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Many times have I taken a picture of action, something moving, with a fast shutter speed and frozen the subject and background. The picture came out technically perfect, sharp and clear, but it was missing that feeling of action. This time I was visiting the Hula swamp valley in the northern part of Israel, where there are a lot of fowl. As we walked along the wooden boardwalk over the swamp, different colored birds kept taking off as we passed. They were large and beautifully colored. So I started looking ahead to see if there were any birds ready to take off and which I could shoot with my Nikon D2X using my 105mm Micro Nikkor with VR (Vibration Reduction). It was going to be a hand-held shot; no tripod would let me take an action shot such as this one. To show action in a still picture, something has to be blurred. Normally, you want the subject to be sharp so it can be recognized and its details clear and full of color, so you blur the background and/or the foreground, whichever it happens to be. However, you need to keep the moving subject sharp. How do you do that? You have to take the picture while panning with the camera and focusing on the subject. Swing the camera in the same direction and speed of the subject and keep the subject centered. Also, an important point, keep swinging the camera in the same direction for a second or two after you take the shot (or shots, if you are bracketing with continuous shooting). This extra second or two of swinging the camera avoids the possibility of jerking and blurring the subject (it takes a fraction of a second for the shutter to release).  To continue with the story, soon I noticed this beautifully colored bird (if you can identify it, please let me know) standing in the rushes near the water and looking ready to jump. I did not have the time to set my camera before the bird spread its wings and jumped into the air. So I followed it with the camera, swinging smoothly at the same speed as the bird, and clicked the shutter, keeping my movement smooth for a few more seconds after the shot. After clicking, I was not sure I had captured the bird, until I looked at the LCD screen. The whole incident took a few seconds.
My 105mm lens has a maximum aperture of f/2.8, but the shot was taken at f/6.7. The ISO speed rating was 200. To make the background blurred in bright sunlight, you need to lower your ISO speed as low as you can, so that you can lower the shutter speed and blur the background. With this shot I did not have the time to make these settings on the camera. What I should have done was to lower the ISO speed, set the shutter speed at the lowest where the shot will not be over-exposed, but still high enough to get the subject sharp. With a VR lens you can go lower than 125. I was not able to find out the shutter speed at which I actually took the picture, but as you can see, it was low enough to get the rushes blurred. | 
