The Secret to Great Panning Shots

I'll just go ahead and let the cat out of the bag right at the beginning:  The secret to getting a great panning shot is that there's no secret.  It takes practice, practice and more practice.  Once you have the camera settings correct, the rest is just down to timing and finesse.  Getting ready for your first motorsport event boils down to three things:  Settings on the camera, thinking about your composition, and practicing movement.

1.  The Settings

When doing a motion shot, the chances are you'll be either at a racetrack or on the street, and it will be daytime.  In those conditions, Automatic settings will be too fast for you to get the right motion, so you'll need to either set everything yourself in Manual, or use Shutter Priority.  Use Shutter Priority for now.  Since we want to show blur, shutter speed is the most important factor.  For racetracks, or wherever the cars are going over 100MPH, I'll usually start at 1/60 for medium-frame, and as I zoom closer to the car, I'll get up to 1/100.  This is a guideline only and will require some experimentation, since the best-looking blur will need different shutter speeds, depending not only on how much of the frame is filled with the car, but also how fast the car is going, and your angle to the car.  If a car is coming almost straight at you, you'll need to leave the shutter open longer, since you'll be moving the camera more slowly.

Focus is critical here.  If your camera has a FAST autofocus, you can use that, but most cameras won't be able to keep up with the movement, so you'll need to adjust the focus manually as the car moves past your field of view.  Give the autofocus a shot, but don't be surprised if you need to take over.  This will take a lot of practice, so don't be discouraged at the number of OOF (out-of-focus) shots you take.  You can fake it by being far away from the action and being focused on infinity while zooming way in, but keeping the car in frame will be more difficult.

2.  Composition and Framing

Basics

Generally, the same guidelines (rule of thirds and angles of interest, among others) apply when shooting motion as when shooting still, but here you'll want to try to lead the viewer into thinking the car is literally in motion.  To assist in this, you'll most often want to shoot with the back of the car near the edge of the frame, and the nose of the car near the middle of the frame.  This helps the viewer realize that the car is moving forward, by forcing us to look ahead of the speeding car, and shows us that the action will soon be taking place to the front of the car.  However, depending on the shot you're trying to portray, it may be just as valid to do the opposite; put the rear of the car in the center of the frame.  This is very useful when showing a burnout, as it not only shows the smoke and rubber, but also tells our brain that the car is leaving the frame very quickly.  Here, the interest is in what just happened, not what's about to.  Just keep in mind the type of shot you want.

This shot gives the illusion
of motion, but the car does
get lost when the picture is
small, as it is here!

As You Get Better
The most interesting action shots of motorsports often won't have the whole car, or bike, in the frame.  So try to concentrate on a portion of the car that promotes movement and power.  That can be a corporate logo, the front showing the engine bay, the driver finessing through a curve, the front tire kissing the median strip, or a hundred other angles.  Use your imagination!  For bikes, try to show how hard the rider is working, which will be more evident while he's in the air, in the middle of a turn, or passing another rider.

You can also start introducing other elements into your shots, like the grandstand, pit area, other cars or riders, or even landmarks!

Using less of the car gives more of an impact.

3.  Practicing Movement

This is where the practice comes in.  You'll be moving the camera in order to keep the car still in the frame, which will allow it to remain in focus.  Keep one elbow against your body to help out.  Use your other hand to hold up the lens and move focus at the same time.  And keep your finger on that shutter, firing off as many shots as you can.  The days of film are long gone, so fill up that card while you're learning.  It may not surprise you that the photographers shooting the most recent Olympics expected to shoot over 100,000 frames during the two weeks of games.  So now it doesn't seem that bad to burn through a thousand shots in a few hours, does it?

Practice makes perfect, but don't be surprised if you don't get any usable shots the first time out.  Even after a couple of days of practice with various angles, you still may have 90% garbage, 8 or 9% not-all-that-great, and 1 or 2% that's usable.  That's fine!  Your percentage will go up as you work harder.

What Have We Learned?

The most important lesson to take from this is that the settings will come easily, but the technique will not.  You should come up with ways of making things easier for yourself, like using a tripod with a loosened collar or a monopod, but you shouldn't think that you can get wonderful shots the first time out.  But if you work at it, you'll get to the point where you're confident enough in your abilities that you'll know you can get great shots at any event.