Shooting moving cars

[lunchbox]

I went to Prescott Hill at the weekend and took some snaps. Always try to improve my photography, although only have a little point-and-shoot Kodak.

My main problem is I can't get the hang of panning the camera and end up with shots like this:



Where the subject is blurred and the background is not.

Any tips for improving shooting a moving target? How much should I pan, how fast, does it matter if i'm zoomed in...etc.

Rest of the photos if you're interested: http://flickr.com/photos/28106406@N05/

Thanks!

[Deluded]

you need to pan at the speed the subject moves past.. basically always keep it in the view finder. its alot harder if your doing it on screen though.

[Steve Evil]

You also want to make sure you're definitely focussing on the bike/moving object rather than the background, harder with a compact as it usually picks the focus point for you, definitely one of the big advantages to an SLR where you can choose your focus point manually.

[andyquantum]

Some advice I got a while back thats really helped...:

flat-planedCrank said:

andynoquantum said:

Thanks for the feedback. I tried a few different settings while setting up, and wasnt really happy with the results.

Couple that I've brought back from the bin as examples. I didnt like them as they were out of focus, and just not too sharp compared to others that were quicker.

(Uploaded to Imageshack at 640x480, hopefully)



Basic Image Information Camera: Nikon D80
Lens: 70-300 mm f/4.5-5.6
Shot at 270 mm
Exposure: Auto exposure, Shutter priority AE, 1/40 sec, f/40, ISO 140, Compensation: +1/3
Flash: none
Date: April 12, 2008 8:22:31.80AM (timezone is GMT + 1 hour)
(1 day, 12 hours, 24 minutes ago)

File: 2,592 × 3,872 JPEG (10.0 megapixels)
517,063 bytes (0.49 megabytes) Image compression: 98%
Color Encoding: Embedded color profile: “sRGB”

I'd have bet this would be blurry
270mm is a fair bit of zoom, makes things harder to pan
The 1/40th is probably the main reason for the lack of sharpness though, that is a really (!) ambitious shutter speed to be panning at, especially so with your 270mm zoom

andynoquantum said:

And the other





Basic Image Information Camera: Nikon D80
Lens: 70-300 mm f/4.5-5.6
Shot at 300 mm
Exposure: Auto exposure, Not Defined, 1/250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 250
Flash: none
Date: April 12, 2008 8:48:22.40AM (timezone is GMT + 1 hour)
(1 day, 12 hours, 1 minute, 20 seconds ago)

File: 2,103 × 3,108 JPEG (6.5 megapixels)
376,233 bytes (0.36 megabytes) Image compression: 98%
Color Encoding: Embedded color profile: “sRGB”

300mm is a fair bit of zoom, as above, makes it a lot more difficult to pan. Saying that, 1/250th is a reasonable shutter speed for that sort of long range pan.
At a guess, are you using 'servo' af mode with a single af point selected ?
Maybe a quick burst of shots and you would have 'caught' a clear frame

Cheers.

Edited by flat-planedCrank on Sunday 13th April 21:40