Panning at Night

Panning is a technique in which you set your camera to a relatively slow shutter speed and follow the motion of a moving subject. If you follow at exactly the right speed, your subject comes out sharp. If your shutter speed is slow enough, everything but the subject is blurred due to the motion of the camera. It gives a great sense of motion to the image.

 

Here's a panning shot I made of a passing motorcycle in New Orleans:

 

Panning a Motorcycle at Night, by Reed A. George

Leica M9, summilux 50mm f1.4 Lens

iso 800, 1/15 sec.

 

In this case, the 1/15 second shutter speed was slow enough to give decent motion blur to the motorcycle's surroundings. Based on the fact that you can read the lettering on the motorcycle, I must have gotten the camera motion just right.

 

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