[Wil H]

No, fighter jets (from what I'm told by someone who has flown in them and worked on them) are pretty difficult to get decent photos from, especially with distortion from the canopy, not to mention cramped quarters

They have planes fitted with high resolution cameras to do this sort of thing.

The military has some EXCELLENT (airframe mounted) cameras that they don't talk about very much.

You don't send millions of dollars of equipment up in the sky and tell the pilot to take pictures with a hand held camera through the cockpit canopy!

[AH_LiveRight]

Shhh. Don't say anything about the high resolution targeting systems. We still use 8mm film and Norton sights.
And a Kodak Brownie for the candid memento's.

[Finny]

Finally, a decent explanation, but I still don't buy that this was a photo op. F-16s were built for combat, not for taking publicity shots. Surely the U.S. military has planes even better equipped than F-16s for this kind of thing. And why would AF1 buzz New York City and fly so closely to its skyscrapers? Because it DID -- have you watched the videos posted on this thread? What kind of "photo op" is that? A bullsh*t "photo op," that's what kind.

Nope, I don't believe this was a photo op. Again, I don't know what it WAS, but I'm pretty sure I know what it wasn't.

[Finny]

You don't send millions of dollars of equipment up in the sky and tell the pilot to take pictures with a hand held camera through the cockpit canopy!

I wouldn't think so. I also wouldn't think you'd send a fighter aircraft with frame-mounted combat cameras (as I mentioned in the post), which have been on planes since WWII, to take publicity shots of AF1. I'd think you'd send a plane built for reconnaissance and photography, NOT combat.