50 Frames Week 2 Blur The Action

So a new week a new challenge

Normally I want nice sharp photos. now am being asked to take a blurry photo.

sometimes blur is nice to show speed, it shows direction of travel. we get blur doing long shutter speeds or if the shutter speed is too slow compared to the item we are photographing. I once went to a rally event in the woods and the cars were coming round very fast. That day my shutter speed was above 1/500th of a second which was rare for me back then.

so what can I shoot and have some blur? cars no motorsport around here or at least in the time I had to take the pic. People running? no sports in the time I had to take the pic (remember I have to take the pic that week. No using a pic from last week last year or anything) every week 52 frames also offered an extra challenge. Some weeks its hard to incorporate sometimes its easy. Some times they are gear dependent. Use studio lighting or use F1.4, sometimes I can do these sometimes I cant.

This weeks challenge was Panning. I've never tried panning. A friend of mine graham talks about panning a lot. Graham does panning a lot as he does a lot of motorsport.

panning is side to side movement during an exposure. this keep the subject in focus and blurs the background.

Ive seen some amazing photos with panning but never tried it myself.

I decided to try panning. I stood on a roundabout and decided to try and give it a go.

I started at 1/100th of a second and decided to knock it down a notch if I didn't get the effect I wanted. After a first shots I realized I have to give credit to the people who do panning regularly. This skill is really hard. I found that I had to guess where the car was coming from and where its going to be. If the car suddenly broke or changed lane the exposure was pretty much ruined. I tried for a good time and only came away with 1 exposure that I was even remotely happy with.

1/30th F4.5 ISO 100

I found the speed of the panning was vital. Its a nice skill the have but not one I think I will use very often.

I was sort of happy with this image but not happy enough for it to be my solo entry to 52frames. I decided to go out again and shoot some more stuff.

I decided to shoot crowd of people moving. Movement would show blur in a long exposure. The issue I find with shooting people is some people are not happy about it. People ask me what im doing or why i'm doing it and I just don't want that agro sometimes.

I decided to shoot people inconspicuously. I set my camera on a table in a restaurant and then using live view so I didn't have to bring the camera to my face. I shot in aperture priority. I dialed in F22 the camera gave me 4s @ ISO 100.

the people moving blurred into one.

I was happy with the abstractness of the image.

Not my best week but not my worst.

Week 2 Down 50 to go