It was a mixed weather day with rain and sunshine in Cambridge where I shot this in July of 2017.
I am a member of my local camera club and once a year we have a fun competition called the “Prime Lens Challenge” where a bunch of us go out shooting in a chosen location on a chosen day. The rules are simple, one camera and one prime lens is all you can bring with you. My weapon of choice was an Olympus OMD EM1 Mark 2 and an Olympus 17mm f/1.8 prime lens. A few weeks later the images are displayed at the club and a judge would mark them and pick a winner. I didn’t win, but much to my pleasure, it scored well and the judge loved it.
What struck me about Cambridge was the sheer amount of cyclists, there were many. Now I’m no expert at panning but this did offer a great opportunity for me to practice. The camera was set at continuous focus and the FPS (Frames Per Second) was set to “low” which I had preset to 10 FPS. The high setting on this camera can go up to a ridiculous 60 FPS, which is….well..... ridiculous. It wouldn't really work here as the camera cannot re-focus between shots at that rate.
By trial and error I had worked out that 1/60th second was a good shutter speed to keep the subject sharp and show some motion in the background and in the spokes of the wheels.
I think I lucked out here, although you do make your own luck. At the time I was engaged in some banter with a fellow club member and could see the bicycle coming towards me down the road a little. I had little time, but the camera was set correctly so down I went on my haunches, panned and fired off a number of shots.
My excitement rose exponentially as until that moment I had no idea of the baby on board. Added to that, to have that beautiful baby looking right at me, at that precise moment and to not mess up the panning, (most of my pans are just that, messed up), I felt as though the photography gods were on my side and all is well with the world.
I got up and looked at the result on the back of my camera and think I let out a yelp of delight as I could see the image was sharp and “blurred” in all the right places. My friend asked to have a look and then swore at me in a complimentary manner using a word beginning with the letter "B" (no prizes for guessing what that word was). It was a special moment I enjoyed immensely.
Thanks for reading.
Richee
