Photographing runners

c.d.ewen · Mar 1, 2025

I'd like to take a picture of my daughter running. What I envision is panning on her as she passes, and using a slower shutter speed to produce some blurring, hopefully thus suggesting movement. I'd appreciate any suggestions on shutter settings, rather than waste film experimenting from complete ignorance. If you have any suggestions about at what point in the runner's stride to shoot, I'd appreciate that, too.

She's training for the London Marathon, so we're not talking about blurring somebody like Usain Bolt.

Thanks in advance.

Charley

cliveh · Mar 1, 2025

I use to do panning shots with my students and the best examples I have ever seen is when they cheat by using a children's roundabout in a children's playground. If you stand near the centre of the roundabout and photograph your daughter pretending to run on the edge with a shutter speed of about 1/30th of a second, you will match her speed exactly, while the background is a burr.

pentaxuser · Mar 1, 2025

Best of luck. It might make sense to try photographing her as she passes you at marathon speed on a home town street I'd try to do it in similar weather thus similar light conditions. It may not take many shots at different shutter speeds to nail it down and is worth "wasting" several frames to find out before you go

Even a full set of frames as the experiment is a tiny price compared to the cost of getting to London

pentaxuser

c.d.ewen · Mar 1, 2025

Thanks for the suggestions. Background blurring is the easy part. I had meant, but neglected to say, that I was looking to perhaps blur hands and feet.

Yes, 1/30th was where I was going to start.

I'm musing about different focal lengths as whether I can get foot blurring with no background blurring.

It's a pain to photograph marathoners, as you've got to snap a picture, then get into your car and drive a mile down the road for the next shot.

As to similar weather conditions, well, she's in New Hampshire, where there's still 3-4 foot snow plow piles along the roads.

Charley

koraks · Mar 2, 2025

Practice with a digital camera to find the optimum combination, then reproduce on film.
I expect your best results would be with 1/10 to 1/50s. It may help to use a tripod with a swivel head so you limit vertical blur, which you don't necessarily want (although a runner's head will of course bob up and down). This will also allow you to use a longer lens which will blur the background a little more - although you could also go the other way and shoot a wide-angle up-close as she passes by. Both can work well, but will be a different effect.

c.d.ewen · Mar 2, 2025

Digital is a good suggestion. Let's me try out different speeds and focal lengths.

Thanks.

Charley

pentaxuser · Mar 2, 2025

I suspect that unless you can get into a street where there are relatively few onlookers and at a distance in the race where runners are well spaced then any good still shot of your daughter might be a bonus even wíthout any background blur other than what may be possible with feet and hands alone in say 1/30th with a relatively slow film

The more I think about it then the more I think the exact or nearly exactly right combo of aperture shutter and best film speed might be quite difficult but I hope it all succeeds

pentaxuser

c.d.ewen · Mar 2, 2025

I agree it's a challenge, but that's what makes it fun. I'm only risking time and film.

Alas, I won't be in London for the race. I'll be in New Hampshire next week and will experiment. Thus the request for guidance.

For those who may not know, there are seven "major" world marathons. She's knocked off the US ones (NY, Bos, Chi); did Berlin last year. Leaves only London, Tokyo and Sydney.

My sincerest thanks to all.

Charley

Don_ih · Mar 2, 2025

Blurred background and a bit of arm/leg motion blur can probably be achieved by you moving along with the runner. Maybe try riding in a car (someone else driving) keeping pace with how fast shes going. Need to try to keep the camera steady.

Maybe an empty parking lot would be a good place to try that.

Ian Grant · Mar 2, 2025

It's rather a long time since I photographed runners (1971), I know I used a 135mm lens as that was all I had aside from my 58mm standard lens. These days I guess I would use a 70-210 zoom.

You will probably get sufficient hand/arm and lower leg movement at 1/60, also think of ISO and using around 135mm and a wider aperture helps.

Ian

Mike Lopez · Mar 2, 2025

c.d.ewen said:
I agree it's a challenge, but that's what makes it fun. I'm only risking time and film.

Alas, I won't be in London for the race. I'll be in New Hampshire next week and will experiment. Thus the request for guidance.

For those who may not know, there are seven "major" world marathons. She's knocked off the US ones (NY, Bos, Chi); did Berlin last year. Leaves only London, Tokyo and Sydney.

My sincerest thanks to all.

Charley

Ah, then there’s a chance she could be onsite when the world’s first sub-2:00 happens in a sanctioned race (Jacob Kiplimo might have the fitness to pull this off). Good luck to her!

Vaughn · Mar 2, 2025

I like the idea of timing the exposure so that her leading foot just hits the ground and is relatively still, contrasted with the rest of the body in motion. And should it be the near or far foot from the camera?

So how long is one foot on the ground? Interesting...

Don_ih · Mar 2, 2025

We need Eadweard Muybrigde on it.

Mike Lopez · Mar 2, 2025

Vaughn said:
I like the idea of timing the exposure so that her leading foot just hits the ground and is relatively still, contrasted with the rest of the body in motion. And should it be the near or far foot from the camera?

So how long is one foot on the ground? Interesting...

According to the data from this morning’s run, my average ground contact time was 228 milliseconds. And while my legs weren’t exactly fresh, this was not a marathon, meaning that number could be expected to go up with increasing fatigue.

wiltw · Mar 2, 2025

If running at 10 mph over the ground, the runner has horizontal motion of 176 inches per second...the foot on the ground is -176 ips relative to the runner's waist at 0.0 ips if body motion is neutralized by panning at the same rate as forward motion. So if shooting at 1/100 the waist is motionless (ignoring any vertical motion seen in someone jogging) and the foor on the ground is moving -1.76" during that 1/100 shutter open time. You can do the rest of the calculations per your chosen shutter speed...e.g. foot on the ground is moving -5.87" relative to the runner's waist assuming 1/30 shutter.

MattKing · Mar 2, 2025

Don_ih said:
We need Eadweard Muybrigde on it.

View attachment 392638

wiltw said:
If running at 10 mph over the ground, the runner has horizontal motion of 176 inches per second...the foot on the ground is -176 ips relative to the runner's waist at 0.0 ips if body motion is neutralized by panning at the same rate as forward motion. So if shooting at 1/100 the waist is motionless (ignoring any vertical motion seen in someone jogging) and the foor on the ground is moving -1.76" during that 1/100 shutter open time. You can do the rest of the calculations per your chosen shutter speed...e.g. foot on the ground is moving -5.87" relative to the runner's waist assuming 1/30 shutter.

Perhaps we don't need the actual Eadward Muybridge after all .
If you read up on the rest of Eadward Muybridge's life, you might understand why we probably don't want him either.

The advice above respecting trials with a digital camera is excellent. So much of this is really a matter of taste as to how much blur is "good blur".

pentaxuser · Mar 2, 2025

wiltw's formula's basis sounds pretty good. I saw a picture of a runner sprinting for the finishing line and as described by wiltw the feet were blurred, the hands less so and the rest of his body had no real blur at all The picture gave no shutter speed info unfortunately but I suspect only difference may have been that the runner may have been at 15 mph or slightly more running as he was towards the line and probably not completing a race of 26 miles

pentaxuser

Vaughn · Mar 2, 2025

Don_ih said:
We need Eadweard Muybrigde on it.

So about 1/8 second, with the ground-touching foot closest to the camera so I have the other leg making a full motion forward blur behind.

Muybridge had a well-to-do patron, Mr Stanford. I would not mind that too much.

c.d.ewen · Mar 2, 2025

Thanks for all the good suggestions and discussion.

I'll take the digital down to the high school track, where I can have multiple subjects.

Charley

foc · Mar 3, 2025

Here is a simple panning test I tried many years ago with my Zenit 11 with a Optomax 135mm f2.8 lens.
The film was Fujicolor C200. I got the blur correct but the subject is a little out of focus. Considering I was shooting at 1/60 sec @ f22 on the Zenit (remember the big mirror slap of the Zenit) I think it turned out ok for a first effort.

I know it's not a runner but hope the sample might help.

VinceInMT · Mar 3, 2025

I was a high school cross country coach for a decade and carried a small digital camera with me or a small video camera in order to document the season. I think I shot about 3,000 images each season. I ran all the workouts with my runners and on race days I’d run all over the course to make sure I got videos and stills of each one of them. I’d usually cover about 13 miles on some of those days. One piece of advice I’d give based on the many running pictures other have done is to fill the frame with the runner. You want the runner rather than the scenery. For those motion shots I’d get in the insides of a curve so I could pan as they went by and they’d be a static distance from me usually getting a few shots before they were out of range.

RalphLambrecht · Mar 3, 2025

c.d.ewen said:
Thanks for the suggestions. Background blurring is the easy part. I had meant, but neglected to say, that I was looking to perhaps blur hands and feet.

Yes, 1/30th was where I was going to start.

I'm musing about different focal lengths as whether I can get foot blurring with no background blurring.

It's a pain to photograph marathoners, as you've got to snap a picture, then get into your car and drive a mile down the road for the next shot.

As to similar weather conditions, well, she's in New Hampshire, where there's still 3-4 foot snow plow piles along the roads.

Charley

I agree that1/30 or 1/15 is a good place to start. Also, a could freeze her while there is still a blur from the shutter being open for a 1/30s. Overlaying both will enhance the suggestion of motion.

Axelwik · Mar 5, 2025

Sometimes it adds interest to photograph runners from a different perspective. I've used a wide lens from above to good effect. Set a good hyperfocal distance and attach the camera to a monopod with a long release. Helps to have a motor winder. The same setup from ground level looking up, camera upside-down.

reddesert · Mar 9, 2025

A common technique for people photographing at events is to set up somewhere that you can get the runners approaching (photographer almost along path of runner), use a longish focal length lens to get a close view and blur the background, and fire off a few shots as the runner approaches. While not as cool as the profile shot with motion blur, it has a few good points:
- may be able choose the spot to have less-distracting or even scenic background (I mostly do/volunteer at trail running events, where there is more scenery)
- getting more than one shot can be helpful, because runners putting out a strong effort may be clenching their jaw, grimacing, have hair flying in their face, or look funny for one reason or another (I swear I'm the epitome of grace when I run, it's just the still pictures that make me look like a duck).

Ian Grant · Mar 10, 2025

A thought, how much difference in the effects of movement bur would there be between a Horizontal cloth shutter and a metal bladed Vertical shutter.

I assume the 1912 Lartigue image of a moving car and oval wheels us was made with a vertical running cloth shutter, but of course a larger format will increase the effect.

Ian.

Photographing runners

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