Radial or zoom blur

The photo on the left is a typical holiday photo. You can see the go-karts in detail but you can also see a lot of clutter in the background. There are some barriers which are quite colourful but you can't see much of them and they look a bit out of place. Certainly the focus of attention should be the first driver.

The other reason for blurring the background is because this is a computer effect that reproduces a motion blur effect of the camera. There are different kinds of blur. If you can imagine that a runner is passing you and you move the camera at the same speed as the runner then the background is blurred and it is called motion blur. If you use a zoom lens and zoom at the same speed as something coming towards you then you get a radial or zoom blur. This is an example of radial blur. It is the same thing as zoom blur but done on computer. I didn't touch the zoom.

The go-karts have almost stopped. There is no conventional or zoom blurring posssible but the computer can do it. You can now be tricked into thinking that they are driving at a great speed but the focus on the first go-kart is perfect, and the photo was easy to take. For good measure I put a yellow border into the picture which is exactly the same shade as the yellow around the number. You can use this effect on any vehicle. Why not try a picture of a plane and then put a blurred sky in the background?

Happy snapping