My New System

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Well I started shooting as a kid with my father who shot large frame and developed his own work. My first camera was a 4x5 Crown Graphic and I still have it. I shot TLR and 645 and have always wanted to shoot a Hassy. I had a friend who had one in the film days and I used it a couple times but the output was the same as my other cameras and less than the 4x5 so I decided to stay with 35mm. Then I started shooting for newspapers and the yearbooks in school. SO that was all Tri-X rolls. I shot thousands of frames. Fast forward to starting a career and life and the gear was put away till about 2000. Sure I took a few shots here and there but it was just record shots of family events and milestones. I am sure many of us have similar backgrounds and experiences. Then my first Grandchild was born and I transitioned to more portrait and event work. Now I do more portraits then events and weddings I just do not want to shoot that many hours. I have looked at medium format for years and have stayed with the flagships. I loved mirrorless and found the first Nikons to be woefully behind the Sony and canon far so I picked up a Canon R5 and used that extensively for a number of years for portrait work and the nikons for my long glass work. My Z9 was the final body that if it was not as claimed would have been sold and a total switch to Canon would have happened and my long glass and fast glass would be sold and 50 years of Nikon shooting would have ended. Thankfully it was great and they have stepped up and I still have my Nikon home. That said a canon shooter professional friend of mine asked to try by 50 f1.2 so I gave it to him and he put it on his R3 and I used my Nikon version on my Z( and we shot a level 8 gymnast doing a tumbling routine and they were very similar in outcome. So that sealed it. But he had a Hasselblad X2D at 50 MP. I knew I was not much less so I shot a few shots and looked at them and the thing that stood out was it was super slow to focus and the detail was slightly better but the transitions and the color were much more pleasing to my eye. so I looked thru his shots he took of dancers and asked him how many tries and he laughed. The output was nice but I figured my Z9 or R% could do it too. Then the X2Dii 100 max came out with continuous auto focus and the les selection was upgraded. I looked at it closely as I had nto moved from he X1D and the X2D but the 100 MPZX and continuous auto focus was nice but the leaf shutter was something I was super interested in. I shoot lots of portraits outside and use flash and am always correcting color cast in the Sumer from the green leaves. I shot his camera with a leaf shutter and full powered flash and the colorcast was not there on my shots. I went and looked and they were out of stock everywhere as were the two lenses I wanted but they did have the V glass. I talked to my camera store Ace Photo in Ashburn and said I do not see the new X2Dii on the website and they said they had one but do not list it since people will buy it and sell it for more money online and they want to support their customers. I had purchased my last 6 bodies there the z8/9/6iii as well and my D bodies and a couple for my father as well. I have used them for 20 plus years. They said they had one and a couple V lenses so I went in and bought the body and the 90 and 55 V for portrait work. I also put my name on the list for the 35-100 as a single lens for landscapes and was looking at the wide end. They had a couple options and I chose the 20-35. I will add in the 25 and 38v over the next few months and I will have a full kit. I am unbelievably impressed with the color and dynamic range and there is a learning curve too. The IBIS is amazing with sub second handholding possible. There is no matrix metering so I am back to the old spot metering and knowing the difference in the frame. The histogram is great there too. The menus are simple and there is no video as it is a put stills camera and this will make my Nikons more focused on wildlife events and video. Is it perfect no, but it has amazing output if I do my job and it does make me shoot slower and there is no long glass so I home they come up with some one day. I can adapt some but the electronic shutter is not as good. SO it will be portrait and landscape setup. Sure it is a vanity purchase in a way as my z8 is perfectly capable but I have shot this camera exclusively since Jan 8th and now have about 3k shots thru it and it is still impressing me and I am now waiting for the next sensor at 150mpx and I will look at getting the 907 then so I can put that back on other cameras including the technical ones that I used to shoot in larger frame. I have not posted much work form the new set on here but I wills ay that my Flickr page went from 35k vies a day to 150k to 360k views a day and my IG and FB has had a number of comments on the color in the photo sections. In fact I get one or two comments on each post about the color and that kind of tells me that it is just not me seeing it.