Hello, been struggleing to get nice sharp action shots so after a bit of advice if i may.
Camera is panosonic Lumix TZ7, i realise that i will never get SLR quality but would like to improve as much as i can with an otherwise great camera.
The camera has a setting of minimum shutter speed set default at 1/8, with options to 1/250 , should i set it at minimum faster speed?
Or would this have a detrimental affect on general shots, also would i be right to assume the camera would then up the ISO automatically to compensate for the faster speed of the shutter..?
Any help will be warmly recieved or if im way off please tell me..

Ta

1/60 or faster should freeze acion, but may get noisey if it's not bright.

Alternatively learn to pan so the background only is blurred.

In short – experiment and see what works for you!

Have you tried using the burst mode?
Admittedly the one from my TX6.5 are still blurry, but at least you get a number of shots to choose from.

try the sports setting and tracking the subject. also, minimizing the angle to which the subject moves helps ie, being almost head-on or behind rather than at 90 degrees. nice bright sunlight does wonders too.
I had a tz3 up to recently and always struggled with low light action shots.

Aye tried the burst mode but its really grainy and low resoulution.
Cynic_al should i half press the shutter then pan or pan then press?

1/60 or faster should freeze acion

Yeah. Righto. 😯

You need to work on your technique. If it's a rider passing you, you gotta pan the camera, if they're coming straight at you, the problem you have is that the autofocus can't keep up with the speed they're moving. In that case, if possible, you need to prefocus on a given point and hit the shutter when the rider passes that point.

Also, if you can, using the flash will freeze action, and if you're panning it should freeze the rider and leave the background blurred. Flash only has a limited range though, so get in close-ish and zoom out.

It also depends where you're shooting. There's less light under tree cover which makes getting a faster shutter speed harder….

Cheers for that , when panning at what point do i half press to focus.?

half-focus at a solid feature near where you plan to shoot the rider as they pass. have it ready before they get there

Erm OK maybes 1/60 is a bit slow, it's what I was told as a youngster!

Half pressing sets auto-focus and exposure. I half-press well in advance of rider passing, then you have plenty of time to pan and get a good shot.

Of course you can also force your flash on, with or without panning, if it's dark-ish and background is not too distant this can create a really nice effect.

This was taken under tree cover, but some dappled sunlight as well. I used a remote flash to (Mostly) freeze the action but you can see that at 1/125 the background is blurred, and I wasn't panning the camera much either.

IMG_8520 by PeterPoddy, on Flickr

I reckopn if you're trying to freeze fast action with shutter speed alone, you're looking at 1/500-ish. Somone will know better than me though 🙂

The problem with completely 'freezing' action is that it then doesn't look like action! You need a bit of blur in the wheels, background, pedals/legs etc. to make it look like an action shot.
I was going to suggest 1/125 as a good starting point and from the looks of PPs pic above that looks OK, but he has used an off-camera flash.

From the sound of the min shutter speed option in your camera, it won't necessarily use that shutter speed, but as you mention it will allow the camera to slow the shutter down to that value before upping the ISO. Perhaps set that to 1/125 as a starting point.

With respect to panning, it is a good technique to practice. You need to pre-focus on a point that is the same distance from the camera as the cyclist will be as they pass. Then hold that pre-focus until they are in your focus area. You need to get the camera moving before that point and then once you've pressed the shutter, keep the camera moving….it's a question of erm, following through.

If the subject is coming towards you then you either need to set the autofocus to continuous, although it might not keep up or pre-focus again and snap them at that point with a high shutter speed.
It might be better to zoom out slightly and crop the image later, as the subject won't move through the frame as quickly if you are zoomed out and your cameras auto-focus might have a better chance of keeping up.

my top tip is try to position yourself on the inside of a bend, then you can have the riders pass you at a constant distance so they stay in focus as you pan 🙂

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos

Just as PeterPoddy said,using flash will really help freeze the action,particularly in the trees.This was at 125th and with a pan was just enough to streak the backgound,the rider stays sharp as he's lit by the flash.

I often shoot at 1/50 sec and get lots of movement, freezing the rider is difficult at this speed, but that's not what I'm looking for.

This guy would suggest 1/160sec to freeze the rider, the writing's Spanish but the numbers no!

I don't know what settings you have on the camera, if you have have fully manual then experiment. Set the speed to 1/160 sec then balance the apeture and ISO to the light you have. Then slow the speed to 1/125sec and compensate the apeture, 1/90sec etc. then see which are easiest or the photos you like.

[Edit – I think you will find most of the guys above are using an SLR, rather than a digital compact to achieve their pics!]

Experimenting with pannning (Canon Ixus 700, ISO400 setting with shutter half-pressed and focussed before hand.) I have some slightly better ones after I practised a few times but not online.

Redwoods Anna by oxym0r0n, on Flickr

I've played around with this at the TT.

Faster shutter speeds just result in relatively staid looking shots, with even the wheel spokes frozen in the shot.

Panning at a slower shutter speed gives an excellent effect – truly captures the speed and excitement of the event.