New Orleans Trolley in Action

One of my favorite photos. This is a trolley running in the French Quarter area near the Mississippi River. I like how it gives the sense of watching the trolley roll by with the background blurred from motion. If a person were to be standing there looking at the trolley, their eyes would have the same effect. The trolley would be in focus as you track it and the background would just scroll by.

To achieve this effect, I set the camera to AI Servo mode to track the trolley and continually focus on it. I set the speed fairly slow for this telephoto lens (1/30). I knew that at that speed, moving the camera across the background would blur it. Being that the lens was also non-ImageStabilized, I chose that speed as the slowest at which I could keep the trolley in focus. It's more of a problem of tracking and keeping the same focus spot to keep the trolley sharp. Any slower and I would have had to track the trolley longer, and therefore increasing the risk of it becoming out of focus. Any faster and you would lose some of the background blur that gives it motion. Lastly, during cropping, I made sure to place the trolley to the right side of the frame to give the sense of movement towards the left side...reinforcing the in motion feeling.