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my personal reason for not using aperature priority is that if the camera needs to, it will pick a slow shutter speed to accomadate the amount of light coming in. if that slow shutter speed happens to be slower than 125th of a second, you will get a lot of motion blur (hair, jumpsuits etc) if it is really slow, then mostly likely the subject will be out of focus due to movement of either yourself as the camera flyer or the subject. my way is just one of the many... jeff D-16906

$229 is a good price. I'll add that to my list. When doing an event, and offering a CD of pics, what is the fair market value? It is easier to hand over a CD, then to make prints....but now people can take your stuff and copy it for free. So what is that worth. What would you charge for an event cd of pics, and how many pics is fair for that price? thanks, don't mean to hijack. jeff D-16906

I guess I should. But I feel screwed already, having spent $40 for worthless plastic. It makes me mad. The other problem for me is that I had my soldering friend check the continuity of it, and found that is doesnt work. but to check this, he had to rip off the red button. It is gonna be pretty hard to explain to Ed...yeah hey, this doesnt work, yeah i know the3 red button is gone, can you send me another one... it sucks all around. jeff D-16906

It is funny, I have always made my own switches, and I am always diappointed when they quit working on me. This year, I decided to try the conceptus tongue switch. It worked for less than a month (weekends only) and I am extremely pissed off at that company. I spent $40 for nothing, or to have the same problem on my homemade Radio Shack switches that cost me about $3.00 to make. It sucks, you would figure a company that touts itself at being good at something would be able to deliver a superior product than one I can make. I can't even solder that well... So my solution, I just found a friend of mine is a n electronics guy, and basically solders all day long. I gave him all the raw materials, and he will make me a bunch of switches that are soldered so much better than the ones i made. that should help them last a little longer. btw, if interested, it is a sub-mini lever switch from radio hack, some 2 conductor wire, some solder and hot glue--to coat the connections of the sub mini switch.... screw conceptus jeff D-16906

also, think about checking www.craigslist.org search whatever city you care to, and look under "electronics" good site for used stuff all around the nation (and the world) jeff D-16906

Another thing for you. It is quite a stress for your neck to bear the weight of a camera helmet. Your neck has never really done this before. DEFINITELY do some neck excercises on the ground, build it up to be strong. Strong neck muscles can help avoid injury. jeff D-16906

Come on Ray, you HAVE to have jumped it by now!!! eager to know, affects my buying decision.... thanks, jeff D-16906

I saw a post with the word DEFINITELY spelled Definately. Then, because I am curious, I went down to the bottom of the forums page, and searched all forums for the word "DEFINATELY". It came up 3834 times. There is no "A" in DEFINITELY. you simply take the word definite, and add LY.... whatever. all in fun, jeff D-16906

so then is there a brand of cd-r that is better or highly recommended for this purpose? jeff D-16906

for sure the Nikon Coolpix 5000 will. You need a piece from harbortronics to make it fire (which is about $55 called a digisnap. see www.harbortronics.com for more info) this camera has been discontinued, but are available used. The other option is if you know someone really good at soldering on PCB's, they can make a release for you. Actual results may vary good luck. jeff D-16906

cool, thanks quade. I do have a dvd burner and i am running a PC. what brand of dvd do you suggest? hopefully the price of dvd roms come down to the cd level. jeff D-16906

I am looking for the various methods and specific brands of archiving digital stills. slides are easy, books and sheets, away from dust. and most likely in 20 or so years they will be ok. if you archive to cds, any of you digital shooters worry about not being able to access the thousands of pics in years to come... any info is appreciated, as I am just now crossing into the digital domain, and see no reason to reinvent the wheel. thanks, jeff D-16906

i guess i dont understand this, because if you loosen you cheststrap after you have opened, it wouldnt matter how tight your chest strap was in freefall. You can also have a longer chest strap installed if you need to. collapsed slider, pulled down over my slider locks with chest strap all the way loose, the slider is no factor. here is a pic of it... jeff D-16906

yep. IMHO. but, so far, i havent seen anything that meets the following criteria: 1. Simpler 2. More effective and 3. Safer IMHO. jeff D-16906

you are not missing anything. I said that to clarify from ealier when someone had posted that they had the slider locks on the rear risers, which doesnt help at all. so, I was saying front as opposed to rears. jeff D-16906

in addition to ALL the bad points previously discussed, one of them is discussed HERE I think the simplest answer is the best answer, and in this case, the simpleset answer is to have a rigger install some Slider Locks("slocks") on your FRONT risers. You collapse the slider, and then pull it down, locking it in place. There IS NOTHING SIMPLER than slider locks jeff D-16906

also, as far as aff goes, i usually watch for the outside jm(from an otter or caravan) to leave. once his center of gravity leaves, the show starts. i then leave lightning quick and i am down the hill, looking up and tracking up to them. get it? if not i can clarify what i mean. however, actual results may vary, and I would caution you about doing this off the bat, because the chances of smashing into the student and instructors is very high...,unless you do this exitr right. if you let them pass you while you remain on the step, and follow them with your head, then let go,(the peeling exit) the worst thing that can happen this way is you tumble on exit, but you will figure that out after a few tries. ask if you need more help. jeff D-16906

yep i read that one before I posted, knowing that a ccd on a video camera is pretty much inaccessible. i really hope i dont have to send it to Sony. jeff D-16906

well, it happened to a friend of mine a couple of weeks ago. helmet came off on opening, landed in a nearby yard face up. the dytter flew out and was found 20' away. the 15mm lens on the canon was fine. the diamond lens on the videocamera was fine. but, the Sony pc whatever looked fine, but he sent it to sony and they said FUBAR. we got the tape out, spliced it together and made a copy...the videocamera remained pointed up the whole time(the helmet did a good job of keepin my friend in frame most of the way down ) i believe the still camera is trash too. helmet is totally fine though(hawkeye)...except that it came off in the first place. it sucks. jeff D-16906

I noticed what appears to be a random piece of junk that shows up as a black unfocused speck on my footage. Upon further inspection, i found that there are no visible specks or dust on the wide angle lens, the lens of the camera, and the tape heads are clean. I am guessing that there is some debris or something on the CCD, and i am wondering what I can do to clean this off. I have sprayed most of the camera with compressed air, around the lens and inside the tape carriage, but to no avail. I cannot tell if it is CCD burnout, but it seems like a randomly shaped object, not pixels or whatever. Any suggestions that dont cost a ton of money would be appreciated. thanks, jeff D-16906

Knowing what little I know about electronics that i do, most of that remote is just a shell. You could probably remove the PCB from it, do the mod, and build a smaller 'shell' for it. It has got to be a super simple solution once you have that thing opened inside....complete one (maybe two ) circuits and you are there. or you could pay $195 for the mod and void the warranty (which I think is highly expensive, but will most likely end up doing. I had talked with Nikon about 8 months ago when i heard that they were coming out with the D70 in answer to the 30D. The guy i talked to was a senior product manager or something, and I asked him why none of the new cameras or any of the digitals have a built in plug for remote shutter release like the N70 or F100 or N90s do. he gave me some run around about how it takes all this extra design and engineering blah blah, so then I told him that they would have more skydiving customers if they took care of that aspect. I told him of all my friends entering the digital $1000 market who were buying canon 30d because Nikon doesnt have a remote release built in. He told me he would note it and wouldnt tell me if the d70 would have a remote or not. that was the end of that conversation. the simple fact is that as skydivers, i guess we do not draw big enough of a market for them to install a plug on $1000+ cameras, like they have on their $300 camera bodies. it sucks. jeff D-16906 and other than that, I am a HUGE fan of Nikon.

whoa. that is hard core. when i can i will show you my much simpler (untested as of yet) version. yahoo. jeff D-16906

Hey saskia, In the 'faces ' pic, is that mike meyers standing over on the right? i have been trying to find him for a while....

yeah, i agree, and I am not biased either! it is a nice drive along route 2 west, and the next thing you know, youa re at place with great vibes, and great skydives! do you need another reason? jeff D-16906

happened to a friend of mine as well, but it wasnt from a hard opening, it just sort of slipped off. (He said he was holding onto to the chin part, maybe bumped or loosend something...strange) Nice video of it going in. That sucks bro. I feel your pain. jeff