Sprint Cup – Stephen Shelley Photography

The 2014 Ford 400 Sprint Cup Championship race at Homestead-Miami Speedway was one the of the best races I have witnessed over the last 10 years at the track. There was a lot of excitement and electricity going into the final race this year and it did not disappoint. This was also the first year I was able to use my new Canon 5D Mark III camera to shoot motorsports. Compared to my old T3i it was like night and day. The autofocus was much faster and therefore easier to track the cars as they flew by at 200 mph. Also, the ability to shoot at higher ISO’s without photo degradation was also much nicer. Last year the highest I would dare shoot was 1600, this year many of my shots were 4000 and looked cleaner than last years shot at 1600. Here a few photos I captured at this years event.

Finally got a chance to pick up my camera and do some photography after an almost 6 month hiatus. Took the opportunity to head out to Homestead-Miami Speedway for the NASCAR Championship races on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I got a few good shots of the Friday night truck race and one or two of the Nationwide series race. Unfortunately, I had other commitments on Sunday and although I was able to watch the race could not sneak away to capture any images. This was also my first time shooting a night race.

For the night time shots I used an ISO of 1600. My goal was to keep my shutter speed around 1/125 to 1/160 of a second in order to show the movement of the cars around the track. I used the 70-200 IS II with a 1.4x iii teleconverter.

Click on the Thumbnail for the full size image.