Sports Photography by George Ross

Panning at 1/125th second

After my post on hand-held panning, I received many questions about:

• the best shutter speed
• the amount of blur

The best shutter speed will be the slowest shutter speed that you are comfortable with and as you improve your skills you will be able to shoot at very slow shutter speeds. Panning is all about capturing speed in your images, the greater the blur, the greater the speed. There is a trade-off…..your capture rate!  because, the slower you shoot the higher your failure rate.

I recommend that beginners start off panning at motor sports events because motor vehicles move very fast and their position on the track is pretty predictable. Once you master motor sports then and only then would I recommend that you shoot athletes. However, there is nothing to stop you starting with athletes but be prepared for a high failure rate but with digital photography that does not carry the same heartache as it did for ‘us’  film photographers.

Panning at 1/60th second

To help you decide what type of blur you would like to achieve, I have attached examples  1/125th second, 1/60th second and and an ‘amazing’ 1/30th second. What’s amazing about this shot? Try setting your camera to 1/30th with a large lens and taking a sharp static image!

A couple of points  to note:

* point of focus – becomes smaller the slower your shutter speed. This is because when shooting athletes only the torso will be in synch. with the camera because the arms, legs and background are all moving at different speeds and in different directions; and this can be seen clearly by looking at all three shots. This is another reason why motorsports is easier to pan…the vehicle moves at one speed and in one direction.

* amount of blur – as I stated earlier the slower the shutter speed the greater the blur but the relationship between the camera, the object and the backgound all come into play. take a few test shots and don’t be affraid to move around to get the best effect. I prefer shooting athletes directly in front of  spectators because people wear cloths and hats of diffent color and that makes a spectacular blurred effect.

Panning at 1/30th second

It is a whole lot of fun and quite simply, INMHO, ‘the’ best style of sports photography.  The best advice I can offer is to go to an event, try, try and try again.This is not a technique that you can read in a book and then run out and shoot great images, shot-after-shot.  Play with your settings and find out what works for your body, your physical body because your body is the tripod for this kind of shot.