I find best results when panning motorsport by trying to stand on the inside of corners when possible so the subject moves through the DoF slower. I find objects passing obliquely (as Juergen says) are more difficult.

Hi Mick,
I think your photo is just right as it is. To me panning shots work best, when the subject drives by in an 90 degree angle.
Also the key is a slow shutter speed. In the case of indoor cycling, I would try to crank up the Iso in order to get a sutter speed of below 1/100. Then follow the subject until I have this 90 degree angle. Indoor cycling makes ideal subjects for panning, because they are very fast and predictable, which helps a lot with getting them in focus. Plus, you can practice a lot with the settings, because they are coming back at you every 20 seconds :-)

I also practised the other day a bit. My subjects were boats. Not a great photo as such, but I tried to get the right level of background blur. To me, it has to fit somehow to the subject. A boat does not travel at very high speed, so one should at least be able to make something out of the background. An indoor cyclist I would blur much more. But that is my personal taste.

Looking forward to other examples and opinions from more experienced photographers.

Jürgen

NR's admin today mentioned (10 June 2012) a patent recently filed by Nikon in Japan - "Nikon filed a patent 201294984 in Japan for a new panning feature that will combine a high shutter speed image of the main subject and a low shutter speed image of the background"

[http://nikonrumors.com/2012/06/08/nikon-files-patent-for-in-camera-panning-feature.aspx]

While there is quite a deal of discussion on the front page about this panning feature, no-one has posted pix of "panned photos". This has been quite a challenge for me when taking photos of track cycling at an indoor velodrome, where low or uneven light is the norm, and synched flash at 1/200sec max is not very useable when cyclists can be moving at 70km/hour.

I'd be interested to see other people's efforts in panning for high-speed action sports, and accounts of how the problems of low light and high speed subjects were resolved.

I offer this pic from January 2012 as a thread starter.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/68039985@N08/6845194433/in/photostream

Cheers

Mick,
Adelaide AUSTRALIA