All Motional

Taking pictures of stuff that moves: The gentle art of panning. The theory is that you select a shutter speed that is low enough to get the background blurred but high enough to make the target reasonably sharp. It might be wise to use manual focus so the camera doesn't waste time with Autofocus, depending on lens and camera.

Here we are in mid Wales last year. We arrived at Presteigne on the same weekend as the Vintage Sports Car Club's meeting...


The owners and their co-drivers spent the weekend charging around the narrow streets, up the local hills in an orgy of mud and Castrol "R"... It was great fun to watch even if it did mean that Bed and Breakfast was hard to find and consequently expensive...



Now, many years earlier, we have the Patrouille de France flying their 1950's Fouga Magisters at the Greenham Common Air Tattoo in 1977. This was back in the metal manual camera days. No motor drive and 4Gb memory cards then. You had to make every shot count. Thus this picture was either the result of great skill or blind luck...




OK, this last one from the same occasion isn't panned, but I couldn't resist putting it in. Are these guys genuine RAF? They sure look the part, moustaches and flying gear. Is this the very last Vulcan before it got demobbed and refurbished? Anyone know?



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Casting a shadow

Image
Dismal dark depressing dull damp disappointing December. Hmm. Lets remind ourselves of summer when there were shadows in pictures. Lets concentrate on where the light isn't: Sometimes its the shadows that define a picture. Here are some of hard light examples from the Mediterranean, and each one will have needed some exposure compensation. The first images hints at a sunny day. This one gives you the evidence: A clear blue sky glimpsed between shadows. This third image, also from the much rebuilt and restored fort at Paphos , allows us to see more of the building. A pleasing succession of arches and the reward is the sunshine at the end And finally one last shadow picture: One for Arthur C Clark: The Monolith in Newbury Kennet Centre car park. Its been there for 4.2 Billion years. No one knows what it does.
Read more

The white stuff

Image
Here's a high key picture.  This splendid bloom is presented against a white background to captivate and impress.  This is not a studio picture, I found the subject in a garden we visited. In fact the method I used was to photograph the flower from below and I used the grey sky as a backdrop.  Suitable application of exposure compensation pushes the entire image towards white and gives it the high key look.
Read more