Photographing movement

Cricket

My first attempt at the motion blur exercise came about during a family game of French cricket. Although there were many factors affecting motion blur aside from shutter speed, I still felt that it was worth showing in my learning log.

I started with a slow shutter speed of 0.3s which produced motion blur in all subjects. Batter and fielders were all considerably blurred, although none as much as the boy running for the ball. My second shot, 1/4s still shows blur in all subjects and the first shot to show any clarity is shot 3; 1/8s showing some clarity in the fielder’s clothing.

The next few shots were all taken from a different perspective with different lighting. In shot 4; 1/15s, we see the batter and one fielder with a large proportion of their bodies in focus, while there is still considerable motion blur in more quickly moving parts such as the bat and other fielder. Shot 5; 1/30s shows only moving limbs, bat and ball blurred, as does shot 6; 1/60, although this shot shows much more clarity to the batter’s face than in any previous shots. By shot 7; 1/125, the ball is looking a little more focused as are the arms, leaving only the bat with noticeable motion blur.

By the final shot; 1/200, most of the motion blur has gone. I feel that this is most noticeable in the ball which is in full focus for the first time. I like this shot as it demonstrates a moment frozen in time although it is not my favourite. The image I like the most is shot 2 as it is focused enough to show the act of batting and catching, while having enough blur to give a definite sense of movement.

Water

As there were so many other factors distracting from the motion blur in the French cricket set, I felt the need to repeat the exercise with a much simpler subject. For this I chose a fountain in the city centre as I knew that for this set, the only change would be in the shutter speed.

The first shot in this set; 0.3s gives the effect of milky tubes of water creating arches above the bowl. By shot 3; 1/8s, the tubes are starting to gradually break up until in shot 6;1/60s, we see definite gaps in the tubes for the first time.

Shot 7; 1/125s is interesting one as the water ascending from the bowl is still fairly tubular, although thinner and no longer milky, yet the descending water is slower and therefore much more broken up. From shot 8; 1/250s onwards, the tubes gradually break down until by the final shot at 1/1000s all we have left is a faint hint of very thin, broken up ascending tubes, mixed with several globules of water in varying shapes. The water at this shutter speed looks like beads of ice suspended in mid air, a definite moment frozen in time.