Simply, Beautiful!

Doing 100knts, 1750AGL on a gorgeous day flying over The Palouse, I had to pinch myself with the magic unfolding in the viewfinder. It was a heck of a day with seven photo missions all in one afternoon. It was our first wx window in weeks, and we were going to make the most of it. I also had the new Z70-200f2.8II in hand. Real world shooting is the only way I know of personally in deciding if a piece of gear is right for my storytelling (specs don’t do it!). I knew these flights would put the lens to the test (my arms too!).

You might be aware that the Z70-200f2.8II is lighter than the amazing original Z70-200f2.8. That loss of weight comes from changing literally the optical design and coatings, losing 3 elements in the new version. The center of balance was changed, and you have a tripod collar that is removable (the smoothest rotating collar ever with Arca Swiss groove built-in) and is replaced by the supplied barrel collar. How does all that translate photographically when you’re hanging out of a plane? Or just shooting on the ground?

You can see in the image above, which is a 4k Jpeg, just how crisp and spectacular the color is conveyed from story to sensor via the Z70-200f2.8II. What you can’t see is that my arms weren’t worn out, the reduction in lens weight making use a snap. You can’t witness the “faster” AF speed which, as far as I’m concerned, snapped the subject into focus faster than my mind could notice. To say I loved shooting with the Z70-200f2.8II would be admitting that I knew I was shooting with it when in fact, it’s so well integrated into the process, I never took note of it. It just did its job and did it spectacularly without a hitch. It was an amazing afternoon of flying (thanks to all the pilots) with gorgeous planes and the new, gorgeous Z70-200f2.8II. Simply, beautiful!