Always “In the Bag!”

I love the old classics and this is a great example of a Cessna 150. What I don’t like is the dull light, busy backgrounds and dead grass foreground. But that’s what life presented me on Saturday so how to make lemonade from the lemons? I fell back on the basics and in this case, the slowest possible shutter speed to blur the background while keeping the Cessna 150 tack sharp. In other words, what’s always in my bag, solid panning technique!

My video goes through the technique, hasn’t change from when it was taught to me forty some odd years ago. In this case, ISO100, 1/50 @f22 was the formula. One added plus to the effect was the proximity to the runway. Three Forks is a small field with one runway that one can stand really close to. How does the help? The closer to the subject, the faster the pan. The fast the pan the more blurred the background. The Cessna 150 on take off isn’t going very fast, about 55mph here. But with the fast pan and the slower shutter speed, it looks pretty fast. More importantly, the boring light, foreground and background start to melt away. That’s why I continually practie my panning, it’s always in the bag!