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Google Pixel vs mirrorless camera for action panning: which is easiest?
Getting the photo I imagined during the Moto2 and Moto3 races was much easier with the Pixel 6.
The Action Pan computational photography effect(Image credit: Future | Tim Coleman)
Next up I took some panning shots with my mirrorless camera.
It was purely up to me and my technique, and it was hugely challenging.
I began getting sharper shots of the subject, but at the cost of background motion blur.
The Action Pan computational photography effect(Image credit: Future | Tim Coleman)
Frankly, just getting motorbikes in the frame at all proved a challenge.
Just how reliable is Action Pan?
I got lucky with one phone shot in fifty; the rest were unusable.
Here’s the original image(Image credit: Future | Tim Coleman)
Google Pixel’s Action Pan vs mirrorless: which would I choose?
Neither camera used in this test is the latest and greatest of its kind.
Pixel’s Action Pan mode in this test proved a bona fide hit.
When Action Pan doesn’t work Pt.1(Image credit: Future | Tim Coleman)
It’s fallible, but it’ll get you sports shots with a difference in no time at all.
Those with time and patience will get even better results with a mirrorless camera.
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When Action Pan doesn’t work Pt.2 – perhaps it thinks the crowd is the subject here?(Image credit: Future | Tim Coleman)
When Action Pan doesn’t work Pt.3(Image credit: Future | Tim Coleman)
It was much easier to get these results using the Pixel 6’s Action Pan mode than a mirrorless camera(Image credit: Future | Tim Coleman)
On the money again. However if you look closely at the subject, the detail isn’t smoothed out directly around the subject.(Image credit: Future | Tim Coleman)
There’s so many attributes that make a good action panning photo, but the biggest challenge of all is framing the shot, especially when subjects are as fast as a MotoGP motorbike. This is one of the sharpest results I got with the mirrorless camera, but the riders are almost out of shot.(Image credit: Future | Tim Coleman)
Finding the right place to take photos can be a challenge too. I like the photo made with the Nikon mirrorless camera, but I don’t like how busy the scene is.(Image credit: Future | Tim Coleman)
All but a tiniest fraction of a second before the previous image where the subject is sharp, but here it’s blurry. There’s the narrowest of windows when all the elements combine.(Image credit: Future | Tim Coleman)
This photo would count as one of my better efforts when getting started with the technique(Image credit: Future | Tim Coleman)
This closeup of the previous image reveals that detail of the rider and their motorbike is soft.(Image credit: Future | Tim Coleman)
One of the best efforts from the day with my Nikon Z6 II mirrorless camera(Image credit: Future | Tim Coleman)
I haven’t edited this photo. If I did, I could increase sharpness on the subject even further(Image credit: Future | Tim Coleman)
Here’s the uncropped version of the photo which demonstrates just how much you can crop into a photo taken by a mirrorless camera.(Image credit: Future | Tim Coleman)
Next time I try the Action Pan technique, I hope to use the latest Pixel phone equipped with a telephoto lens
