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Motion blur is the apparent streaking of rapidly moving objects in a still image or a sequence of images such as a movie or animation.

Contents 1 Applications of motion blur 1.1 Photography 1.2 Computer animation 2 Negative effects of motion blur

When a camera creates an image, that image does not represent a single instant of time. Because of technological constraints or artistic requirements, the image represents the scene over a period of time. As objects in a scene move, an image of that scene must represent an integration of all positions of those objects, as well as the camera's viewpoint, over the period of exposure determined by the shutter speed. In such an image, any object moving with respect to the camera, will look blurred or smeared along the direction of relative motion. This smearing may occur on an object that is moving or on a static background if the camera is moving. In a film or television image, this looks natural because the human eye behaves in much the same way.

Because the effect is caused by the relative motion between the camera, and the objects and scene, motion blur may be avoided by panning the camera to track those moving objects. In this case, even with long exposure times, the objects will appear sharper, and the background more blurred.

Similarly, in real-time computer animation each frame shows a perfect instance in time (analogous to a camera with an infinitely fast shutter), with zero motion blur. This is why a video game with a frame rate of 25-30 frames per second will seem 'jumpy' and strange, while natural motion filmed at the same frame rate appears continuous. To compensate for this, much higher frame rates are desirable, of 60 frames per second or more. The latest racing or flight simulators feature motion blur effects (e.g. the Burnout series), because of camera high relative speeds. Crysis, a first person shooter game using the CryENGINE2, also features motion blur.

In pre-rendered computer animation, such as CGI movies, simply raising the frame rate is not possible, but realistic motion blur can be drawn because the renderer has much longer to draw each frame. Temporal anti-aliasing produces frames as a composite of many instants.

In televised sports, where conventional cameras expose pictures 25 or 30 times per second, motion blur can be inconvenient because it obscures the exact position of a projectile or athlete in slow motion. For this reason special cameras are often used which eliminate motion blurring by taking rapid exposures on the order of 1/1000 of a second, and then transmitting them over the course of the next 1/25 or 1/30 of a second. Although this gives sharper slow motion replays it can look strange at normal speed because the eye expects to see motion blurring and does not.

Sometimes, motion blur can be removed from images with the help of deconvolution.

These city lights were still; it was the camera's orientation that changed during the exposure. This photo also demonstrates sinusoidal brightness caused by Alternating current.

Both the truck and the camera moved during this exposure. The camera was moved, or panned, in order to remain pointed at the truck's driver-side door. That is why the ground appears to move past the truck.

The traffic on this street leaves brilliant streaks due to the low shutter speed of the camera and the cars' relatively fast speed.

Motion blur in CGI