Part I - Standing still quite a lot...
I scratched my head slightly for a subject for these exercises. I suspected that the family would soon tire of riding a bicycle back and forth too many times, so I went over to our local main road. The traffic here can be a real nuisance when you are trying to cross the road, so I guessed that I would soon find sufficient targets for my lens. I walked to the middle of a field of stubble, as indicated on the map below. This gave me quite a good view in both directions as the road curves around my viewpoint. Finding a suitable position would have been more difficult if traffic still used the original Roman route near-by.
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| ONE. The location. |
For these exercises I used my Olympus E-1 with 14-54mm f2.8/3.5 lens. A heavy Manfrotto tripod with a video type head provided both a stable base and conveniently smooth lateral panning. I levelled the camera with a two-axis spirit level on the hot-shoe mount. The day was overcast, but reasonably bright - light levels became an issue for some of the shutter-speed and aperture combinations I wanted to use, as will be explained. I used the zoom facility to compose images in which the vehicle filled a reasonable proportion of the frame.
My first group of images were created with a fixed camera position, capturing individual vehicles as they passed. The traffic along here typically travels at between 50 and 60 mph, although some are moving slower as local traffic enters or leaves the nearby junctions.
The first few shots established when I should press the shutter to capture the vehicle in mid-frame - I started by employing my peripheral vision to see when a car approached, but I soon found that the shutter response was fast enough to wait until the subject was part-way across the viewfinder; a press as the front of the car touched the central focussing ring would give a nicely centered image. I really don't know how this could be done with most consumer level digital compact cameras, as they can have significant delays between shutter press and image capture.
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| TWO. f22, 1/10 second |
Very slow shutter speed - it becomes difficult to identify just what the blue blur is. Any slower and the representation of the vehicle would lose almost all substance, becoming a phantasm...
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| THREE. f22, 1/10th second |
Another 40 tonnes of will-o-the-wisp.
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| Four. f22, 1/10th second |
I like this one! A hover-car, loose on the roads of Lincolnshire!
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| Five. f11, 1/40th second |
A rather faster shutter cannot yet capture the wheels of this car, but we can now see something of the lattice-work upon which such vehicles appear to rely for motion.
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| Six. f6.3, 1/125th second |
OK, so they are wheels after all. The vehicle is clearly moving though.
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| Seven. f4.5, 1/250th second |
Movement is less apparent now, although some evidence is retained in the rendering of the wheels.
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| Eight. f6, 1/800th second |
From this point, through to the 1/2000th second images, there is little evidence of movement at all. It is barely possible to discern whether they are moving or not. the images above were all recorded at an ISO rating of 100, but now I had to increase the ISO to 400, as the maximum aperture of the lens at this focal length was too small to give an adequately exposed picture.
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| Nine. f4, 1/1250th second |
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| Ten. f3.5, 1/2000th second |
Part II - How to move a camera at 60 miles per hour...
The next sequence demonstrates the effect of differing shutter speeds when attempting to follow a moving object - "panning". For convenience I started with the camera settings from the set above. It proved reasonably easy to track the vehicles as they passed in front of me. I would select one some distance away and follow its progress until it reached the stretch of road in front of me, when I would take typically 3 or 4 frames of each. I had the camera mounted at my standing eye level, and found that I could track the vehicles by pushing the tripod pan arm with my shoulder. This meant that using my hands to operate the camera - shutter and zoom - did not interfere with the smooth lateral flow I was seeking. I quite deliberately sought to continue the panning movement after I had pressed the shutter, in imitation of the technique used when shooting fast flying birds with a shotgun - the "follow-through" is an important element of actually hitting what you are aiming at.
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| Eleven. f4.5, 1/2000th second |
A fast shutter speed freezes the movement of both the vehicle and the camera relative to the background.
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| Twelve. f8, 1/500th second |
A little slower, and already we can see a "softness" in the rendering of the verge and hedgerow, although the van remains quite sharp.
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| Thirteen. f11, 1/250th second |
We now see the world starting to blur a bit, and the vehicles wheels are starting to look as though they are revolving. The vehicles to are becoming a little less crisp as variations in my panning accuracy become evident.
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| Fourteen. f16, 1/125th second |
Again, nothing is critically sharp in this image.
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| Fifteen. f16, 1/80th second |
I feel that this image gains something from the feeling of bulk and weight which dominates the composition.
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| Sixteen. f22, 1/50th second |
I feel this gives a reasonable suggestion of speed...
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| Seventeen. f11, 1/50th second |
This is one of my favourite images in this series. I feel there is sufficient blur to the background and foreground to give a good impression of speed, and I think the way the truck pushes into the scene from the left margin adds to the visual momentum, bulk, and weight. I wonder if a tighter crop would emphasis these aspects even more?
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| Eighteen. f16, 1/30th second |
Wind in the hair motoring...
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| Nineteen. f16, 1/30th second |
I am pleased with this image. I think that the subtle change of angle of view from the preceding frame emphasises the movement of the car - seeing the boot lid demonstrates that it will soon be far away from here. Even the rendering of the street furniture behind - a post becoming a panel - shows a Morgan moving as designed.
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| Twenty. f18, 1/20th second |
OOPS!! Unfortunately I have not found out how to pan in two different directions at once. The smaller vehicle at the back,which I was following, is reasonably distinct, but then a blooming great tanker came from the other direction. The apparent speed of the tanker is further emphasised as the camera was panning to the right as the vehicle travelled to the left.
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| Twenty-one. f18, 1/20th second |
It's all a bit of a blur - panning technique a little sub-optimal here... I would however attempt to claim that this image is an homage to another representation of speed, reproduced below..
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Twenty-two. Natalia Goncharova. The Cyclist 1913, Oil on canvas, 78x105 cm.
The State Russian Museum, St.Petersburg |
One may claim that this is a good example of the limitation of technique - to capture faster than cycle speeds would require extremely fast brush-work! I haven't seen Kolinsky Sable advertised as having 1/2000th of a second capabilities.
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| Twenty-three. f22, 1/20th second |
I think that this composition works well as being able to see the front panels of the cab emphasises the motion of the approaching truck - it is clearly entering the frame at some speed.
You may notice that the panning shots were taken with shutter speeds of 1/20th second and higher. Slower shutter speeds were not used as the lens was stopped right down to f22, and the camera sensitivity was at its lowest of ISO 100 - slower speeds would require neutral density filters to avoid over-exposure.
Conclusion
I think this exercise has been a useful exploration of the capabilities, and limitations, of the camera as a recording tool. Of even more interest however, is the influence that varying representations of movement have on our perception of and aesthetic or emotional response to an image. I find myself smiling each time I look at image four, because the representation is so far removed from the very basic characteristic of a car as something possessing wheels . Image twenty - the lorry in front of the car - I feel has a delightful element of surprise, emphasised by its appearance in a sequence which otherwise displays only single vehicles.
