Photography Motion Blur

It has been a dry start to winter, but last week we finally had some good rain and it has got into the wheatbelt where it is desperately needed. Here is a pic I took under an umbrella down at our harbour area.

I have just spent a fabulous weekend with the Photography Group of Bunbury at a workshop with renowned Australian photographer Nick Melidonis. One thing I learnt is there is still a lot to learn. Actually as technologies change there will always be something new to learn in photography. But as Nick says - "don't be overwhelmed".





One of the practical exercises we played around with was "motion blur" using A1 Servo (this is the Canon terminology) AF-C if you have a Nikon.
Here is a link to Digital Photography School with an explanation for you - One shot VS A1 Servo

Set you shutter speed (TV on Canon) to at least 1/2000th of a second. 
Let your camera adjust your ISO to suit your conditions. 
Select your largest aperture ie F5/6 
Focus where your subject is going to move into - give it room. 
Half press your shuttter speed to focus. 
Then set camera to A1 Servo - your focus will stay on your moving subject. 
Change your "drive" to multiple shots - ie camera will take multiple shots when you press the shutter button. 
Allow room for your subject to move into. You can always crop later. 
 Swivel at the hips as you "track" or "pan with" the moving subject.

Have a willing subject so you can practice! We played around with different shutter speeds as you can see in the examples below. The first shot is at 1/2000th of a second (the action is stopped), the second shot is at 1/30th of a second (the background is blurred because I am tracking the moving subject.
Have fun!

A good place to practise might be at sporting games or by a roadside. The image below was taken at 1/15th of a second. 

The image below was taken at a polocrosse competition at Murchison when we were on holidays recently. Fast and furious action and great to watch! I've just been told there is a Club only about half an hour away where there will be a comp at the end of October. I think I will have to go and watch and take more photos. 

The shutter speed was 1/100th of a second. Nick suggested that I should have perhaps used a slower shutter speed and panned with the moving horses to blur the background. 

There is however a way to do this in post-processing through working with layers in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. If you have used "layers" I hope you will understand my sketchy instructions.

Open up your image. Make a "duplicate layer" to work on. 
Click - "filter" - "blur" - "motion blur"
Moving the "pixels distance" slider will increase or decrease the amount of blur. OK
Then add a "mask" and using an "black adjustment brush" paint the horses and riders back in leaving the background blurred.

 In a way I am of two minds with the result. When I took the shot I wanted to show there were people watching, and in a way I think I have lost that.  I wonder what you think. The bottom example below has not so much blur. 

A friend commented -
"IMHO as a horse person there is enough suggestion of movement with the "blur" of the horses lower legs and the position of the riders - the original is much more indicative of the sport and true to life."

Just for something different, I also played around with changing the original image to "sepia" in the Lightroom program. I rather like the effect.

I hope this little post has given you some ideas to play around with. Just remember - have fun! 

Here is a link to the Polocrosse Association of Western Australia - PAWA

Thank you so much for stopping by. I value your comments and look forward to hearing from you. I will try to visit your blogs in return. Have a wonderful week.

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