Panning with different shutter speeds Exercise 5

Saturday 16th April 2011
This set of photographs were taken on TV so that I could control the shutter speed. The camera was handheld whilst I panned.

1:2500 f3.5

Photo under exposed.

1:1250 f4

All sharp

1:800 F5

Very slight movement of back wheel and foot visible

1:500 F6.3

Background starting to blur

1:400 F6.3

Subject sharp, background is noticeably blurred.

1:200 F10

Sharp subject showing movement in wheels. Background becoming streaked.

1:80 F16

Background is now streaked to indicate movement.

1:40 F20

Not much of the subject is in focus. Difficult to handhold the camera at this shutter speed.

1:10 F25

Overexposed

I noted that being a bright day I lowered the ISO speed at set up. This had the effect of making the first few pictures very under-exposed. I had to raise the ISO to 400 to enable me to expose the photo properly.  I would normally take photos on a bright day with an ISO of 100 or 200. I had not noticed this before. I prefer this set of pictures with the blurred background. To me it gives the feeling of speed. 1:80 at F16 was my best shot.

 

I noticed there is a balance between a fast shutter speed and a wide aperture. Even though in the beginning the aperture was wide, the shutter speed was too fast creating a dark photo. By the time I reached F10, the shutter speed was 1:200 which was fast enough to take an even exposure

 

I enjoy taking pictures of moving people – e g motorbike racers. The settings I would tend to use are about F8, ISO200 and between 1/400-1/250 to create a feeling of speed. This blurs out the background more than shown here because the racer is moving faster and my camera moves quicker when panning. I will be developing my skills to look at riders on mountain bike trails.