Creative Panning

rrf.com is at it again with another advanced topics challenge.   This month it is ‘creative panning’.  Of course with trains there’s always movement so panning opportunities abound! (well at least there should be some movement eventually, maybe, someday)   On Sunday, the first day of the challenge, I tried my hand at a couple of pans and had mixed results.  My photos ranged from completely blurry to pretty sharp and dramatic.  Some of the things I noticed are:

1. Slow moving trains in bright light are difficult to pan.  When it is so bright the shutter speed has to be so slow that getting the wanted blur causes unwanted blurs.  A couple of my attempts were at 1/10 @ f/22 which is the minimum aperture for my lens. 
2. Sharpness is difficult to achieve when attempting a pan.  There are two causes, the slow shutter speed and where the focus point is set.  I found I have to pre-focus the camera at the spot where I want to take the image and then track the subject into that spot.  I’m also going to try using my camera’s tracking focus to see how that works out.
3. Trains moving above 40 m.p.h. gave the most dramatic pan effects.

To help with some of the observations I’m considering trying the tripod.  This will require carefully levelling to make sure I can successfully pan along a level horizon.  I’m sure some practice with it will also be required.

It should be fun to work on this throughout the month!

The M-PTLPAS crosses Eighth St. and heads out of town.

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