Panning & Scanning

Have you ever seen some action shots where the subject is perfectly frozen but the background has motion blur. Most likely the panning technique was used. What is panning? You might ask....

No Panning

From buffer

Panning!

From buffer

Both pictures were taken at 1/100 shutter speed. For the first picture I am stationary and perfectly still as the scooter passes me. The scooter looks like a blur because the camera at 1/100 of a second is unable to freeze that fast of a motion. Now look at the bottom picture, I was using the same shutter speed of 1/100, but this time as the scooter travelled down the road, I got the scooter in my viewfinder and moved my camera horizontally to match its speed. At the exact moment the scooter passed me and as I was matching its speed I took the shot.  The scooter and my camera were moving at the same speed (relatively speaking) and was able to capture the main subject matter clearly.

Try it your self. Put your camera to "Shutter Priority' and choose  a shutter speed between 1/60 - 1/200 and start practicing "panning" with moving objects and time the shots