Perfect Pan?

I asked Emma to ride her bicycle back and forth in front of the house a couple of days ago so I could practice panning. I have done a limited amount of panning before and the results are usually pretty mixed. The idea of course is to use a somewhat slow shutter speed (1/25th, ISO 400 @ f/8 in this instance) and to be moving the camera in the same direction and at the same speed the subject is moving as the photo is taken. The results would ideally be a motion blurred background with an in-focus subject. In my limited experience getting the subject in focus is pretty tricky and I usually end up having to "settle" with a shot that is somewhat blurry. The results here I thought were excellent for a pan shot (at least compared to my previous attempts at panning).

Shot with my Canon 40D and 17-55mm f/2.8

Post-processing: Photoshop CS3 > Duplicate Layer and blend in overlay mode at 59% to improve contrast > Merge Visible layers > High Pass Sharpening

Here are a couple of differnt versions to consider:



Shot with my Canon 40D and 17-55mm f/2.8

Post-processing: Photoshop CS3 > Duplicate Layer and blend in overlay mode at 59% to improve contrast > Merge Visible layers > High Pass Sharpening > Resize Image for lower resolution > Charles Schwab effect (Stylize Diffuse Anisotropic > Smart Sharpen > Surface Blur) at 62% to smooth out textures




Shot with my Canon 40D and 17-55mm f/2.8

Post-processing: Photoshop CS3 > Duplicate Layer and blend in overlay mode at 59% to improve contrast > Merge Visible layers > High Pass Sharpening > Resize to web resolution (800 X 533) > Virtual Photographer Blue Tone Filter at 62% to add a little drama