Here's Gunny in his newly acquired Six.Recently Scott was asked by Mooney to attempt a coast to coast record in their new Acclaim. Always up for a challenge Gunny picked up a new Acclaim, spent a few hours tweaking power settings and learning the fine points of the aircraft. He then headed for San Diego where an 0 dark thirty launch eastward began his quest. We all watched him on flight tracking software as he blazed across the country at flight levels up to 230 and speeds reaching 306 knots. In the end, including a 9 minute quick turn outside OK City, he set a record arriving in 7 hours and 14 minutes from lift off at San Diego. Way to go Gunny!!
Again beautiful - I love the last one. The color is incredible. I can't wait to join forces and go on a few photo flights.
Here is one from the other day. We were holding about mid field. The wind was blowing from 15 to 19 kts of cross. This poor soul bounced a few times before all was said and done. I guess the Navy says welcome aboard.
And one more before bed. Same location as the last. I guess we were only about 3000 feet down the runway. This one happens to be the General's jet. Great guy to work for.
The 100-400 is a great lens, not a 70-200 2.8 IS great lens, but great none the less. The flexibility the zoom range gives you is hard to give up. Autofocus is a bit slow, but it's pretty sharp and has great contrast. The Blackhawk photos a few pages back were all shot with it. As you might expect, adding a polarizer slows the autofocus additionally. I manually focus much of the time so it's not a big deal. I find the lens indispensible in my gear bag.
I think you can just about always count on primes being slightly sharper and having quicker autofocus than zooms. That being said, I don't think you'd ever look back if you bought the 100-400.
As if I didn't have enough to do keeping abreast with Photoshop and a myriad of plug-ins, I've started shooting Canon's XH/A1 1080i HD video camera. The inevitable next step is acquiring Adobe's new Final Cut Studio 2 (May release). Near as I can tell Final Cut makes Photoshop look like iPhoto as far as complexity, but the things you can create with it are truly incredible. I had a number of clients needing video and they were hiring video people to come in behind me and shoot exactly what I had just shot, becoming proficient in video just seemed like an efficient way for me to double my assignments and $$$!
I just spend over half an hour gawking at the various shots here... I've had to pick my jaw up repeatedly from the desk and wipe off the dribble. As a total layman, when it comes to airplaine photography anyway, I can let my mind wander about, thinking about all that it involves to take it to this level.
The only gripe I have is that those multi-layer borders are too elaborate for my taste, they are distracting. But then again, that's a matter of personal taste. I'm member of the K.I.S.S school of thought, so I like things clean and simple.
I am just having trouble deciding because I keep seeing photos and it seems like the prime has better IQ.