# Dirt track, practicing panning :|



## Aakajx (Feb 10, 2014)

Hi, in the weekend I tried practicing my panning at the dirt track. Mind you I've never done panning. Just wondering if I'm on the right track. And tips or hints will be great.

i do have other photos but these are the only two on my iPad my partner uploaded for fb :/


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## EIngerson (Feb 10, 2014)

Not bad at all. I like the second one, but I would crop it a little different. No big deal though. You mind posting your exif info? My exif reader isn't picking any up on these.


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## fokker (Feb 10, 2014)

Good start, but you need to drop that shutter speed down a bit, the background is still mostly recognizable, and hence detracts from the riders. I do really like the second pic though, just the way the dirt is tracking over the back tire looks great.


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## EOV (Feb 10, 2014)

Aakajx said:


> Hi, in the weekend I tried practicing my panning at the dirt track. Mind you I've never done panning. Just *wondering if I'm on the right track*. And tips or hints will be great.



Was that pun intended?

Congrats on working on something new and putting it out there for critique. They look pretty good to me but I have no experience with panning.


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## Nibbio (Feb 10, 2014)

I like both of them, especially the second. Much more color density.


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## midgeman (Feb 10, 2014)

fokker said:


> Good start, but you need to drop that shutter speed down a bit, the background is still mostly recognizable, and hence detracts from the riders...



I think the SS in the second is just fine, the composition is just a little off. The first might need to slightly slower SS, but overall good job. You did well for panning as a technique. Now you just need to work on composition.


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## lambertpix (Feb 10, 2014)

midgeman said:


> Now you just need to work on composition.



Right on.  My favorites include eye contact if possible.


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## xj0hnx (Feb 10, 2014)

Second one is the better of the two, if you could have framed the rider either dead nuts in the middle, or more to the right, it would be perfect. Are you using a monopod? Or handheld? If you're on a monopod I'd definitely experiment dropping the shutter speed to see if you can get that background to really move. But if you're hand holding, well you still did a great job but I think going slower on the shutter would be hard to keep such a clean picture of the riders.


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## ronlane (Feb 10, 2014)

I have no experience trying panning. But there is one thing that I noticed. In the second picture there is a wild distortion of the rear tire. I've seen slow motion camera work of similar stuff with drag racing tires.


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## midgeman (Feb 10, 2014)

ronlane said:


> I have no experience trying panning. But there is one thing that I noticed. In the second picture there is a wild distortion of the rear tire. I've seen slow motion camera work of similar stuff with drag racing tires.



I'm not so sure it's a distortion but more of an illusion. It looks as though the dirt is being pulled up the tire tread, and combined with the shadow it makes it look odd. In drag racing the rear tires are physically distorting as a result of low tire pressures.


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## ratssass (Feb 10, 2014)

...i'm with ron on this one...look at the bead breaking away from the rim.


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## Rags (Feb 10, 2014)

Very nice...

Shooting dirt racing with slow shutters is really tricky.

There's a lot of suspension vertical motion that can muddy the front end. 

I think you're choice of SS fit the occasion and I like dirt rooster trails - it compliments the motion

Good work

Rags


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## EIngerson (Feb 10, 2014)

That is actually the tire after hitting a bump. Motocross tires are inflated to very low pressures. 10 -15 lbs is around average. You can get some photos of people accelerating up the face of a jump and the tire looks absolutely flat.


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## Gavjenks (Feb 10, 2014)

The pan was successful technically speaking insofar as the subject is pretty frozen, but I don't think it's a strong enough pan to begin with. If/when you are close to mastering this amount, drop to lower shutter speeds, always, until you push your personal physical ability limits as far as they can go. There is no good enough, really, until the entire background is completely blurred beyond all recognition (which is really damn hard and won't happen for awhile). It's just better and better along a continnum.

Also, unrelated point: it usually looks better if you put more empty space in front of the direction of travel of a moving subject, rather than center composition. "Give them somewhere to go"


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## Aakajx (Feb 10, 2014)

Thanks all  . I did get a few shots with eye contact. Mostly the younger riders. They seem to love the camera lol.  Ill send the info later. I'm just holding it with my hands.. Elngerson is right the rider had 14lbs in the tire. I have a lot of pictures where the tyres look warped.


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## PhotoCalifornia (Mar 25, 2014)

What I found help is follow the subject with a lower shutterspeed and get the shoots when hes in the middle of the frame, one you master that you can mess with zooming and rule of thirds


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## slow231 (Mar 26, 2014)

Rags said:


> Very nice...
> 
> Shooting dirt racing with slow shutters is really tricky.
> 
> ...


this.  with dirt bikes there is whole a lot of additional movement not necessarily along the direction of pan (vertical, out of plane, rotations, etc.).  it has nothing to do with personal limits or technique, you can only remove one direction of in-plane motion when panning.  dropping the shutter speed any further will lead to a whole lot of blur in the majority of shots (I'd venture to guess that you ended up with a whole lot of junked shots with the shutter speed as is!).

IF you really just want that warp speed panning shot, then maybe it's worth slowing the shutter and chasing those one or two instances where you'll happen to catch the bike and rider not moving so much in the other directions.  But those shots are perhaps not all that cool in terms of capturing dirt riding.  You'll actually see a lot of dirtbike shots at high shutter speed.  since the motions with dirt riding are much more complex (it's not just a vehicle blasting down a flat straight), faster shutter speed shots actually give more context to the movement of the bike and rider.


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