Try Panning as a Beginner!

When I saw this week’s DPS Weekly Photography Challenge was Panning I thought I would give it a miss. It looked just too complicated to me. Still I went ahead and read the articles linked there. One advice (of course for beginners like me) was-

When I was trying to learn how to pan I sincerely found it difficult to match my speed to that of my subject.  I’d plant my feet firmly in the ground, pull my elbows in tightly to my sides to avoid camera shake, wait wait wait for my subject and then zoom right along with them.  I was having the most difficult time! I’d normally move faster than my subject ending up with an image that was nothing short of a blurry mess.  Then I had an idea.  I took my son with one hand, held my camera to my eye with the other, and spun him in a circle.

WE WERE MOVING AT THE EXACT SAME SPEED BECAUSE WE WERE CONNECTED!  I felt like Albert Einstein!

You don’t actually have to spin a child around one handed to achieve the same affect. . .  You could use a teddy bear, a milk jug, or jump on a merry-go-round (come on you know you want to).  Anyway, I found that it was a great way to get the hang of it and I haven’t had any problems since!

Happy shooting!

Doing it with a doll sounded doable. So once again when Chhavi was taking her afternoon nap, I took one of her dolls out for panning! The picture above is my best so far. While shooting it I was using the display to click because at the eye level I didn’t had a decent enough background.

Since I was holding the camera as well as the doll, I would actually freeze at the point when I would want to click the picture. And that would leave the background not as I desired. Then the sportsperson in me told me to think that I was playing table tennis and even after hitting the ball I have to follow through. That did the trick, follow through is easy for me.

I am itching to go on a holiday and try all try all my newly learned doggy tricks! Traffic anyway is never a problem in India. As I did all this while Chhavi was sleeping, I could not go far away and try this in traffic. But I am sure I am going to do it sometime soon.

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