Train with Motion

by Abdeabiturab
(India)

At 15 shutter speed, and by moving the camera on the station.

I've moved this from the digital photography tutor section to this page as I think it is more suitable.


Abdeabiturab has used a classig photographers' technique here - panning.

Panning is used to track a moving object - here a train.

As the object passes the photographer the shutter is released, but importantly the photographer keeps tracking the subject (even though the viewfinder or camera screen has gone blank).

Anything in the scene that has moved whilst the shutter is open will blur. And anything that was stationary will remain in crisp focus.

In Abdeabiturab's photo above the background will have moved - well, it stayed where it was, but the camera moved (panned) so it amounts to the same thing.

The train would have stayed in the same place and so comes out in sharp focus.

Of course the train was actually moving, but because Abdeabiturab was moving his camera with it, at the same speed, it appears in sharp focus.

One thing that helps with this technique is a slow shutter speed. This doesn't have to be really slow, and the 1/15th of a second that Abdeabiturab chose is perfect!

Try the same thing with a shutter speed of 1/1000th of a second and all you'll get is a sharply focussed everything.

By the way, I really like the light in this photo too. The background has a nice bright haze and the foreground is darkened, but not to the extent that nothing is visible. Very nice!

Thanks for the submission Abdeabiturab,

Darrell.