so thats how you did it at 55mm (I thought you'd need something like a 100-400 to get that shot on a track). the decals on the little helmet fooled me ! Nice job on the editing -johnebones
johnebones - this is actually a 1:18 scale model of Ralf's car that sits on my window sill at work. The background is actually a (full-size) out-of-focus parking garage viewed through the window.
To create the effect, I duplicated the original layer, cut a hole in that layer corresponding to the outline of the car, then added a combination of darkness, noise, motion blur, and increased constrast to get this effect.
One of the neat things about using motion blur is that it blurs the outline of the hole, so the edges of the cut-out car are slightly affected by the what gets done to the foreground.
I love the 10D - my previous digicam was a Nikon CoolPix 950 that did its job, but was getting very long in tooth. This particular lens was a borrowed 35-80 USM - not the best lens by any means, and I was standing about 3 feet from the subject. The depth of field is very narrow, which helps with blending into the background.
