Joe and Mary Ann McDonald's

Wildlife Photography

Puma, Left, at 1/50th sec. Although this is a useable image and conveys motion, the face of the puma is not razor sharp. You'll note, also, that the legs almost disappear as they're moving even faster. Legs can literally vanish at slow shutter speeds, and that usually is not effective!

Panning, as you all know, can imply a sense of motion as foreground, background, and the area around the subject blurs, while the subject (hopefully) stays sharply in focus. In contrast, fast shutter speeds that freeze motion can reduce the sense of speed or motion as the areas around the subject are more sharply delineated.

Panning requires some skill. If a subject is moving rapidly, to insure a sharp focus, even at a fast shutter speed, you may need to pan. For example, you'll be better off panning and following the motion of a bald eagle swooping towards a fish that if you had a stationary, motionless lens position. Even at fast shutter speeds you'll probably see a blurred streak in the eye-highlights of the eagle if the camera didn't follow the subject.

At slow shutter speeds, panning with the subject is absolutely essential, but doing this correctly can be a challenge. Here's how I pan, and usually get great results.

Wolf, left, at 1/80th sec. Whether the wolf wasn't moving as quickly, or the wolf's legs weren't moving as fast, the legs are more clearly visible. Multiple shots at 1/80th sec yielded similar results. You can learn virtually everything you need to know to be a competent, skilled nature photographer at our Digital Complete Nature Photo Courses in Pennsylvania and in Arizona.

With telephotos I use a Wimberley gimbal-style actionhead that allows me to smoothly follow a subject while panning. I try to keep some part of my subject consistently in the same focusing bracket so that my panning speed and my subject's movement are in synchrony, much as a hunter would keep the crosshairs of a scope on the shoulder of a running deer, for example. If you ever fired a rifle or shotgun you know that you have almost no chance of hitting a moving target if your firearm doesn't follow the subject. The same most assuredly applies to following a running mammal with a telephoto lens.

Using a Wimberley head, or a regular ballhead if need be, allows you to keep the telephoto on a consistent plane, and minimizes the chance of up/down wobbling. If you're hand-holding your camera/lens rig, you may indeed wobble, and the resulting image has a double-image, unattractive blur effect.

Sometimes the up/down, rocking motion or gallop of your subject may create this wobbly look, and there's nothing you can do about that except use faster shutter speeds, but doing that may negate the motion/pan effect you're looking for.

So, what is the best speed for panning a running mammal?

The answer depends upon the speed of the animal. A skunk, for example, won't cover ground as quickly as a fox or a deer, so slower shutter speeds would be needed to create the sense of blur. Conversely, a comparatively fast shutter speed could be used on a galloping horse or pronghorn antelope and still achieve a blurred background.

Badgers aren't very fast, but nevertheless 1/80th sec effectively created a nice plan blur.

However, for most mammals the size of a fox or larger 1/60th to 1/100th sec will, on animals going at a reasonable pace for that animal, create a very effective blur. Mind you, if an animal is really bolting, running at top speed, you could probably double these speeds to a minimum of 1/125th and a high of 1/250th. The accompanying illustrations illustrate the effects.

Both this wolf, and the one above, have near razor-sharp faces at 1/80th sec., but the trick was effectively following the wolf's horizontal motion with a smooth, steady pan.