2 Ways to Add Motion Blur to your images

I really love the idea of showing movement in a still image! Sure, a frozen shot of my daughter on the merry go round  or a bike would have been fine, but I really wanted to show how fast she was spinning and how dizzy we (both) were getting!  (*Warning*, looking through the viewfinder at my subject while spinning on a merry go round got me a special kind of dizzy!)

So, in order to get this kind of image you need to adjust your camera settings in manual mode.

My settings were:

Shutter Speed 1/20 sec.  This is a SLOW speed that leaves your shutter open in order to get that blur.  So you have to be very steady and encourage your subject to try to be as still as possible.   It also lets in lots of light, so you’ll need to close your aperture (or F Stop) down to compensate.  Mine was set to F7.1   And, because this was taken during the day I was at ISO 100.

In this case, I was sitting on the opposite side of the merry go round as her.  At other times I’ll use these settings and just “follow” my subject (also called “Panning”) to keep them in focus and blur the background.

As you can see from all of the images below, it may take a few tries to get it right.

The second way to add motion blur is by panning.  The image below is an example of this.  This method is achieved my standing very stable and “following” your subject with the camera.  My settings were similar F5.6, SS 1/20.  I tried 1/15 but I couldn’t get a sharp subject and at 1/25 my background didn’t blur enough.  So I found 1/20 to be the sweet spot.  But try adjusting the SS to your liking and see how it effects the results.

I’d love to know if you have tried it and to see what your results were!