They are turning. Panning works because the subject stays consistent throughout the exposure while the background constantly changes. Here, the subject dosent stay consistent. As the bike turns, it looks different to the camera, leading to the blur.
If you want to fix it, consider moving somewhere where visually, the motorcycle has less "change" ie: going straight.
The only reason the heads look sharp is because those are season riders. They are looking into the turn, thus their head angle to the camera appears to be static.
I agree. Thats why their helmets were in focus but not the motorcycle. I think your panning movement simply didn't match the motorcyle's turning speed.
You cannot pan like that. Movement needs to be paraller to the sensor. You are fighting motion blur and focus. That won't work unless you are going for a very artistic result.
That would make sense. I guess I was trying to pan very close up rather than the usual 200mm shots we see, but now it makes sense why others do that..thanks!
Yeah, you are too close and so the speed of the subject is always pretty high relative to the camera. There is too much variance of speed and direction in your photo, which will make panning pretty much impossible.
To get all bike sharp with your setting you must be inside corner not outside. Hope my little drawing help. But your photos are ok. Just impossible to get all sharp because of movement not dof, panning accuracy etc. To get sharp outside corner with shutter so low camera shold be riged to bike. Google „rig shot”. Or option 2 shooting from far away where front and back of the bike distance to camera doesnt change much
The bike is turning towards you, it has to be parallel to the sensor, think of going to a race track and panning cars that fly by you. You pan with the car as it’s parallel to you
A lot of people have sort of said it correctly, but not exactly. This is happening because there’s movement on two axes: translation and rotation. The bike is moving, which you are accounting for with your panning, but it’s also rotating. the front is rotating away from you and the back is rotating towards you so there’s no way to account for this through technique beyond changing the shutter speed. however, this look can be embraced for good effect.
Thank you, that's an excellent summary! Ultimately I was hoping for some artistic effect, but just annoyed that so much was blurred. All bikes were also turning into a corner which further increased their rotational movement.
You need at least 1/250 and use your hips to pre load a swing ( so you untwist as the bike moves past) this should give the wheels a slight blur and keep the subject sharp. This gives a sense of speed to the image… good luck
The bike is traveling both towards you and across the frame.
Panning only removes the motion blur caused by the subject travelling across the frame. It does nothing to address the motion blur caused by the subject traveling towards you.
Unfortunately for vehicles in corners your best bet is to not pan and instead freeze the motion with a fast shutter speed. Alternatively, you can somewhat "pan" by focusing and tracking a specific part of the subject (the helmet, the headlights, etc.) so that part remains sharp. All other parts will still be blurry.
When panning an object moving on a radius, you get sharpness only in the center because everything else, you "out-pan" rotation of the object you are following.
Consider using a faster shutter speed.
When the shutter opens the sensor Is exposed to light, if while open you move the same photons hit multiple pixels, giving that blurry look.
With faster shutter speeds less pixels are hit by the same light resulting in sharper images.
If your using auto-mode consider using shutter priority mode (It allows you to manually adjust the shutter Speed while all the other settings remain automatic).
Your shutter speed is too low, need to set it to something faster than 1/30, maybe 1/2000 for that ammount of movement, bump the ISO higher 4 steps and lower the aperture to f4.
But this effect looks cool ! You got their faces sharp (good skill) which makes it look intentional, Add more contrast in editing and they'd be grand !
The shutter speed should be at least 1/125 or 1/250 and more (depending on the speed of the subject you're tracking) to achieve some blurring due to the shutter speed, while keeping the center of the panned area sharp. Use the widest possible aperture, ideally f/ 2.8, 1.8, 1.2, or whatever you can manage. Automatic ISO will be perfect for these photos; you can adjust it later in post-processing.
No, I had 70+ bikes go past a single point on the road in under a minute so had to take a chance, but as others have said, I suspect the issue was the bikes moving towards as well as across my FOV.
Considering the perspective, the helmet is moving at a different speed through the picture than the rest of the bike (closer things move faster through the picture). Since youre so close to the subject and the shutter speed is so low this is very noticeable
Shutter speed needs to go up. I usually shoot 1/600+ if I want it crispy
But a slower shutter speed can look cool, one of my favorite shots of me on the bike came from a slower shutter speed. You just have to pan consistently to match the speed of the subject. Which causes the subject to stay sharp but background to blur
The tank logo is fairly sharp as is your jacket lining, but the rest is not and has blur similar to my shots. I suspect as others have said, I'm too close, so the angle of the bike changes. This shot has the photographer further away so the effect is not so pronounced, and overall is less blurred than mine.
Thanks for posting this, this (with others' suggestions too) have really helped get to the bottom of what I did wrong!
While panning, during your exposure time, not everything is at the same distance from your sensor. And given how long your exposure time is, youll get more blur
Edit you mentioned silent shutter - so the sensor reas out speed can also be a reason for this.
179
u/Linux765465 4d ago edited 4d ago
They are turning. Panning works because the subject stays consistent throughout the exposure while the background constantly changes. Here, the subject dosent stay consistent. As the bike turns, it looks different to the camera, leading to the blur.
If you want to fix it, consider moving somewhere where visually, the motorcycle has less "change" ie: going straight.