Flew over to Jacksonville, Florida on Monday of this week to photograph this Hawker jet for a client of mine. He's already sold two of the previous Hawkers that I've photographed for him and this company.
They are changing over to a Gulfstream G-550 and a G-280. Upgraded quite a bit!
A while back I mentioned that I was going to have an opportunity to get familiar with Canon's new "R" Mirrorless camera. Schedules and availability of the camera system itself delayed that until yesterday, but we finally got it done and I even mounted it on the Ronin S and experimented with several different lenses. Canon has received a lot of criticism over this new release so I was looking forward to the hands on experience, here's what I took away. The "R" , like so much of the imaging technology that is at our fingertips these days, is an amazing piece of equipment. Canon is the first to say that it isn't, wasn't meant to be, the end all be all, trump the competition release that people were hoping for, it's a first generation mirrorless offering at a semi economical price point, aimed at the prosumer market. There are a lot of cool features and the lens adapters are extremely well thought out. The 30 MP sensor size is more than respectable and the lens offerings, although a bit pricey in several cases, are excellent quality and will be able to work capably with future mirrorless offerings from Canon for some time to come. In my opinion, the "R" is a way to get into the mirrorless business for about half the price of a Sony or a Nikon and it is more than capable of producing a great imaging product in capable hands.
Chapter 2, one shouldn't expect this new camera to exceed the capabilities of the Sony a7rII or the Z7 Nikon at $2295, things generally don't work that way. The video specifications are weaker than the competition, for example in order to shoot 120fps you have to drop back to 720p. That, at first blush is a pretty big deal, but an awful lot of video is dumbed down to that level and lower in it's final use so it might not be as huge as it seems. Single card slot recording is a little scary, I've developed a habit of shooting most everything on multiple cards in most cases because cards do go toes up occasionally. The focus modes and control systems and placement seem good and the image quality is outstanding. Once again, I don't think the camera is aimed at someone shooting at the upper end of the pro market, Canon is a couple of iterations away from that in the mirrorless market at this point.
So, were I to jump into the mirrorless business today, given what I shoot and the level of performance my other tools provide, I would probably go with the Nikon Z7 system. There are a few things that Nikon didn't hit the mark on with their "Z" camera, but all in all I'd say they got it right and when the Z7 II comes down the pike it will most likely be perfection. As popular as the mirrorless concept seems to be I would expect these manufacturers to come out with updates at a more rapid rate than we've seen with their other DSLR models, but that's just a guess. And yes, the Ronin S is a much more manageable tool with a mirrorless atop it, plus the multi positional flip out preview screens on all of these cameras provide a light weight economical option for viewing as compared to an external monitor of some type for conventional DSLR shooting.
This was from yesterday, small fly-in. Flights on this were "on sale" at $199. Piper rides were $30. This didn't get one take-off the whole time I was there.
JWilsonphoto wrote:
Is that a Fairchild of some sort? Kind of looks like a PT-22 with a canopy?
N-number history says:
"From Unknown to 13 March 1943 - Constructed as a PT-19A-FA by Fairchild at Hagerstown, MD, USA.
19 March 1943 - Taken on Strength/Charge with the United States Army Air Force with s/n 42-34382.
Accepted at Parks College.
. . . .
Sometime during its military career (probably at Parks College) the canopy was added.
1973 - Restored to PT-26A configuration.
12 July 2000 - To Butler County Warbirds Inc, Fairfield, OH. - Restored to original PT-19A configuration, but canopy retained, and plane marked as it would have looked serving at Parks College."
