Random Photos : Part 4

[RobbieKB]

E65Ross said:

Just out of question.....for getting pictures of moving cars....

If I want a crisp image of the car it's a high shutter speed, and if you want the car to be blurry you want a longer shutter time; but if you use a quick shutter speed to get a crisp pic of the car, will the background be clear too? How do you get a clear background as well; and on another picture get a blurry background? My camera has a tracking focus function which could prove quite handy....is it a case of moving the camera to follow the car to get a blurry background, or just letting the tracking-focus function do its job?

Many thanks and sorry to interrupt the thread

I think what you're asking about is panning. If you use a high shutter speed you'll get something like this:



If you use a low shutter speed and track the car with your lens correctly you'll get this:



Panning can take a little while to get used to before you're nailing even 50% of the shots.

If you want the car sharp and the background out of focus with a fast shutter speed, you'll need a low DoF achieved with a wide aperture (i.e f/4.0).

Did that help at all?

[E65Ross]

RobbieKB said:

Did that help at all?

Very much so and I appreciate you taking the time to reply (and so quickly, too!

I've got a motorway bridge a 5-10min walk from where I live which has a long stretch of straight road....tempted to go there tonight for a short while and see what I can come up with. Might be tricky without a tripod (yet!!) though but we'll see.

Many thanks

[RobbieKB]

E65Ross said:

RobbieKB said:

Did that help at all?

Very much so and I appreciate you taking the time to reply (and so quickly, too!

I've got a motorway bridge a 5-10min walk from where I live which has a long stretch of straight road....tempted to go there tonight for a short while and see what I can come up with. Might be tricky without a tripod (yet!!) though but we'll see.

Many thanks

I don't use a tripod for panning shots. Some people use a monopod but it's very much achievable freehand. I'm going to guess you're using a crop body, in which case I used to use the following settings: f/8.0, ISO100, 1/30-1/50. If you are using a full frame then I tend to go for f/9-11, ISO100, 1/40-1/60. Another tip is that the longer your focal length, the more the background will blur. It's intuitive but when you're trying to remember how to juggle the settings to get the shot you want you can overlook it! Or at least I used to.

[E65Ross]

RobbieKB said:

E65Ross said:

RobbieKB said:

Did that help at all?

Very much so and I appreciate you taking the time to reply (and so quickly, too!

I've got a motorway bridge a 5-10min walk from where I live which has a long stretch of straight road....tempted to go there tonight for a short while and see what I can come up with. Might be tricky without a tripod (yet!!) though but we'll see.

Many thanks

I don't use a tripod for panning shots. Some people use a monopod but it's very much achievable freehand. I'm going to guess you're using a crop body, in which case I used to use the following settings: f/8.0, ISO100, 1/30-1/50. If you are using a full frame then I tend to go for f/9-11, ISO100, 1/40-1/60. Another tip is that the longer your focal length, the more the background will blur. It's intuitive but when you're trying to remember how to juggle the settings to get the shot you want you can overlook it! Or at least I used to.

Nice one. I'll have a play around in a bit.

[DibblyDobbler]

chriis said:

DibblyDobbler said:

Rather nice at the my bridge tonight



... by Dibbly Dobbler, on Flickr

Evil sky is excellent

RobbieKB said:

Cracking mate.

Thanks Gents

Weird - doing really well on 500px (1600 views, high 90s pulse) but hardly a thing on Flickr (140 views). What's going on with Flickr these days as something has definitely changed ?

[baz7175]

On the contrary, 2 days ago I uploaded another shot of Saki containers I shot in Tokyo and it scored just shy of 30k views in it's first day online


Tokyo - 64 [Explored] by www.bazpics.com, on Flickr

[DibblyDobbler]

baz7175 said:

I uploaded another shot of Saki containers I shot in Tokyo and it scored just shy of 30k views in it's first day

That's not cheering me up Baz!

[nre]

DibblyDobbler said:

baz7175 said:

I uploaded another shot of Saki containers I shot in Tokyo and it scored just shy of 30k views in it's first day

That's not cheering me up Baz!

Blimey, I'm happy if I get a couple of hundred views on all my stuff on flickr in a day.

[baz7175]

nre said:

DibblyDobbler said:

baz7175 said:

I uploaded another shot of Saki containers I shot in Tokyo and it scored just shy of 30k views in it's first day

That's not cheering me up Baz!

Blimey, I'm happy if I get a couple of hundred views on all my stuff on flickr in a day.

Here's a screenshot from 5pm yesterday while the views were still mounting at high speed...

5.6 million views screenshot by www.bazpics.com, on Flickr

The total views for yesterday ended up at 55,700, mental!

[OGR4M]

MrRee145 said:

My first attempt at a photo of the Moon last night, C&C always welcome.

Realms better than my effort! Still a little soft around the edges though, if I were to be picky.

What kit are you using? and what settings was the pic taken with, if you can remember.

[GravelBen]

It is a bit odd on flickr - maybe its just down to personal taste etc but the number of times you see a great photo with only a handful of views, and then a bland, uninteresting phone snap with many thousands of views and hundreds of 'favs'...

Obviously there are good photos getting attention too, it just doesn't always seem to be very closely related.

Edited by GravelBen on Wednesday 10th September 21:40

[Gad-Westy]

E65Ross said:

RobbieKB said:

E65Ross said:

RobbieKB said:

Did that help at all?

Very much so and I appreciate you taking the time to reply (and so quickly, too!

I've got a motorway bridge a 5-10min walk from where I live which has a long stretch of straight road....tempted to go there tonight for a short while and see what I can come up with. Might be tricky without a tripod (yet!!) though but we'll see.

Many thanks

I don't use a tripod for panning shots. Some people use a monopod but it's very much achievable freehand. I'm going to guess you're using a crop body, in which case I used to use the following settings: f/8.0, ISO100, 1/30-1/50. If you are using a full frame then I tend to go for f/9-11, ISO100, 1/40-1/60. Another tip is that the longer your focal length, the more the background will blur. It's intuitive but when you're trying to remember how to juggle the settings to get the shot you want you can overlook it! Or at least I used to.

Nice one. I'll have a play around in a bit.

Some good advice from Robbie there. Panning is always a little hit and miss as good results depend on a few variables, not least of ll distance to the subject and the speed the subject is moving at. I've shot rally cars right down to 1/30 but on faster sections of LeMans, had nothing usable under 1/100. You'll waste a few shots finding the sweet spot but you'll find it.

Technique is important too. I followed some advice (on here I think) when I started out which works well for me. Stand in a position where you're facing where you want the car to be when you fire the shutter. Legs about shoulder width apart to allow you to twist around your waist. As your subject approaches twist your body and track it smoothly through the view finder and then shoot when your body is straightened up but keep sweeping the camera with the car. It's a bit like a golf swing. Smooths things out a little.

[RobDickinson]

Flickr is pretty dead for me.
Shots that go straight to 500px front page just don't get noticed.

I get about 1500 vews an image almost regardless of how good it is.

[GravelBen]

Gad-Westy said:

Some good advice from Robbie there. Panning is always a little hit and miss as good results depend on a few variables, not least of ll distance to the subject and the speed the subject is moving at. I've shot rally cars right down to 1/30 but on faster sections of LeMans, had nothing usable under 1/100. You'll waste a few shots finding the sweet spot but you'll find it.

Lens focal length is a factor too, there was a recent thread here with a few different examples given.

Probably 90% of my panning shots are between 1/100 and 1/200 depending on speed and proximity of car, lens used etc, with only a few closer/slower cars having a slower shutter than that - rally car from the inside of a tight corner sort of thing.

Agreed about technique and practice (lots of practice!) making a big difference.

My suggestion is use shutter priority, set it to say 1/160 to start with and just get out and have a go. Adjust up or down from there to get the results closer to what you're aiming for. Its easiest when you're about 90° to the cars direction of travel, if its moving towards or away from you as well its a bit trickier.

[2slo]

baz7175 said:

nre said:

DibblyDobbler said:

baz7175 said:

I uploaded another shot of Saki containers I shot in Tokyo and it scored just shy of 30k views in it's first day

That's not cheering me up Baz!

Blimey, I'm happy if I get a couple of hundred views on all my stuff on flickr in a day.

Here's a screenshot from 5pm yesterday while the views were still mounting at high speed...

5.6 million views screenshot by www.bazpics.com, on Flickr

The total views for yesterday ended up at 55,700, mental!

If you're interested in the Flickr stats, have you seen this site:

http://www.flickrooster.com/

You can put your details into the search engine and it will show you your ranking so far this month plus for previous months in terms of explore etc. Not that it means anything, it might just be interesting to see how you're doing. It shows the top 100 users by explore points (whatever that means). I couldn't see anyone I recognised off here in that when I had a quick look.

[DibblyDobbler]

2slo said:

If you're interested in the Flickr stats, have you seen this site:

http://www.flickrooster.com/

You can put your details into the search engine and it will show you your ranking so far this month plus for previous months in terms of explore etc. Not that it means anything, it might just be interesting to see how you're doing. It shows the top 100 users by explore points (whatever that means). I couldn't see anyone I recognised off here in that when I had a quick look.

Virtually everything you post gets Explored these days Mark!
Not that I'm jealous of course.
Oh no not me
Not at all
No siree
...

[2slo]

DibblyDobbler said:

Virtually everything you post gets Explored these days Mark!
Not that I'm jealous of course.
Oh no not me
Not at all
No siree
...

It's just a bit of fun Mike! I've said on here before how daft I think it is, you can put money on there being at least one shot of a bus on there every day! They do quite often feature some of my snaps, usually not what I'd like to see chosen but that's computer algorithms for you, no taste!
Joking aside, I prefer the 500px system, dunno if you've seen that? Their version of explore is divided into different categories of photos, e.g. people, landscapes, animals etc. If you post something into the public domain other users can like it/ fav it/ comment on it and so it moves up the rankings for the section you've put it in. I sometimes do fairly well in the animals section but nowhere near as well as I've noticed a certain Mr Dickinson does in landscapes

Edited by 2slo on Wednesday 10th September 23:06

[baz7175]

It's been a post-wedding explorathon for me in the last week, in the past 7 days I've had 6 photos picked up for Explore, I just laugh at it most of the time as somehow the photos from my trip to Tokyo are helping to kick it all off...

[RobDickinson]

The milford pic has had more shares on facebook than it has had views on flickr! 1855 views, 132 favs. really? I only bother so I can easily get bbcode links.

[Mr SFJ]

Panorama of the view from the lock tower. Taken with a Nexus 5.