first time panning

[Vaiski]

Hi,

A week ago I was watching rally and tried to do some panning This was my first time in the rally event and first time "serious" panning. I had once tried panning with normal traffic without notable success. Ok, here goes a shot.


EXIF:
Camera Nikon D5000
Exposure 0.005 sec (1/200)
Aperture f/9.0
Focal Length 18 mm
ISO Speed 1000
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash No Flash

Then the questions:
1) Do you feel that the car sharp enough and background blurred enough?
2) Were my settings more or less correct for the purpose?
3) How would you PP the picture to make it "pop"?

I'll post afterwards some more examples from the same event.

[sk66]

1. car is not quite sharp enough the rest is good...might be able to improve it some in post.
2. yes, but I probably would have gone a little lower on iso and slower on SS.
3. I'd straighten the image and increase exposure/contrast to start with.

[kuvahmagh]

1) Personally no, there is still a lot distracting from the car in the background.
2) Again from my point of view not really.

I would have tried to zoom in a bit more at 18 mm you just end up with too much else in the frame that is wasted really.

For now I would keep your shutter where it is at, once you can get the car perfectly sharp 80% of the time start pushing it lower, one notch at a time and keep going. It won't happen over night but if you keep practicing you will get there.

I am not sure what mode you are in but if you aren't in Shutter Priority then that is where you want to be, figure out what you want your shutter to be, if you follow my last bit of advice 1/200 for practice then set your ISO to its base level, take a test shot, if your lens isn't fast enough there to give you a well exposed shot then keep going up, ISO 1000 for what appears to be the day seems a little high to me.

One more thing on the settings front, shoot in bursts, odd are if you have 3-4 shots as opposed to just the one you can find something savable from those 3-4.

3) I would straighten it and probably crop out what is behind the car since it doesn't add anything.