Panning (camera)
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cinematography Cinematography () is the art of motion picture (and more recently, electronic video camera) photography. Cinematographers use a lens (optics), lens to focus reflected light from objects into a real image that is transferred to some image sen ...
and
photography Photography is the visual arts, art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is empl ...
, panning means swivelling a still or video camera horizontally from a fixed position. This motion is similar to the motion of a person when they turn their head on their neck from left to right. In the resulting image, the view seems to "pass by" the spectator as new material appears on one side of the screen and exits from the other, although perspective lines reveal that the entire image is seen from a fixed point of view. The term ''panning'' is derived from ''
panorama A panorama (formed from Greek language, Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any Obtuse angle, wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography (panoramic photography), film, seismic image ...
'', suggesting an expansive view that exceeds the gaze, forcing the viewer to turn their head in order to take everything in. Panning, in other words, is a device for gradually revealing and incorporating off-screen space into the image.


Using panning in still photography

When photographing a moving subject, the panning technique is achieved by keeping the subject in the same position of the frame for the duration of the exposure. The exposure time must be long enough to allow the background to blur due to the camera movement as the photographer follows the subject in the viewfinder. The exact length of exposure required will depend on the speed at which the subject is moving, the focal length of the lens and the distance from the subject and background. An F1 car speeding along a straight might allow the photographer to achieve a blurred background at 1/250 second, while the photographer might need to go as slow as 1/40 to achieve the same amount of blur for a picture of a running man. The faster
shutter speed In photography, shutter speed or exposure time is the length of time that the film or digital sensor inside the camera is exposed to light (that is, when the camera's shutter (photography), shutter is open) when taking a photograph. The am ...
allowed by fast moving subjects are easier to capture in a smoothly panned shot. With slower moving subjects, the risk is that the panning motion will be jerky, and it is also harder to keep the subject in the same position of the frame for the longer period of time. To aid in capturing panned pictures, photographers use aids such as tripods and monopods, which make it easy to swing the camera along one plane, while keeping it steady in the others.


See also

*
Camera angle The camera angle marks the specific location at which the movie camera or video camera is placed to take a shot. A scene may be shot from several camera angles simultaneously. This will give a different experience and sometimes emotion. The diff ...
*
Equatorial mount An equatorial mount is a mount for instruments that compensates for Earth's rotation by having one rotational axis, called ''polar axis'', parallel to the Earth's axis of rotation. This type of mount is used for astronomical telescope mount, tel ...
which allows astronomers to take pictures of stars and galaxies by compensating for Earth's movement *
Pan and scan Pan and scan is a film editing technique used to modify widescreen images for display on a fullscreen screen. It involves cropping the sides of the original widescreen image and panning across it when the shot's focus changes. This cropping c ...
* Pan–tilt–zoom camera (PTZ) * Tilt (camera) * Tripod (photography) *
View camera A view camera is a large format, large-format camera in which the large format lens, lens forms an erect image, inverted image on a ground glass, ground-glass screen directly at the film plane. The image is viewed, composed, and focused, then the ...
* Zoom lens *
Yaw (rotation) A yaw rotation is a movement around the yaw axis of a rigid body that changes the direction it is pointing, to the left or right of its direction of motion. The yaw rate or yaw velocity of a car, aircraft, projectile or other rigid body is the ...


References


External links

{{Cinematic techniques Cinematography Photographic techniques Television terminology