Panning for Gold

It as a fantastic British Grand Prix weekend this last weekend. The weather was great, the racing was pretty good. Qualifying kept you guessing right up until the end (poor Perez) and I took over one hundred and 50 pictures. It also allowed me to practice my panning technique, which I don't think I did too bad at. I think the hardest part is knowing what settings are right to get the blur because the LCD screen isn't usually clear enough to see the desired blur and also see any unwanted blur if you pan incorrectly, so a lot of it us just luck. I say luck, of course you have to get the settings and the pannign right first but from there on in, it's in the hands of lady luck whether you pan smoothly and whether the shutter opens at the right time.

Of course it's easier with digital cameras because you can just hold the shutter button down and rattle off five or six shots and delete the rubbish ones, though I have successfully taken a few panning shots with a SLR using 35mm film, a lot less pictures are taken in that even, mainly due to the cost and the fact that you only get 36 exposures on the largest film spool.