The panning shot hits you every time you open any motor sports magazine. The photographer’s skill is to make a speeding vehicle look absolutely still, whilst successfully blurring the background into a dazzle of color. This creates the feeling of motion. This is an exciting and challenging genre of photography, but it does not need to be left exclusively to the professionals. Using a few photography panning techniques, you can easily learn to take stunning panning shots to proudly show off to your family and friends. See also basic photography techniques here.

So when are panning shots used? Well, sports mainly – such as running and cycling, as well as motor sports. But using similar photography panning techniques will make your wildlife and nature shots look much more interesting. Birds are excellent subjects (see how to capture birds in flight technique). Geese or swans, being somewhat slow and lumbering, make surprisingly easy targets when panning. A panning shot makes the viewer appreciate the element of motion. Compare this to a similar static shot taken using a super fast shutter speed and you will see which produces the far more powerful image.

The subject of the shot needs to be moving left to right, or vice versa. A colorful and blurred background helps to lend to the feeling of motion, but the aim is to make sure that your point of interest appears beautifully in focus. Whilst this is true for most sports pictures, in nature a plain background can be used, for example when photographing a humming bird and trying to capture the movement of the wings. A photography panning technique to remember is to take a decent zoom lens along for your shoot. Make sure that you also provide a moving space ahead of motion object.

Photography panning technique is the act of tracking the subject with the camera, whilst taking a single, or multiple shots. Trial and error is the best approach. 15 successful shots from one hundred attempts does not sound like much, but you are doing well if you achieve this. The advantage of this digital age is that you can “bin” anything you don’t need – at the end of the day, if you get one truly memorable image, the viewer won’t know, or even care, how many goes it took you to get it.

There are multiple settings you could select in photography panning technique, but a good one to try is Continuous Focus, or Servo. In this setting, the camera constantly focuses on the object as you pan. Combine this with the Continuous Shooting mode and you will be able to capture multiple shots.

Some of my favourite panning shots have placed the subject slightly off centre, allowing space for them to move into. Understandably, concerns with composition are not always at the forefront of your mind when attempting to capture a speeding object, but a few digital photography tricks can be applied subsequently in Photoshop, if required, to address this. See also how to crop the picture effectively.

Author Resource: Discover how easy it is to apply a few simple digital photography tricks that will produce stunning photographs.

See also:

• How to trick dark and bright background
• Understanding photography lighting techniques
• Understanding flash guide number – general guidelines