Yas Marina Blue M3 Backlit Sunset

This is a Yas Marina Blue M3. It’s hard to ignore this color since Yas Marina blue has been one of the most popular recent colors for both the F80 M3 and F82 M4 — Maybe not in sheer numbers, but definitely in coolness factor.

This photo of a Yas Marina Blue M3 is very different from most recent photos in the RallyWays Automotive Photography Portfolio. This F80 M3 is hard parked. Hard parked is not something I’ve been posting much of in the portfolio as of late.

However, one can’t deny that as far as hard-parking goes, this Yas Marina Blue M3 does one heck of a job at it. The car is low, flush and absolutely stunning. Add to the fact, the lighting and the recipe is perfect. That, even though this was shot at a show, not at a private location. Therefore there are people and other objects around it. But who cares? I know the internet trolls do, but really, who cares?

Talking about the show, this was at Big SoCal Euro 2015. You might have noticed a lack of a full story from the event on the RallyWays Blog like I do most years. This year I focused on the photos. I was hired by Lon Mok to shoot the event, so my focus was that.

As with every Big SoCal Euro at Qualcomm Stadium, it happens during late summer. The weather is super hot and the day is super bright. While I’m there shooting all day, the magic hour (more like magic half hour) is right before sunset, when this shot was taken. Here, I was walking around taking the usual barrage of shots I take before sunset and I saw this Yas Marina Blue M3 with the hood open. I noticed I could hide the sun behind the open hood to take a good backlit photo before the sun starting hiding behind the trees in the background. Well, it worked! I love the shot.

I balanced the shadows with the highlights a bit in Lightroom while also pushing the white balance considerably warmer and here you have it! As for settings, this was shot at ISO 100 and 1/160 sec at f/4.0 with my trusty Canon EF24-105mm F/4L attached to my Canon 6D. For being almost sunset, ISO 100 and F4.0 worked really well and made for a really clean shot that could be sharpened a bit without adding more noise.

Yes, the Yas Marina Blue M3 is my favorite of the F80 and F82 colors. I’m pretty happy to have come across this opportunity to shoot it like this even during a show.