Panning

This weekend, I photographed a quick "pick-up" basketball game. It was getting really late in the day and by the time this image was taken, it was already 8:47 PM. With each shot I took, it just kept getting darker and darker as the sun started to disappear.

I kept my Nikon D3 on with continuous exposure using focus tracking and it did a great job even in fairly low light. But since the camera was also set for auto ISO and aperture priority, the shutter speed kept dropping in order to get a decent exposure. By the time this image was taken, I was getting 1/40 second at f2.8 with ISO at 3200. The shot was taken at a focal length of 32mm on the Nikon 24-70mm f2.8 lens.

I kept my camera locked on the player with the ball and followed him as he drove for the shot. Moving the camera to keep up with the subject is known as "panning." Interestingly, only his upper body is focused because everything else in the scene was moving! It makes for a very cool shot, don't you think? The image while blurred, shows action and that's exactly what was going on. Definitely click on the image to see a close up of the image to see the sharpness and blurring.

The D3 was set to shoot at 9 frames per second and with every attempt at a point, I was able to document the game... step by step.