AMAZING! Slow Shutter Speed Wildlife Panning - The Ultimate Guide!
Have you ever wanted to master slow shutter speed panning? Everything you need to know - and then some - is right here in this video! It's the ultimate guide to slow shutter speed panning for wildlife and it's absolutely bursting with tips, techniques, and settings that will help you capture jaw-dropping slow shutter speed panning shots. From what to look for in subjects and backgrounds to exposure settings, shutter speeds, F/stops, ISO, stabilization, tripods, and overall technique it's all here and more!
Check it out - you'll be knocking out wall-hangers in no time!
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Great lesson ! Practice and acceptance of disaster is key to improving. I sat on my porch and shot passing cars for hours before venturing into the field. When I got a tack sharp coffee drinker at 35 MPH I was ready for the big time ! Thanks for the tips
That's a great way to do it!
I love this effect. I discovered it by mistake as usual :) A hovering Kestral shot at 1/60 gave me a wow moment with tack sharp head and eye but wings blurred. I made a note to myself. Make that mistake more often.
Thanks a lot Steve, really helpful as usual
Brilliant as usual!! Thanks Steve
Cheers Steve great info.
Thank you!
Excellent video. Thanks for sharing all the tips - I will definitely start practicing.
Wow, this video is FULL of great tips! Thank you!
great video Steve!! love your channel
Thank you sir!
Very helpful thanks! Can’t wait for the z9 review
Thank you for this Steve something new to try.
Great, as usual!!
Awesome! I will definitely try this on my next shoot!
Good morning Steve . Thanks for sharing .
Great video, Steve... another useful technique to add to my bag of photography tricks. Will definitely practice it!
Thank You Steve : )
Terrific instruction as usual.
Great combo of settings and technique, excellent to properly set / reset expectations as you have done here.
I love this! Now I just need a lot of practise
Amazing as always, Steve. Thanks so much. You never skimp on the details and always cover off so much more than any other people's videos I watch.
a very nice experience. You are such a good communicator as well.
What an excellent and concise tutorial on panning! Expertly done and sincerely appreciated.
I am headed to Tanzania next week. Can’t wait to try panning!
Impressive technique Steve...for sure I will try this using my Z9
Appreciate the tips/tricks Steve. I will make sure to attempt them many times for another skill to work on. Thanks, as always, for the effort and completeness of these videos. One could certainly practice on humans walking as targets for practice.
An excellent video and great clear explanations! A pleasure to watch your instructional videos.
Great video Steve. Really amazed about the details of slow shutter panning.. one of the best videos Thank you Can I expect some videos on tips for African safari
Great tips! I did this at a bicycle race at 1/50th using a four stop ND and got some pretty good shots. Lots of misses because if it's off just a bit or the head bobs then it's ruined. Maybe a few hundred pics and about a dozen keepers and only like 6 that were sharp or close enough to being sharp!
Tried a few times, because I like the results. This will become my reference in the future. As always the best there is on YT. I would also recommend his books I have a full set and they are all you will ever need to become a better wildlife photographer.
wow- what a great tutorial. As close to hands on training as one can get. I am a Canon user. I'l be looking at low light birding from a new creative perspective. Thank you.
Yes great technique when you haven't got much light, you won't nail every shot but the odd one can be amazing, even on a common subject 👍😍
GREAT stuff! Thanks Steve! Oh - when are you going to release your Z9 setup recommendation??
Really well explained Steve, been doing this for decades now but you just don't see great quality pans very often. We live in a world of tight crops shot for IG and it's really very boring, all I hear is moaning about my ISO is over 400 I need to go home, hopefully people will take some notice of this and try new (old) things.
Thanks!
Thank you so much
Great video. I used to do these things when shooting race cars. When starting out, If I got one out of 50 hit rate, I was over the moon. Just don't show anyone the bad ones.
When I listened your last podcast with Vaha?… I had a question in my mind… how choosing a good background? Type, distance, Aperture, etc… great to hear you again 😜
I’ve always wanted to do a similar video but with MLB/Baseball and sports in general. I’m a photojournalist, but my real passion is wildlife photography. Steve is 100% correct panning is subjective, I’ve personally only seen a few really good/great panning images of wildlife. In my subjective opinion it’s much, much more difficult to get a great or portfolio/award winning panning image of wildlife or BIF. However, in sports photography I’ve seen countless amazing panning images and I’m constantly impressed by some images. Steve is an amazing photographer and an inspiration to many, including myself. However, in my subjective opinion I didn’t see any amazing panning images in this video. I’m well aware that may seem harsh or wrong and you may think they were awesome. I guess I’m just not a fan, typically of BIF/Wildlife panning images. This video was still just as powerful and a teaching moment to me, so I greatly appreciate Steve and his tips. He reminded me how important the background can be when panning. So I’m always thankful and I always do my best to learn something from everyone or every encounter I have, video I watch, etc. So please do not take offense (Steve) or anyone else, I’m a big fan of this KZhead channel and Steve Perry is an absolute inspiration and seems to be a genuinely great guy. We all sometimes forget how subjective photography can be.
Patrick, can you (if possible) be a bit more specific about several key factors that made the sports images "great". What sport? What was it about the image? Was it proximity (i.e. close to a biker, tennis player, ball player?). I also would image this is a creative tool for bigger and faster moving objects as turtle racing might pose an even bigger challenge.
@@dance2jam Sure, it’s late/early morning here but I’ll try, lol. I was referring to different sports of course, but to name an example of some of my favorites would be MLB baseball pitcher’s. Not all pitcher’s are interesting or necessarily the “best” to attempt pans on, while others definitely are. Meaning some pitchers have unique or interesting and impressive arms, technique, etc., which can help with making a great panning image(s). Just like with anything else, background is important and I love contrast between the subject and background. Timing, proximity, prior knowledge all come into play. It’s not easy to make great or compelling panning images, despite the genre or sport. My main point is panning is often not worth the effort or appears either forced or just does not translate well. I probably should attempt panning images more often and maybe I’m just more subjectively picky than other’s? However, great lighting, contrast between subject and background, keeping an important part of the subject sharp, all add up to whether or not a panning image is great or not. It’s obviously subjective, and obviously I’m only speaking in broad terms. I’d like to equate panning images to wide/super-wide angle lens photography, it’s damn hard to get amazing images. If you have a 17mm or wider lens, you should know exactly what I’m talking about, lol. Sure there are countless examples of great, award winning images taken with wide-angle or super-wide angle lenses. All it means is it’s generally more difficult to make great images with super-wide angle focal length lenses, over say normal to short telephoto lenses. There’s obviously exceptions and exceptional landscape, architectural and other very wide angle images that are amazing. Same with panning images, I’ve seen some great or even truly magical images or examples of when it works…for me at least. I tend to favor telephoto 70-800mm focal length lenses, but I also use my 24-70mm f/2.8 quite often as well. I have many, many images I’m proud of or would say are good-great in the 24-70mm range, however go below 24mm and I can barely find any examples of images I’m happy with. Granted I’m not really a landscape or architectural photographer, so it makes sense to me, personally. I’m just different than your average photographer in that I mainly shoot action, either photojournalism/news and sports or on my free time, wildlife photography! Most of which I’m shooting with my 70-200mm and 400mm f/2.8 or 500mm f/4 with or without a 1.4x TC. Now my 24-70mm is always handy in my bag and I absolutely adore my copy, it’s sharp corner to corner even wide open at f/2.8 so that’s awesome. Now others may only own a 14-30mm type lens or 24-70mm type lens, and that’s all they’ll ever use. Lastly in sports the photography/photographer typically is more controlled, when compared with wildlife. This is in my opinion…what makes panning images of wildlife so difficult, the unpredictability and environment/lighting. In most cases sports photographers will know where and when, who, and why or how, they’ll have advantages. Down to the lighting, you just have more control, more knowledge and more opportunities. You maybe have all of the key player’s and images by the 5/6th inning in baseball, than can spend the next inning or two attempting different panning/creative type images. Whereas with wildlife typically you’ll either want to stop/freeze the action to avoid motion blur/not tack-sharp images, or you maybe are lowering shutter speed/to gain dynamic range or to keep your ISO lower. Either way, I’d still try to get the images you’re really after first, and then maybe try a few panning images. Or if the timing/situation is perfect, try it immediately!
Thanks
Thanks!!
The walking lion at 16:15 is beautiful 😍👏👏👏👏
Thank you!
Successful people don't become that way overnight. What most people see at a glanced wealth, a great career purpose is the result of hard work and hustle overtime. I pray anyone who read this will be successful in Life.
Exactly!! The Rich gets Richer everyday because the poor thinks every opportunity is a scam. A positive thinking brings positive results.
"Success usually comes to those who are too busy looking for it." - Henry David Thoreau
Talking about investment! Is there anyone who knows what one can invest in and be successful because I really need to invest to avoid rat race during retirement. Do you have knowledge about any?
Absolutely Yes 👍. Bitcoin is profitable 🤑🤑
I think people should venture into trading since the economic meltdown; having one stream of income is not a nice idea cause your job doesn't secure your financial want
Hey Steve, any possibility of doing a clothing or apparel review/recommendation on the best things to wear when out shooting? For an example, does one really need to buy a full hunter's cameo uniform to shoot in the woods? Is it necessary to do stake outs in a cameo tent for decent wildlife shots? Any good hat recommendations? I get sick of having to turn my ball cap on reverse to shoot in portrait mode as it is a bad look for me as opposed to front facing. Hope to see something like this in the future from you. Awesome content as always.
Hey Steve, many years ago when I was in a camera club we use to call shots like this a pleasing blur. I will try your technique to see if I get anything close to looking good. Mine always seem to look like a blurry mess. 🙄 Ha.
Hi Steve I use the same approach when shooting dippers on water. The difference is that I get the bird sharp with good timing but get the movement in the water. On my stream 1/10th sec works well
I've seen shots like that and they are really cool. :)
Hey Steve, so what are your thoughts on panning with a mirrorless camera’s EVF verse DSLR OVF? And, do you find IBIS helps with stabilizing the sensor during the pan in combination with the lens VR? Thanks!
Steve, when doing the slow shutter method in brighter light, have you ever used shutter priority, so that the aperture floats at base ISO? My default method for birds and wildlife is M + auto-ISO but the thought occurred to me during your exposure discussion. Great tutorial, as usual. I’m going to try it. Thanks.
Nope, but mostly because I seldom use shutter priority. :) Regardless, you'd still have to keep a close eye (this time on F/stop instead of ISO) since when shutter priority hits the smallest aperture, it'll overexpose too.
Hi Steve great video. What fps should we shoot with- very high like 20-30 or lower around 10
I usually have it at maximum, but keep in mind that at slower shutter speeds, you can't get 20-30 FPS. Most of the time it's probably around 8-10 (again, descends on the shutter speed).
Gday Steve Totally unrelated to this video but... I've just been out using my newly acquired Sony 200-600 lens and after looking through the photos (all handheld) I got to thinking about stabilisation settings. Should I have it on in both the camera AND the lens or just on one or the other? You have to answer coz I've just subscribed 😆
Steady shot is controlled by the lens if there are switches for it on the barrel and by the camera if there's not. The menu will be greyed out if there are switches, so you can't set it in both places.
I make sure that my tripod is level but the level still changes when I move left or right when I use the gimbal. Any idea why?
Would be interested in high shutter speeds. Are close up flight shots always sharp with the z9 & 800mm 6.3, once the camera acquired focus? As sharp as if the bird was sitting on a branch?
Yes - at least they should be. Of course, not every shot will be perfect, but I can get the same level of sharpness for flight shots as static ones.
i would've guessed you'd recomend to set the VR in off mode. I've experienced nasty jumping, worse smoothness or static chunks of background when panning so that's my current goto, especially when slow panning lanscapes on a tripod. What's your experience with setting it off?
I've not had those issues, although I do use Sport VR - Normal does jump around and can make panning more difficult. Also, there are a ton of variables too - from speed, technique, lens, (VR isn't exactly the same on every lens) and so froth. For me, I get good results with it on.
Not a fan of motion blur in my wildlife subjects. Since different parts of the animal are going different speeds (legs, wings, etc.), it doesn't really work for me for wildlife. However, still an interesting technique for race cars, motorcycles, airplane propellors :-). Thanks!
To each their own :)
I thought the VR always conflicts against the tripod, so I turn off VR when i do panning. Did i do it wrong?
It depends on the lens - some lenses (most newer Nikon lenses for instance) can detect a tripod so you can leave it on. In this particular instance since you're actually the camera, having it on a tripod with VR really wouldn't matter even if the lens didn't support tripod VR. Where you get into trouble is when the tripod is locked down and VR is trying to correct for movement that's not there. Again, newer Nikon glass can sense a tripod and it's not an issue.
I prefer panning for fast cars or helicopters. Or airplanes without moving pieces in some cases. And maybe animals like horses, but everything else is sth. I wanna freeze for its details I couldn't see anyway.
I was gonna take a girl out for a lunch date at McDonald’s, she turned me down so I went and got your BIF book instead.
Thanks! And sorry about the date :)
Speed plays a big part of panning,it is most difficult get a decent panning shot with a slow subject.
It really is. Trotting or running is best. A slower walker is often a non-starter.
You're a great tutor...but I get distracted by your hands (which move/jerk with your every word). Sorry, but this is a common "nervous gesture" that other public speakers seem to "suffer from." My apologies.
Research shows that active hand gestures engage the audience better. There's a reason I do things the way I do :)
You talk TOO much!
Sorry dear... Oh, oops - I thought you were my wife there for a moment. You sound like her :)
Everything you say Steve is useful information and no fluff or rambling. Well done.