Panning is one of those techniques where the theory makes sense immediately and the execution takes much longer than you expect.
The basic idea: you track the subject as it moves across your frame, matching its speed with your camera movement, and press the shutter while still panning with it. The subject stays relatively sharp because it holds position in the sensor. Everything else blurs — background streaks, road smears, the car looks like it's actually going somewhere.
In practice, at a track day, you've got a few seconds of position window, a car entering at speed that varies depending on how the previous corner went, some form of fencing or catch net between you and the circuit, and a hit rate that's going to hover around five percent on good panning frames. That's not discouraging once you accept it — it's structural to the technique.
Here's how I work through it.
Shutter speed is the first decision
Everything else follows from this. Slower shutter means more background blur — but it also makes it harder to keep the subject sharp because small errors in your panning motion accumulate. Faster shutter means sharper everything, but at some point the motion disappears and you have a frame that looks like a very fast-looking parked car.
For cars on a track, I start at 1/200s and work downward. At 1/200s there's some blur on the background of a fast car. At 1/125s there's more. At 1/60s it starts looking genuinely dramatic — road smearing, background essentially gone, the car committed to its direction in a way the photo communicates immediately. Below 1/60s hand-held, you're fighting camera shake layered on top of intentional panning blur, and the hit rate drops significantly.
What I'm looking for in a keeper: background blurred enough to read as motion, wheels slightly blurred (the wheel is spinning inside the frame even when the car is only in position for a fraction of a second — that blur tells the story), subject sharp at the cockpit or the leading edge.
Where you stand matters as much as the settings
Panning works best when the car is crossing your frame in a roughly perpendicular line — moving left to right or right to left at constant speed. A car coming directly toward you or going away from you doesn't pan cleanly; there's no lateral movement to track.
The issue at track days is that cars are never moving in a perfectly clean perpendicular line from where you're standing. They're braking into corners, accelerating out, curving through the whole arc. So the practical choice is between straights (full speed, predictable motion, technically clean) and corner exits (visually richer, but the car's speed and direction are both changing through the arc).
I prefer corner exits for the more meaningful shots. The car has more visual content — rotation, tire load under acceleration, the driver committed to a line. A straight-line panning shot is technically correct and a bit empty. A corner-exit panning shot reads as a photograph of something actually happening.
The trade-off is a lower hit rate because the panning motion you need isn't constant. You adapt, shoot more frames, and accept the math.
Shooting through fencing and catch net
Most track days don't give you free access to the barrier wall. You're working behind catch net, through chain-link, or from a designated spectator zone with physical barriers between you and the circuit. This is normal and it's workable.
For chain-link fencing: shoot wide open. At f/1.8 on the Viltrox 85mm, a chain-link fence two or three meters in front of the lens largely disappears. The depth of field is so shallow the fence never fully resolves. Position your eye through a gap in the fence rather than at a wire, and the optical softening takes care of the rest.
Catch net is softer material and dissolves even more readily at wide apertures. Most panning work through catch net at f/1.8 shows almost no trace of the net in the final frame.
What you can't fix optically: a fence post or mounting hardware sitting directly in your line of sight. That's a physical problem and needs a physical solution — move your feet until the obstruction clears.
Hit rate and why it's not a failure metric
On an active session I might put 400–500 frames through the camera. From those I'm looking for 15–25 strong panning frames. Roughly five percent.
First-time panning shooters interpret this as doing something wrong. It isn't. The low hit rate is structural to the technique. What improves over time: reading the car's speed before it enters your window, knowing the corner's geometry, anticipating where in the frame the car will be at peak visual interest. By the time the same car has run the same corner five or six times, you're not guessing anymore — you're waiting for the specific moment you've already seen several times that session.
Safety and access
Stay in the cleared zones. Track days have designated spectator and photographer positions, and those positions exist because real incidents have happened in areas that weren't them. If you want better access or a specific shooting position, talk to the event organizer before the day begins — not during, and definitely not by walking somewhere during a live session.
Wear something visible. A bright jacket, at minimum. If something goes wrong anywhere on circuit, the marshals need to know where all the photographers are. A bright color is the simplest contribution you can make to that.
For motorsport photography Philippines, most track day events are accommodating to a track day photographer PH-based who communicates clearly and stays within the safe zones. The access conversation goes better when you start it the day before, not at the gate.
If you want to understand how event coverage bookings work, the FAQ has the process laid out. The pricing page covers what an Event Coverage package includes for track days and motorsport activations.