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Navigating Moving Subjects in Panoramas

Lesson 12 from: Photographing Panoramas for Large Prints

Mike Hagen

Navigating Moving Subjects in Panoramas

Lesson 12 from: Photographing Panoramas for Large Prints

Mike Hagen

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Lesson Info

12. Navigating Moving Subjects in Panoramas

Movement in panoramas creates tricky scenarios -- and can even make a person or moving object appear in your image more than once. While most panorama tutorials will tell you just to avoid moving subjects, Hagen walks through his approach for freezing a moving subject inside a panorama.

Lesson Info

Navigating Moving Subjects in Panoramas

The world does not hold still. So we're doing still photography. And we're taking moments in time. This isn't video work where we want motion. We want still scenes. But here's the deal. When we're shooting our panoramas, sometimes things in the scene move, boats, people, birds, dogs. So I wanna show you how we deal with that in this next segment. So how do we deal with situations where someone's in your scene, or something is in your scene, and it's actually moving. You know, we're shootin' a panorama here. And so what would happen if someone was walking through your scene at the same rate as you're shooting your panorama? Well, they're gonna appear in that final photograph multiple times. So the technique I use is maybe it's a boat, maybe I'm photographing the scene and maybe there's a boat moving or a car moving. I actually will move my panorama in the opposite direction of that movement so that they only appear in one shot in that final sequence. So we're gonna set this up. We have ...

someone out there, they're gonna walk with me as I shoot the photo, click, click, click, click. Then we're gonna do it the correct way where they're walking back this direction and I'm gonna sweep the opposite direction of their movement so they'll only appear one time. So here we go. She's coming in the scene here and I'm photographing. Now she's not walking super-fast so this is gonna take a little bit of time. Normally, I would be panning much quicker. But just to make the point here, I'll move a little, there she is in the next position. (shutter clicks) And I move again, (shutter clicks) and there she is entering the frame. (shutter clicks) Great, so she's gonna appear in this photo probably six or seven times. And I'll shoot again. One more time, I've got about two more shots to go here. And final picture right now, actually I lied, one more. Done, all right, cool. Now we'll shoot the same sequence again except this time she's gonna be walking that direction and I'm gonna set up this way and I'm gonna shoot the opposite of her movement so she's just gonna pass one time. Here we go. Picture number one, two, and I'm moving much quicker this time. And there she is in my frame. And now before I re-frame, I'm gonna make sure she goes all the way out. Done. So here's the result from that great adventure. Monica, our model rocked it. And we got Monica in the scene one, two, three, four times. Now she was in every picture of the panorama. So why doesn't she appear, you know, seven or eight times? Well, the merging software picks a lot of times what elements of each picture it wants. So the merging software actually probably left her out of a few of these photographs. But here you can see that it's a little bit odd. If you're gonna put this up on your wall and the same person or the same bird or boat is in there multiple times, that's an issue. So think through that. There's a boat coming into the scene. So therefore, I should probably shoot opposite the direction of the boat so that it only appears one time in the final image, just like we did here, So here's Monica, again. And if you recall in this scene, I knew she was walking this way, and in fact, these people, who I don't know were also walking that way. So I'm like, oh, cool, well the movement is this way, so I'm gonna shoot opposite of the movement so that those folks only appear one time in the final image.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Panorama Checklist & Gearlist

Ratings and Reviews

Fred Morton
 

Get it, get it and get it. I bought Mike's Speedlight course and this is on the list after watching it on line. The course design by Mike with the Creative Live staff is a successful blend of content and presentation. I absolutely loved how Mike took us on location for several shoots, where we could see the setup and problems that he had to resolve. This is a must have course for photographers interested in landscape work. Another powerful part of this class is Mike's willingness to demonstrate and show us what didn't work. The practical experience in his course was just like being in the field with Mike.

user a5f3c6
 

Mike combines two characteristics of a great teacher: he's obviously knowledgable and competent about his subject matter and he's relaxed and confident in how he presents his ideas. This class covers everything I need to know about photographing and printing panoramas. But, it is much more. It is a class that shows the essential skills involved in shooting, post-processing, and printing photographs and how to apply them to a specific application: panoramas. I learned a lot! Thanks, Mike.

Sue Sirius
 

This workshop was terrific! I learned so much about taking, processing and printing panoramas (and photos in general). I found the presentation very easy to follow with great examples and instructions. Highly recommend this!

Student Work

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