Colin Thompson’s orange and black McLaren provides a sharp contrast against the white retaining wall and red Coca-Cola signage. Thompson was on the gas and accelerating out of Turn 9 in this shot. The objective was to get a good panning shot by moving the lens with the car to make the car sharp but everything else slightly blurry to show motion.
The shutter speed of 1/250 was just fast enough to show some blur without freezing the scene completely. A faster speed would have not shown much blur. A slower speed may have shown more blur and been more dramatic, but the objective of the shot at the time was to show just enough blur – not so much to throw the background into an indistinguishable splash of color. Slower shutter speeds can produce more artistic shots, but are more difficult to get and be less useful in conjunction with a story that merely wants to show a good shot of the car rather than a shot that draws attention to the dramatic flair of the photo instead of the car.
Camera Settings – 1/250, f/8, ISO 100, 165mm.