More often than not my camera is pointed at my 5 year old daughter, so usually I want my camera to stop all action and truly freeze the moment. However, on occasion I like to take pictures of aircraft with propellers and the last thing I want my camera to do is stop the props. But that's exactly what it's going to do, as if they were never moving at all, unless I tell it not to. A shutter speed of 1/100th of a second gives me the results I prefer for slow moving subjects. Slower than that and the props start turning into discs, which I don't normally prefer either.
A fast moving subject is another story all together. It's not so easy shooting a P-51 rocketing past at 250mph. Tracking that is hard! I had to bump it up here to 1/400 and hold my breath to get that shot. Almost missed it too. The prop isn't blurred to taste, but for this amateur it was either that or a blurry airplane.
2 comments:
Matt, those are great shots. Tracking is hard. My biggest problem in addition to tracking, is keeping the subject matter in focus, WHILE you're tracking. Children are tough too because they never sit still. Toddlers especially.
Every few weekends in the Summer, the Tire Rack has these driving competitions on their complex's closed race course. You can see it from the road when you drive by. One of my goals is to get out there at one event this year and shoot the cars in motion with blurred backgrounds. I always see people sitting on the grassy areas with tripods trying to get those shots.
I wouldn't mind seeing one of those events myself.
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