Photographer here: No way that photo was shot at F/ 1.6. Just looking at the composition of the image, the reason Trump and the podium look so compressed is due to a long focal length (certainly above 85-100mm is my guess). At those final lengths, the depth of field you'd get from an f stop of 1.6 would be so shallow that you'd see visible blurring of the podium.
Even if you were trying to shoot in bursts (if you've ever heard photographers in something like a congressional meeting, you'd know how many shots these photographers rattle off every minute) there's absolutely no reason why you would shoot at 1.6 in this environment.
Using the sunny 16 rule, which states that in direct sun, you can shoot 100 iso at F/16 with a shutter speed of 1/125, you realistically can shoot 1/8000th of a second without major exposure differences at F/1.6 but again I don't see why any photographer would risk an out of focus subject by shooting this scene at 1.6 when they clearly didn't have to.
Photographer here: No way that photo was shot at F/ 1.6. Just looking at the composition of the image, the reason Trump and the podium look so compressed is due to a long focal length (certainly above 85-100mm is my guess). At those final lengths, the depth of field you'd get from an f stop of 1.6 would be so shallow that you'd see visible blurring of the podium.
Even if you were trying to shoot in bursts (if you've ever heard photographers in something like a congressional meeting, you'd know how many shots these photographers rattle off every minute) there's absolutely no reason why you would shoot at 1.6 in this environment.
Using the sunny 16 rule, which states that in direct sun, you can shoot 100 iso at F/16 with a shutter speed of 1/125, you realistically can shoot 1/8000th of a second without major exposure differences at F/1.6 but again I don't see why any photographer would risk an out of focus subject by shooting this scene at 1.6 when they clearly didn't have to.