[rhodopsin]

Does anyone know how to:

a) Avoid this occurring

&

b) if it does, how to get rid of it.

I think it's caused by poor panning

[CT]

It appears to be a flash problem, or more accurately, a shutter speed/flash problem. Do you have the exif data for this shot?

I'm guessing you used a fairly low flash shutter sync speed, and the ambient light was strong enough to give you ghost images of the brighter parts of the subject - particularly the yellow stripes on the pants, both before the shutter fired, but while it was fully open or nearly so, and again after the flash died but before the shutter closed.

There's nothing wrong with your panning technique, the horizontally moving parts of the biker are sharp, it's the up and down movement of the legs and the bobbing head which have blurred the most.

I'm guessing he must have been going pretty quickly?

[Warspite]

Agreed that its a shutter flash sync issue - for what its worth, I've had similar problems when photographing people.

[CT]

FWIW I don't find the effect unpleasant and it does give an impression of movement. Unlike motor sport where the whole subject is travelling across your field of view, a biker shows movement both horizontally and vertically, and you can't pan for the latter.

The only solution would be a faster shutter speed.

Edit

If you'd have used 2nd curtain sync then the blurring in front of the front forks would have been behind the forks and looked more realistic. If you're going to do a lot of this in the dark or low light I'd say use the fastest sync speed you can and 2nd curtain sync.

[Arkady]

Yes - use rear-curtain synch and it'll look better - it's an accepted technique used by most of the cycling photos I know. Done right it gives an impression of speed and movement. If you freeze the background detail. it looks like the rider is stationary, so you need a little motion blur.
I still think you're over-flashing your shots there - try dialling down the output a little.

[rhodopsin]

Thanx all

Is there anyway of deleting the problem :confused

[CT]

Originally Posted by rhodopsin

Thanx all

Is there anyway of deleting the problem :confused

Do you mean editing the effect out of your existing images? It can be done but it involves a lot of very tedious and time consuming work by hand in PS or whatever editing package you use.

[rhodopsin]

Originally Posted by CT

Do you mean editing the effect out of your existing images? It can be done but it involves a lot of very tedious and time consuming work by hand in PS or whatever editing package you use.

Sorry - yes that's what I meant (late night typo).

I'm just getting used to using CS2. I've been using Elements to do the basic stuff (cropping and basic enhancing).