A guide to

Panning and Camera Shake

  • 1. TTG photographers need not hold the camera perfectly still while recording a single-exposure photograph.

    Neither mild “camera shake” nor “panning to follow a moving subject” — including use of a star tracker for astrophotography — disqualify a single-exposure photograph from TTG.

    (Of course, if everything in the photo is blurred beyond recognition, the photograph will be disqualified by P7.)

  • 2. Panning does not disqualify a single-exposure photograph from TTG’s “one view” requirement in P3.

    That’s because one constant view of some part of the subject is always maintained or the photograph will be too blurred overall to meet P7.

  • 3. But panning while recording a photograph that combines successive exposures always disqualifies the result from TTG.

    This is clearly spelled out in #2 of P3.

  • 4. The usual methods of reducing the effects of camera shake do not disqualify photographs from TTG.

    Image stabilization lenses and sensors, tripods, gimbal stabilizers, and other common methods of reducing camera shake are allowed when making TTG photographs (as per #1-G in “Motion-related effects allowed by TTG”).

  • 5. Changing the focal length of a lens [“zooming”] during the exposure(s) always renders the resulting image ineligible for TTG.

    (More on TTG-ineligible photographs)

    Changing the focal length of a lens [“zooming”] during the exposure(s) always renders the resulting image TTG-ineligible, as per P3’s requirement that only one focal length be used to make the photograph.

    Further disqualifying the photo, zooming the lens during the exposure results in the presence of blur that was not the result of the camera and subject moving in relation to each other: that photo could not meet P7 no matter how it was processed or explained.

    Note that a photograph is NOT disqualified from TTG for depicting actual motion blur that is caused by the camera and subject moving in relation to each other during the exposure (subject to the sasibe standard, as per P5 and P7).