds.

If you are referencing the gal closest to the photographer, I believe the cloning stamp is actually beads from her hair. Very interesting how it appears to be a similar color!

frozenrope

Marisa Heymach wrote:

Here are some shots I took to practice motion blur. I'd love feedback.

Marisa
http://bindingimage.smugmug.com/

Motion blur works for people, but as the other poster said, the face in focus is key. I suggest starting out with a little faster SS while you work on getting the panning technique down. This will give you a little more tolerance to work with. Once you feel comfortable with your skills, push it a little more and reduce your SS. It takes a while to get the hang of it but you can get some pretty cool shots panning sports. Practice practice practice

Marisa Heymach

Thanks for the comments. I used a shutter speed of 1/30 and started shooting before the shot rang out. Other than doing a levels/contrast adjustment, I didn't do any post-processing. I'll try using a faster shutter speed the next time and pick one athlete to focus on.

Cheers,
Marisa

Icebear

Your composition in #3 is nice, but I agree totally. Pick a lane and focus on it.

BlueHoseJacket

Here's a couple of motion shots I took purely by accident, due to poor camera settings. I kind of liked the outcom...#22 was the ball carrier.