Slow and steady wins the race…

I took this shot on an Exodus trip to Kicheche Bush Camp in 2018 with Paul Goldstein.

Paul’s a great fan of the slow pan to heighten the sense of energy in action shots, and I’m now his disciple!

The Idea

The problem with taking action shots at a high shutter speeds is that it doesn’t look like anything is actually moving. Imagine taking a shot of a Formula 1 car driving at 200mph down the Hanger straight at Silverstone. If your shutter speed is high (at least 1/1000 of a second), then it just looks as if the car is parked on the track!

Far better to experiment with a much slower shutter speed - around 1/50 to 1/200 of a second - in order to generate blur in the right places.

The exact shutter speed to use depends on the speed of your subject and its angle of movement: the faster it is and the closer it is to moving at right angles to you across the frame, the faster your shutter speed needs to be.

The idea, though, is to keep it as SLOW as possible while still keeping the most important part of the subject sharp. In the case of wildlife, that will be the eye (or just the head if the animal is smaller or further away).

For the cheetah shot above, I used 1/100 of a second, and the head is pretty sharp (although not quite perfect).

However, the cheetah’s legs and the background are also blurred, and that gives a much more vivid impression of the movement of the animal, which was sprinting across the savannah at around 70mph!

The Equipment

A lot of photographers are guilty of buying very expensive cameras they don’t really need - and I’ve probably done that myself! - but the slow pan is one of the shots that make it all worthwhile.

The key here is the frame rate. The higher it is, the more shots you can squeeze out during the few seconds when the animal is in the frame.

For example, Paul Goldstein has a Canon camera with a frame rate of 13fps, so he tends to use 1/13 of a second quite a lot as that means his shutter is open for as long as possible while still getting 13 bites at the cherry every second.

The frame rate of my old Nikon D850 was only 7fps, so that’s why I bought the MB-D18 battery pack that boosted it to 9fps. However, I now have a pair of Sony ⍺1 mirrorless cameras that can shoot at up to 30fps!

It’s really just a numbers game, so the more shots you take, the more likely you are to succeed. You only need one…

Another useful piece of equipment is a variable Neutral Density (or ND) filter. This is very handy in bright light as it lets you shoot at much lower shutter speeds and wider apertures.

In Africa, especially, you tend to get very bright sunshine during the middle of the day. That makes it almost impossible to take slow pans of walking animals at around 1/4 of a second without an ND filter.

There’s so much light that the aperture of your lens maxes out at f/22 or f/32. You’ll already be at the lowest possible ISO, so the only way to get the right exposure is to increase the shutter speed. Unfortunately, that means you won’t get the creative blur you’re looking for.

An ND filter solves that problem immediately, and a variable ND filter means you can turn it to control the amount of light entering the lens. That means you can shoot at whatever shutter speed and aperture you like.

There’s also one more benefit. Shooting at narrow apertures such as f/22 or f/32 is likely to leave you with annoying sensor spots on your images. Using an ND filter lets you shoot at f/5.6 or f/8, which means they soften or even disappear!

Finally, a tripod with a damped gimbal head helps enormously if you’re not in a vehicle. It allows you to pan much more smoothly and accurately, which means you’re much more likely to get good results.

The Settings

The slow pan is a very difficult shot to pull off. You have to have the right settings, good technique and, of course, a large dollop of luck…!

So what can you do to improve your chances?

The most important thing is careful preparation. “The readiness is all,” as Shakespeare would say, and that means first of all choosing the right settings.

Shooting Mode and ISO

You should probably be on Manual with Auto ISO in order to have absolute control over the most important settings, which are the shutter speed and aperture.

Some people feel a bit nervous about using Manual, but switching to Auto ISO means you’re still really on automatic as you don’t have to worry about getting the right exposure.

However, game drives in Africa often take place in bright sunlight, and that means you might run up against the aperture limit of your camera and lens, which might be f/32 or f/36.

If that happens (or if you’re simply worried about the diffraction that tends to soften images at narrow apertures), you might want to switch to shutter priority (or Time Value, if you’re a Canon user). You might then be able to set an artificially low ISO value that’s not available using Auto ISO.

On my old Nikon D850, for example, the base ISO was 64, but I could go all the way down to ISO 32 if I selected it manually. That gave me an extra stop of wiggle room when it came to my aperture setting.

Alternatively, you can add a Neutral Density (ND) or polarising filter to reduce the amount of light hitting the sensor—or perhaps use a 1.4x teleconverter (or extender if you’re a Canon user), which would take away one stop.

Finally, consider your frame rate.

Taking slow pan shots is a bit like entering the lottery in that it’s a numbers game, and the higher the frame rate, the more shots you get.

However, a high frame rate also means that your shutter is open for longer, which means the autofocus system can’t operate and, if you’re using a DSLR, you can’t see through the viewfinder!

I generally use the highest frame rate I can, but it’s worth experimenting.

Shutter Speed

You should choose a shutter speed that gives you the best chance of keeping the animal’s eye sharp while blurring its legs (or wings) and the background.

This will obviously be a lot slower than you’re used to using!

It’s not an exact science, but the slower the animal or bird, the slower your shutter speed should be to get the same amount of blur. You’ll obviously have to experiment in the field, but the slow pan works best if your subject is moving at 90° to the direction you’re shooting in.

Here’s a rough guide, based on the rule of thumb that the shutter speed should be the inverse of the subject’s speed in miles per hour. (In other words, if an elephant’s walking at around 4 mph, you’ll need to dial in a shutter speed of 1/4 of a second.)

Elephant: 1/4 of a second
Walking animal, eg lion: 1/5-1/10
Trotting animal, eg wild dogs: 1/10-1/30
Running animal, eg impala: 1/50-1/60
Cheetah at full speed: 1/30-1/80
Large birds in flight: 1/50-1/100
Small birds in flight: 1/100-1/200

When you’ve taken your first burst of slow pan shots, you should check them on the back of your camera, preferably at 100%.

(On Nikon camera bodies, you can change the settings so that pressing the Multi Selector Centre Button in playback mode zooms in immediately to 100%, which is very handy.)

If the animal’s eye is consistently not sharp enough, you might have to choose a faster shutter speed, but if its legs or the background aren’t blurred enough, you might need to choose a slower shutter speed.

But that’s where it gets a bit tricky: is the lack of sharpness due to the wrong shutter speed, or is it just poor technique?

After taking slow pan shots for a while, you’ll get better at making these sorts of calls, but it’s never easy…

Aperture

The aperture is not really important when you’re taking slow pan shots as the background is supposed to be blurred, but in order to get slow enough shutter speeds, you’ll probably still have to adjust the aperture as your ISO won’t be low enough.

If it’s a cloudy day, that might be f/16 or f/22, but in bright sunshine in Africa I’ve often had to use f/36!

As discussed, the problem with very narrow apertures is that you get diffraction effects and more obvious sensor spots. You can solve those problems by using an ND filter.

Exposure Compensation

Tastes differ, but Paul Goldstein reckons that if you’re slow panning a cheetah, your shots might look a bit better with 1/3 or 2/3 of a stop of positive exposure compensation.

Focusing Mode

You should be using AF-C (Nikon or Sony) or AI-Servo (Canon). This allows the focus to be updated continuously as the animal moves. There are different versions available, but I used to use Nikon’s 3D tracking - although I experimented with the d25 option that didn’t track the subject but used 25 points instead of just one.

My Sony ⍺1 cameras are mirrorless and have eye detection, so I don’t have to worry about the number of focus points. I tend to use the Zone focus area to help the camera acquire focus, but it depends on the situation.

Image Stabilisation

Most high-end lenses offer different image stabilisation modes, so it’s worth making sure you’re using the right one:

Mode 1 is for general use and prevents the camera from lurching in all directions.
Mode 2 is for panning (either horizontally or vertically) and only damps movement in the wrong direction.
Mode 3 differs by manufacturer, but it tends to be for erratic movement, such as when you’re on a boat.

Back Button Focus (BBF)

Finally, I’d use Back Button Focus so that you can keep focusing even when you’re taking pictures. It’s not as necessary with a mirrorless camera, but I guess I’m just a creature of habit…!

Technique

When it comes to the technique of panning itself, there are a few things to bear in mind:

If you’re on safari in a vehicle with an open top, you should be standing up and resting the end of your lens on a beanbag on the rail that goes round the edge of the roof. That gives you the best view and allows you to pan properly. If not, you’ll have to do it from your seat.
There’ll probably be at least one other person in the truck, so it’s worth moving your lens from one side to another beforehand just to make sure you have enough room to work.
Keep your elbows tucked in at your sides for stability and hold the camera with both hands - rather like the tail gunner in a Lancaster bomber!
Keep your left eye open while panning in order to keep track of the animal (and anything else that happens).
When the action starts, it’s important to pan across smoothly with the subject, relying on your torso and big muscle groups rather than your wrists and arms.
Take pictures only in the second quarter of the panning arc (ie after you’ve had time to get used to the motion of the animal but before it starts to face away from you).
If you have a DSLR, use a single focus point and move it so that it’s on the eye of the animal. That usually means off to one side of the frame (before tracking begins). Whatever camera you have, it’s useful to have a static reference point, so I turn on the thirds gridlines in my viewfinder and use one of the lines or crossing points.
Try to take short bursts rather than one long ‘spray and pray’. If you’re using a DSLR, the fact that the mirror is constantly coming down will slightly impede your view, so you might need to take a break to make sure you’re still following your subject and - crucially - that you still have focus lock. Once you lose focus, it doesn’t matter how many shots you take because you won’t want any of them!

You should also consider using a tripod if you can. It’s impossible on a game drive, but that’s another way to give yourself a better chance of success.

One of the keys to getting a good slow pan shot is to follow the animal as smoothly as possible, and that’s obviously much easier with a tripod.

You’ll get the best possible results with a Wimberley gimbal tripod head, but they cost hundreds of pounds and are not really necessary.

I took a few slow pans of women riding horses in Namibia in October 2020. On the first day, I didn’t use my tripod, but on the second I did. And the results were much better!

Conclusion

If you manage to follow all those tips, then - who knows? - you might get lucky. As Gary Player always used to say, “The more I practise, the luckier I get!”

The only problem, of course, is that most people don’t spend all year round on photographic trips, so the best thing to do before you go abroad is to practise closer to home. That might involve deer in your local park, birds in flight or just cars and bicycles on a nearby main road.

To summarise, the slow pan is an exercise in risk and reward. It’s much more difficult to pull off, but the prize is that much greater.

If you want to sell more prints, win competitions or just impress your family and friends, it pays to experiment. When Paul Goldstein first taught me the slow pan on a cruise in Spitsbergen, I took 1,504 pictures during the day, and I only kept four!

However, I’ve practised as much as possible, and my hit rate now is much higher. I still fluffed my chance when I saw a cheetah kill on my second trip to Kicheche, but I’m not giving up!

Good luck…!

If you’d like to order a framed print of one of my wildlife photographs, please visit the Prints page.

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Capture the Moment!

The Slow Pan