Choose The Right Film Type

Blurred out-of-focus pictures are currently in fashion and selling very well, thereby dismissing all my previous notions of trying to take sharp ones! A lot of the focus shift you see is actually done after shooting, in a computer, but in my opinion blur is best done at the time of shooting.

            When I am on location and hear a police car, ambulance or fire engine siren, I immediately set the aperture to f16 in daylight or f5.6 at night in lit streets, then pan with the vehicle. This will give shutter speeds 1/4 to 1 second, and as with all SLRs you never see what you actually take. This becomes very apparent as you lose the viewfinder image for the shutter duration, so have to pan in limbo. Try keeping the other eye open if it helps, although I never do.

            Learning to pan with fast-moving objects and vehicles is important whether you want sharp or blurred pictures. Practice by doing this on a busy road with passing cars. Set the focus to a distance where a car will fill the frame, then shoot when a car hits that point. With a fast shutter speed the chosen car will be sharp, but with a low shutter speed the image will be blurred. This technique will ensure that some part of the image is actually sharp and then blur away from that point. At night the streaking of car lights adds a more dynamic impression.

            Because it would be very difficult to take a conventionally sharp picture in these circumstances, learning to shoot blurred ones is today a necessary part of travel photography. I have many pictures taken this way now in stock agencies. Many of these photos were taken at London’s Piccadilly Circus at night, showing buses and taxis with blurred neon signs behind. Try it, it’s good fun, as the results are never predictable or quite what you expect!