{"id":481,"date":"2012-09-27T02:24:16","date_gmt":"2012-09-27T02:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kevindavisphoto.com\/blog\/?p=481"},"modified":"2018-04-06T16:03:49","modified_gmt":"2018-04-06T16:03:49","slug":"motion-blur-sports-photography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kevindavisphoto.com\/blog\/motion-blur-sports-photography\/","title":{"rendered":"Motion Blur Sports Photography"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most sports photography employs fast shutter speeds, to freeze the action.\u00a0 But where there is motion, I want to show that.\u00a0 A slow shutter speed allows movement to blur.\u00a0 Here are a couple examples from a bicycle race last weekend in Boston.<\/p>\n

(click on either image for a larger view)<\/p>\n

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While it is tempting to quote specific shutter speeds that I use, it really doesn’t work that way.\u00a0 The shutter speed depends upon (1) the speed of the moving subject, (2) the angle at which the subject is approaching, and (3) how much blur I want.\u00a0 So I might start out somewhere between 1\/30 to 1\/100 second and then chimp the back of the camera to see what it looks like.<\/p>\n

(Chimping\u00a0means frequently reviewing captured images on the camera display panel. If it looks really good, you scream like a chimp.)<\/p>\n

To get basic motion blur, you lock down the camera such that the background is sharp and the moving subject shows blur.\u00a0 Alternativley, you can pan the camera to follow the the subject, such that the subject does not blur but the background does. Another technique is to actively zoom the lens during the exposure, which you see in the first image here, using a shutter speed of\u00a01\/4 second.\u00a0 A shutter speed of 1\/4 is quite long, but the subject here is moving head-on towards me.\u00a0 Compare that to the second image, the subject is moving\u00a0side-to-side perpendicular\u00a0to the camera and the shutter speed is 1\/30 second.<\/p>\n

The blur effects shown here is achieved entirely in the camera.\u00a0 As the subject does not stay in one spot, the light reflecting off the subject\u00a0is diminished.\u00a0 In post-processing (e.g. Photoshop or Lightroom), it is typically necessary to selectively restore brightness, contrast, and color saturation.\u00a0 In the second image here, I have intentionally over-stated the contrast and color saturation.<\/p>\n

With a bit of experimenting, you can get some interesting abstract results.\u00a0 Motion blur photography is not new, but it is a bit unusual.\u00a0 It has been said, if you want to excel, if you want to stand out in a crowd of talented people, don’t simply mimic what everyone else is doing.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most sports photography employs fast shutter speeds, to freeze the action.\u00a0 But where there is motion, I want to show that.\u00a0 A slow shutter speed allows movement to blur.\u00a0 Here are a couple examples from a bicycle race last weekend in Boston. (click on either image for a larger view) While it is tempting to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,185,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photo","category-sports-photoraphy","category-technique"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevindavisphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevindavisphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevindavisphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevindavisphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevindavisphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevindavisphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":496,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevindavisphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481\/revisions\/496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevindavisphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevindavisphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevindavisphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}