4.8 CONVEYING THE FEELING OF MOTION

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Blur can contribute a feeling of motion in the image that may be missing from a more static shot. A slow shutter speed or one of the other techniques described here causes a moving subject to move across the image sensor during the exposure causing a blur can clearly say: Motion! These techniques often work best with a long lens or a big subject so the subject doesn’t look too small in the image. One place to begin is to shift to shutter-preferred mode and pick a slow shutter speed. You can use this setting to deliberately blur moving objects such as running water.

Panning the camera in the same direction as a moving subject produces an image where the subject is relatively sharp against a blurred background. Your movement should be smooth and controlled to get a good pan, so begin to pan the camera before the subject enters your viewfinder. Smoothly depress the shutter release as you follow the motion of the subject, keeping it in the same position in the viewfinder. Follow through as you would in golf or tennis. Panning takes practice so take as many images as you can and erase those that don’t work. Results are quite unpredictable here because your body motion adds yet another variable to the final picture.

Panning the camera as this young great blue heron took off blurred the background.