# The decline of motion blur in modern photography.



## ak_ (Aug 20, 2015)

High ISO capable cameras, aperture priority - have these contributed to a scarcity of motion blur now in street photography and similar genre pictures? Motion blur is still commonly seen in sports photography - as the photographer tracks the action. Is it a forgotten part of image-making to a generation of younger street photographers?


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## 480sparky (Aug 20, 2015)

Aperture priority isn't anything new.  My Pentax ME Super had that back in the 80's.


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## ak_ (Aug 20, 2015)

Everyones' ME Super had it back in the 1980s.


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## Derrel (Aug 20, 2015)

ak_ said:
			
		

> High ISO capable cameras, aperture priority - have these contributed to a scarcity of motion blur now in street photography and similar genre pictures? Motion blur is still commonly seen in sports photography - as the photographer tracks the action. Is it a forgotten part of image-making to a generation of younger street photographers?



MUCH of the motion blur we saw in old, classic street photography from the 1930's to the 1950's was the result of fairly slow B&W films, especially at the earlier end of that time range. Grainy, slow-speed, rather low-acutance B&W film was the norm in the small format cameras of the 30's and 40's. I think a good deal of the blurring was not artistically mandated, but really was more a result of slower film speeds, and a lack of really "fast" lenses in anything except the normal focal lengths; wide-angle and ultra-wide lenses were VERY slow until the beginning of the modern era (in the 1960's). ANd a lot of people did not have access to that high-end, fast glass from Leitz or Nikon, but had much more common-man kinda' lenses.


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## ak_ (Aug 20, 2015)

True. Yet it became highly prized to become a stock in trade device - the best press and documentary photography uses it, the majority of so-so photography never uses it. Aside from the homogeneity of first-world cityscapes that are street-photographed now, the lack of motion in the pictures.


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## snowbear (Aug 20, 2015)

My Minolta HiMatic 7s rangefiner (1975) has aperture and shutter priority.  Maybe (newer) people just don't want it.


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## Bebulamar (Aug 20, 2015)

Motion blur image is out and paper thin depth of field is in.


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## Th0r4z1n3 (Aug 21, 2015)

There's something about the pre-digital aesthetic that's grabbed my interest lately. I've been reading some old photography books to lear & practice some of the techniques. I don't think you can fully replicate the aesthetic with digital, but they're nifty little tools to have in the arsenal.

There's a "fake" motion blur technique I like where you use a slower shutter speed and zoom in or out while the shutter is open. I used to see this quite often in magazines and stuff as a kid, but had totally forgotten about it until I read about it in one of those books.


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## dennybeall (Aug 21, 2015)

Photoshop now has a set of Motion Blurs in the filter set and it works very, very well. Kinda fun if you're into post processing.


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## limr (Aug 21, 2015)

Why are fake motion blur effects needed? If you want motion blur, why not just shoot at a low ISO and shutter speed? It's not like cameras can't do this anymore.


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## dennybeall (Aug 22, 2015)

If you shoot for Motion Blur then that's all you have, but if you shoot for sharp you can apply Motion Blur in PP and see which you like best.


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## limr (Aug 22, 2015)

Whatever.


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## Overread (Aug 22, 2015)

Thing is if you edit in motion blur its going to either be global over the whole photo (where its closer to handshake) or you're going in and spending quite a lot of time adding the effect - especially if you've a complex image and really want it to look authentic. 

So it just makes practical good sense to shoot the effect when you want it - it also means that you'll get a clean effect; whilst with editing there's always the chance that you'll miss minor or small details of blurring and as a result get a fake-look.


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## unpopular (Aug 22, 2015)

limr said:


> Whatever.



If you use an image that is sharp then the client will say it need to look like it's going "fast". If you use an image that is blurry the client will complain because it isn't clear. But, of course, everything else looks great!

This isn't a concern for us art photographers and hobbyists. It is a big issue with graphic designers. Clients will always disprove of something that is "otherwise just fine", and they all watch CSI and think photoshop can unblur a speeding car taken at 1/30s.


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## limr (Aug 22, 2015)

unpopular said:


> limr said:
> 
> 
> > Whatever.
> ...



I understand that pros have to have quite a few tricks up their sleeves to satisfy clients. It's yet one more reason I have no desire to be a pro. It also seems that some of these tricks end up being more complicated than simply taking a wider variety of shots to begin with.

*shrug* As I said, I'm not a pro, I have no desire to be a pro, so what the hell do I know?  Just seems silly to take 15 steps to do something that can be done in 5. (Yes, numbers were chosen arbitrarily to make a point.)


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## unpopular (Aug 22, 2015)

It's more of a graphic design problem than a photography problem though. It affects photographers when they're selling stock to designers. A designer will look at an image and want to see it's possibilities in a wide range of options.

One issue that a graphic designer will consistently encounter is "oh, it's perfect except this one thing that can't be changed". You end up having to completely redesign everything around a new photograph! That means the entire proof process starts over. Even if you find a new photo that works with the composition, even if it works better, chances are the client will start rearranging everything for no other reason than it's "different" than from before. There's a lot of really weird psychology that goes on when people commission design services.

So if it's a matter of disabling a smart layer effect or adding a fake motion blur, it does end up saving time.


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## rexbobcat (Aug 22, 2015)

While past street photographers did use motion blur deliberately, I also have to imagine that it can sometimes be hard not to have motion blur when you're shooting ASA 50-160 film.


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## Derrel (Aug 22, 2015)

Motion blur, undesired motion blur, was a huge issue back when I shot Kodachrome 64 as my preferred color film in the early and mid-1980's. I tried Kodachrome 25 for about ten rolls of 36, and it was useless as teats on a boar. It. Totally. SUCKED. When. Shot. Outdoors. As did Kodak Panatomic-X, an ASA 32 B&W film.

Today, a modern Nikon FX 24MP d-slr shot at ISO 250 to 320 has higher image quality than Kodachrome 64, in my estimation. Finer detail, better resolution, more-accurate color, wider dynamic range, and a BIG advantage in shutter speeds, which leads to steadier shots, made at higher shutter speeds. The old days of street shooting with ASA 100 or ASA 200 B&W film with f/4 wide-angle lenses (or slower!) is what created so,so many shots that had motion blur. When the top speed you can muster on old film is 1/25 second, there will be MANY scenarios where anything moving will exhibit motion blur. I found that ASA 25 and ASA 32 films were simply unacceptable for most real-world, non-flash shooting scenarios...just too much wind blurring, hand shake, camera movement, camera vibration, and subject motion blurring in far,far too many shots to waste the 35 cents per frame that it cost...equivalent today to about $1.15 per click indexed to the price of a gallon of gasoline...even ISO 64 demanded a LOT of waiting for breezes to die down, waiting for no wind, tripod-mounting the camera to get to even f/8 early or later in the day or in the shade, and ridiculous exposure times to get to f/16 for depth of field.

Motion blur in most old photos, I am convinced, was something that had to be tolerated many times, and was not really the "ideal", but there was just no way to get past it in many shooting situations.


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## ak_ (Aug 22, 2015)

Yes slow film needed slow speeds. Rather, I'm talking about motion blur as an intentional pictorial technique in the modern era. Stopping down/using shutter priority, or using an ND to enable it. It's used quite a lot in certain kinds of niche stock - maybe too much. My interest in it really is in candid portraiture, street and documentary. Actually Derrel, it was one of the responses to a thread of yours that shows a picture of a lady walking that brought me to think of it - the shot looks static, because there is not a suggestion of motion (only that she is posed as walking). In my mind, I thought how a picture could have more to it if there was another approach. Perhaps using panning, 2nd curtain fill, slower shutter (with ND as it's bright).


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## paigew (Aug 22, 2015)

I would never add motion blur in post. I generally shoot at 1/320 but there are times that I purposefully slow my shutter to show motion blur.


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## Buckster (Aug 23, 2015)

Ahhh, the continuing saga of a seemingly never-ending series of questions asking if modern photographic equipment and techniques are making us all lose some special piece of "magic" from the "golden era" of photography, or some such thing.

My answer to all such questions is along the lines of, "I don't know because I simply don't care enough to even notice such things".  I don't care what everyone else is doing, individually or collectively, nor why.  I never have.  All I care about is that I'm doing what satisfies the goals, sensibilities and tastes of my clients and myself.  For me, that's enough.

That said, I do like that I can shoot nearly everything tack sharp these days, and then blur whatever elements in the photo any way that I want in post, if I want to, which provides me the ultimate freedom to create.  I'll take that over the many limitations we had "back in the day" that forced blur or other choices when I would rather not have had to, but had to just live with it anyway, with no way to correct it in post.


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## JacaRanda (Aug 23, 2015)

Overread said:


> Thing is if you edit in motion blur its going to either be global over the whole photo (where its closer to handshake) or you're going in and spending quite a lot of time adding the effect -



No longer global. 

Add creative blur to photos | Adobe Photoshop CC tutorials


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## Buckster (Aug 23, 2015)

JacaRanda said:


> Overread said:
> 
> 
> > Thing is if you edit in motion blur its going to either be global over the whole photo (where its closer to handshake) or you're going in and spending quite a lot of time adding the effect -
> ...


Yeah, it's not "quite a bit of time" either.


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## gsgary (Aug 27, 2015)

limr said:


> Why are fake motion blur effects needed? If you want motion blur, why not just shoot at a low ISO and shutter speed? It's not like cameras can't do this anymore.



Your wasting your time explaining, most on here don't understand why we still shoot film


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## Didereaux (Aug 27, 2015)

Why less motion blur (other than half hour long shots of water falls).  It's simple,  it takes work to produce a good shot with proper blurring, and if there is any common trait among todays camera users it is the fact that they are LAZY!   Of course the upside is that although there are zillions of pictures being taken they are of such low quality, and unimaginative that those who can produce a good one have a chance at being recognized.


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## Overread (Aug 27, 2015)

I wouldn't go as far as to say lazy; simply that they do not aspire to the same goals. 

It's the same as driving a car - most of us are rubbish at it. At least if you compare our driving skills to those of the emergency services, armed forces, racing drivers etc... Heck most of us only get our driving licence and that's it - no top-ups every few years - no higher level driving certificate etc...

We reach a point where we are as competent with the tool that we desire to be and for many of us its also less than our full potential could be. However for most its also a balancing act - learning takes time and resources to perform and sometimes whilst you might recognise your own potential to achieve better the investment to get there is too great for the standard of result we want and when pitted against the rest of our lives.


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## gsgary (Aug 28, 2015)

Overread said:


> I wouldn't go as far as to say lazy; simply that they do not aspire to the same goals.
> 
> It's the same as driving a car - most of us are rubbish at it. At least if you compare our driving skills to those of the emergency services, armed forces, racing drivers etc... Heck most of us only get our driving licence and that's it - no top-ups every few years - no higher level driving certificate etc...
> 
> We reach a point where we are as competent with the tool that we desire to be and for many of us its also less than our full potential could be. However for most its also a balancing act - learning takes time and resources to perform and sometimes whilst you might recognise your own potential to achieve better the investment to get there is too great for the standard of result we want and when pitted against the rest of our lives.


Speak for yourself, I'm an advaced motorcyclist and passed my cardington test to train other motorcyclists [emoji34]


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## unpopular (Aug 28, 2015)

JacaRanda said:


> No longer global.






Buckster said:


> Yeah, it's not "quite a bit of time" either.





As with fake bokeh, it is easy to fake a motion blur in uncomplicated cases. Where the blur direction is uniform and running perpendicular to the focus plane shouldn't be too much of an issue. In many cases where you'd want motion blur, this will be the situation.

But, say a runner or cyclist moving at an angle to or from the camera, getting motion blur that is physically accurate won't be easy.

It just depends on the level of complexity and realism that you're going to need. A bad fake blur though will always be distracting.


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## gsgary (Aug 28, 2015)

I take it your not familiar with Alexey Titerenko


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## unpopular (Aug 28, 2015)

Yep. His "City of Shadows" series is exactly a case which wouldn't faux blur easily. I'm not about to say it's impossible, but it's certainly beyond the ability of most, and would take hours and a lot of effort to blur in that kind of detail.

ALEXEY TITARENKO  |  PHOTOGRAPHY


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## gsgary (Aug 28, 2015)

unpopular said:


> Yep. His "City of Shadows" series is exactly a case which wouldn't faux blur easily. I'm not about to say it's impossible, but it's certainly beyond the ability of most, and would take hours and a lot of effort to blur in that kind of detail.
> 
> ALEXEY TITARENKO  |  PHOTOGRAPHY


Have you seen the video of him shooting where he picks up the camera and gives it a quick swirl at the end of exposure


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## unpopular (Aug 28, 2015)

No. I haven't. I'm familiar with his work, not so much him as a photographer.


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## gsgary (Aug 28, 2015)

unpopular said:


> No. I haven't. I'm familiar with his work, not so much him as a photographer.


Shoots with a film Hassleblad


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## unpopular (Aug 28, 2015)

gsgary said:


> Shoots with a [...] Hassleblad



What a moron.


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## gsgary (Aug 28, 2015)

unpopular said:


> gsgary said:
> 
> 
> > Shoots with a [...] Hassleblad
> ...


Better than digital


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## Buckster (Aug 28, 2015)

unpopular said:


> As with fake bokeh, it is easy to fake a motion blur in uncomplicated cases. Where the blur direction is uniform and running perpendicular to the focus plane shouldn't be too much of an issue. In many cases where you'd want motion blur, this will be the situation.


That's exactly true, which is why it works just fine without much fuss at all in the majority of cases.



unpopular said:


> But, say a runner or cyclist moving at an angle to or from the camera, getting motion blur that is physically accurate won't be easy.


It doesn't have to be "physically accurate" in the strictest sense of the phrase though, and we should keep that in mind; It only needs to be "acceptably believable".  As long as it doesn't call the wrong kind of attention to the viewer, it's fine.

The techniques to manipulate and control perspective, direction, opacity, curvature, etc aren't a mystery, even in the cyclist situation you describe.  Obviously, it's not as easy or straightforward as the straight pass mentioned previously, but it's not that much more complicated if one is familiar with the basic tools and techniques in PS.

Speaking of control, in some cases super-smooth very controlled blurs that are impossibly perfect (think of comic book hero The Flash's trails) might be exactly what's called for in a particular piece, rather than a real blur as-shot that doesn't provide that kind of effect, and certainly not the control one might desire to have over the rendition of the piece.  It's just another reason to have that skill in the toolbox, even if seldom needed or used, IMHO.  And again, it's just knowledge of the tools and skills used throughout the program, applied to this.



unpopular said:


> It just depends on the level of complexity and realism that you're going to need.


Which is, again, "acceptably believable".  No more, no less.



unpopular said:


> A bad fake blur though will always be distracting.


Well, yeah... a bad anything will always be distracting, fake or not.  Bad light, bad pose, bad expression, bad white balance, bad background, bad foreground, bad (_______ fill in the blank another 10,000 times).

So yeah, don't make bad fake blurs, everyone.  In fact, don't make bad "real" blurs either.

But IF you find yourself in a situation that calls out to you to make a fake blur after the fact, then definitely make "acceptably believable" fake blurs,  not "bad" ones, because, let's face it, "bad" is not "good".  

If you don't know how to make acceptably believable fake blurs yet, but would like to be able to, then take some courses.  They're not terribly expensive, and it's well worth having those skills - for whenever you'd like to use them.  It's not rocket science or brain surgery either.  With a bit of knowledge, practice and patience, anyone can learn to do nearly anything that can be done in Photoshop, short of digitally painting a masterpiece from scratch on a blank canvas, or something like that.


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## paul'dee'dowling (Sep 3, 2015)

Just for fun ... strictly amateur !!


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## Braineack (Sep 3, 2015)

Bebulamar said:


> Motion blur image is out and paper thin depth of field is in.



so missed-focus blur is in and motion-blur is out?


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## Derrel (Sep 3, 2015)

Braineack--you showed three fine photos this week--all built around motion blur. The kid with the fountain...basically built on getting just the right blurring effect on the water streams...


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## Braineack (Sep 3, 2015)

im a poet, and didnt know it.


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## PixelRabbit (Sep 3, 2015)

I personally like the fact that most modern photographers stay in the mainstream and go for sharp over blur and use post over manually controlling it with the camera/panning/technique, nothing will ever compare to it imho and it leaves a wonderful area for some to play in


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## Max_Schröder (Oct 2, 2015)

I sometimes get motion blur when shooting planes at touchdown (both from the backround, the rims and the engines), a similar thing counts for trains (locomotive sharp, carriages blurred).
A whole different kind of it is when I shoot with my dog (and photo-model) Mali, and she either can't hold still for long, or is just too friggin exited (a tail can move from left to right FAST).

I usually prefer slight motion blur over too short exposure/too high ISO.

Max


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## pgriz (Oct 2, 2015)

It's another tool in the tool-chest.  But to also be truthful, it takes a lot of practice and some serendipity to get just the right effect.  I really like Judi's work (with motion blur), and Mishele's flower shots are both dreamy and very pleasing to the eye.  In sports photography, it gives a certain excitement when properly done.  It's a tool.  A useful one to practice and have available for the appropriate image that is enhanced by its use.


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## runnah (Oct 2, 2015)

Try shooting sport on a dimly lit high school football field and then you get all the motion blur you can handle!


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## PJoneil (Oct 15, 2015)

Derrel said:


> Motion blur, undesired motion blur, was a huge issue back when I shot Kodachrome 64 as my preferred color film in the early and mid-1980's. I tried Kodachrome 25 for about ten rolls of 36, and it was useless as teats on a boar. It. Totally. SUCKED. When. Shot. Outdoors. As did Kodak Panatomic-X, an ASA 32 B&W film.
> 
> Today, a modern Nikon FX 24MP d-slr shot at ISO 250 to 320 has higher image quality than Kodachrome 64, in my estimation. Finer detail, better resolution, more-accurate color, wider dynamic range, and a BIG advantage in shutter speeds, which leads to steadier shots, made at higher shutter speeds. The old days of street shooting with ASA 100 or ASA 200 B&W film with f/4 wide-angle lenses (or slower!) is what created so,so many shots that had motion blur. When the top speed you can muster on old film is 1/25 second, there will be MANY scenarios where anything moving will exhibit motion blur. I found that ASA 25 and ASA 32 films were simply unacceptable for most real-world, non-flash shooting scenarios...just too much wind blurring, hand shake, camera movement, camera vibration, and subject motion blurring in far,far too many shots to waste the 35 cents per frame that it cost...equivalent today to about $1.15 per click indexed to the price of a gallon of gasoline...even ISO 64 demanded a LOT of waiting for breezes to die down, waiting for no wind, tripod-mounting the camera to get to even f/8 early or later in the day or in the shade, and ridiculous exposure times to get to f/16 for depth of field.
> 
> Motion blur in most old photos, I am convinced, was something that had to be tolerated many times, and was not really the "ideal", but there was just no way to get past it in many shooting situations.


I really enjoy your informative posts!


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## PJoneil (Oct 15, 2015)

Overread said:


> I wouldn't go as far as to say lazy; simply that they do not aspire to the same goals.
> 
> It's the same as driving a car - most of us are rubbish at it. At least if you compare our driving skills to those of the emergency services, armed forces, racing drivers etc... Heck most of us only get our driving licence and that's it - no top-ups every few years - no higher level driving certificate etc...
> 
> We reach a point where we are as competent with the tool that we desire to be and for many of us its also less than our full potential could be. However for most its also a balancing act - learning takes time and resources to perform and sometimes whilst you might recognise your own potential to achieve better the investment to get there is too great for the standard of result we want and when pitted against the rest of our lives.


Nice perspective!


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## chuasam (Oct 22, 2015)

Next thing, someone is going to complain that selective desaturation isn't in vogue anymore.


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## unpopular (Oct 22, 2015)

The thing about selective color is that it actually takes some amount of skill (not much, but some) yet it always comes out SO TERRIBLE.


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