The term ‘camera drag’ may not sound like a particularly good idea, but don’t worry, we guarantee that your camera will come to no harm. Camera drag is actually a technique that adds motion blur to your images by moving the camera during an exposure to render the scene as an abstract palette of colours.
Shoot in shutter priority or manual mode as you’ll need to retain control over the shutter speed, which ideally should be a second or two.
On bright days, you can reduce the light with an ND filter, or simply shoot faster – you can go up to 1/15 sec – but you’ll have to ‘drag’ the camera faster too, and this will be harder to keep accurate.
The trick to a successful camera drag image is in finding a suitable subject. Strong vibrant colours are ideal, and the more horizontal the bands of colour the better; lines through the frame will keep the colours distinct and separated.
Start moving the camera before you fire the shutter and keep a smooth and steady pace throughout the shot. Like clay pigeon shooting, you need to continue to ‘follow through’ with the movement after the exposure has finished.
We headed out onto the streets of Bath on a sunny day, and found that a parked tourist bus provided the perfect palette for our colourful and abstract motion-blurred shot.
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Step-by-step how to drag your camera
01 True colours
Shoot subjects with lots of strong colours; the best spots are those with horizontal lines of colour. All the detail in the image will be lost to the motion blur.
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02 Slow and steady
Use shutter priority mode with a shutter speed of 1-2 secs. If the light is too bright, requiring a faster shutter speed, you will need to drag faster; overexposing will lose the colour.
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03 Smooth mover
Start panning the camera before pressing the shutter; this will result in smoother motion. You can also use a tripod or monopod to keep your image straight.
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