Bad panning or lens weakness?

Captain_Danger

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I have a Nikon D7000 and I use it for a variety of things. One such thing is a bit of motorsport photography, however I am having difficulty in getting panning images to look sharp. They either look blurred or out of focus or maybe both.

I am using just a cheap-ish 70-300mm Nikon lens (Nikon AF-S VR 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED Lens - JAA795DA - Lenses - Jessops) and have had mixed results. The images I have attached below suffer from the problem I am having. Basically, in a lot of shots only a section of the car will appear sharp and in focus. There will always be a bit of the car that looks blurred. In the case of the images below, the middle section of the car looks in focus, and the front and back look blurred. Now on these images because the light had faded quite a lot I was on about F10 and shutter was about 1/50th (if that helps). I was sat down in the stand and wasn't really having a "real go" at it to be honest, but I seem to suffer this problem in a lot of images.

Am I just really bad at panning (just tell me I can take it :D) or is it some kind of lens weakness / issue?

Cheers,

Ben.

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a106/pushmetwice/pan1.jpg

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a106/pushmetwice/pan2.jpg
 
Even with VR and panning, I think 1/50th is too slow for 300mm equivalent shooting - I'd try a higher shutter speed which should still enable you to get good panning shots but a better chance at keeping the car sharp.

John
 
Yep I'd suggest the culprit is the shutter speed.

A friend of mine shoots motorsports regularly and won't shoot at anything slower than 1/60th although most of his stuff is at 1/80th - 1/100th.

Also what focus point selection was being used at the time?
 
Thank's really interesting as I have had similar problems where even though I am using a high F stop to increase depth of field only part of the car is in focus when panning, this is even so when using high(ish) shutter speeds (1/150+). I'll be keeping an eye on this thread for tips/explanation, thanks for asking this question.

Here's a couple of my better ones but if you go to Flikr Large file you can see the front/rear out of focus compared with the centre.

1/80, F9, ISO200


IMG_4717a by UggsPics1, on Flickr

1/80, F9, ISO125


IMG_4733a by UggsPics1, on Flickr

1/200, f6.3, ISO400, IS Mode 2 (possible issues due to broken IS on this lens !)


IMG_6058a_small by UggsPics1, on Flickr
 
When I'm shooting handheld at 300mm equivalent I prefer to shoot faster at 1/300 to 1/600 if the vehicles are fast, the blur effect isn't nearly as good but I find I get consistent sharp shots of the cars.

These are some of the insanely fast lmp1 and lmp2 (Le mans prototype) cars which I ended up shooting faer as I was getting blurry shots as I was having to whip the camera round very quickly to capture them.

DSC2165-M.jpg

DSC2348-M.jpg


DSC2205-M.jpg


Any further and the cars looked like they're parked up, these two are at 1/1000 which was clearly too fast:

DSC1252-M.jpg


DSC1233-M.jpg


John
 
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I have no idea what the best settings are for taking panning shots, had a chance to have a go recently at the Singapore GP. Here are some efforts....would love to hear what setting the pros use, but than again the speed/size of the subject matter and how good/quick you pan are all uncontrollable variables :confused:

1/250, f 5.3, 170mm

8070214205_a64abd3861_b.jpg


1/320, f 5.0, 220mm

8070207410_ef546b9447_b.jpg


1/400, f 5.0, 110mm
8070156216_5d5f08df74_b.jpg


1/160, f 5.0, 100mm

8070146364_7a6fe3d5c6_b.jpg


Last two shots were with wide angle lens (too lazy to change lens)

1/20, f 32, 24mm

6886470774_d6b07ebdbf_b.jpg


1/20, f12, 10mm

7032515537_37d6fcf3bd_b.jpg
 
Even with VR and panning, I think 1/50th is too slow for 300mm equivalent shooting - I'd try a higher shutter speed which should still enable you to get good panning shots but a better chance at keeping the car sharp.

John

+1 The shutter speed used is too slow for sharp panning photos.
 
FWIW my Pentax manual mentions turning off the image stabilisation when doing panning shots - I've only shot motorsport once and my efforts really aren't all that impressive. Looking back I've either got blurry cars or it looks like they're parked :laugh:
 
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FWIW my Pentax manual mentions turning off the image stabilisation when doing panning shots - I've only shot motorsport once and my efforts really aren't all that impressive. Looking back I've either got blurry cars or it looks like they're parked :laugh:

This is a very important point - I didn't mention it initially as the OP is using a Nikon and as far as I'm aware in standard mode the VR will be ok with panning, you only switch to active mode if you are physically moving (such as in a car or similar). However other image stabilisation systems in their default mode will attempt to correct the panning motion and blur the shot, on the Olympus onboard IS system and the Panasonic lens based IS they had a separate mode for panning which would disable one axis of correction so that it doesn't attempt to incorrectly compensate the panning movement.

John
 
On my Sony A77 I always disable the stabilisation when panning.
 
Ben,

Takes a bit of practice, but fundamentally yes your shutter speed is too slow. As a starting point aim for a shutter speed of 1/focal length and at the fastest aperture you have available. i.e. on your 70-300vr, you should start around 1/300sec and f/5.6.

On the D7000, set the top dial to Aperture priority, in the menus set your ISO-Auto to an upper limit of 6400, and the minimum shutter speed to 1/300. Finally set your aperture to its fastest setting of f/5.6. Then looking through the viewfinder at a few subjects you'll quickly get a feel for how the camera is coping with it. If there's plenty of light then either your iso will run lower than 6400, or your shutter speed will be faster than 1/300s or both. In that case you can close the aperture slightly perhaps towards f/8 -f/11 where your lens will be a bit sharper anyway, and the depth of field greater (so the near and the far areas of your car will be in focus). I've not mentioed 'vr' but that should help you out too.

For info, I regularly shoot a D7000 outdoors (daytime) at 420mm, without vr, handheld. I'm often at 1/500s or faster and don't need silly high iso's i.e. less than 6400. Just be smooth in your panning and play with your settings from the starting point above. :)

Now depending upon the available light and your panning technique, you shouldn't be too far off.
 
Forgot to mention, google for a DoF (depth of field) calculator too. With this you can estimate for a given focal length, subject distance and sensor crop factor (x1.6 for D7000 I think) roughly how much distance you have to play with near-to-far on your subject with it still remaining acceptably in focus. If the resulting DoF isn't enough, then use a smaller aperture (bigger number), but increase your ISO or decrease your focal length to maintain the shutter speed. It's all a balancing act to get the right amount of light energy on to the sensor in the <shutter> time available.
 

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