Fast

That is a pretty common problem. Some times I think this place would be a lot more manageable for the poor moderators if people who didn't skydive anymore stopped posting. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

A bit off-topic, but if my current camera breaks my next one will be HD, even if I don't use the HD capabilities. My HC90 was $800 1.5 years ago, the HC5 is now $800. Spot mentioned in another thread (if I understand correctly) that most companies will be discontinuing SD soon, I think. Sure, but you are flying the camera and activly using it. You are getting your moneys worth on the last camera you have and will have done so by the time you need to get a new one. Getting HD for you when you do need a new one makes sense because even though you aren't using it for the HD now you can get a good archive going. When the camera is mostly just going to sit around I don't think its worth it because in 1-2 years the technology is certainly going to change or get cheaper. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

I wear my FF/RW helmet secured when I am using that because it cuts down on engine noise and doesn't weight that much so I don't see the point in not wearing it. My camera helmet gets clipped to me because it gets too heavy to wear all day long for back to back / every other load days. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

I agree. The cypress is the only AAD I would buy. I don't have a desire to be a test jumper with that component of my rig. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Don't reach through the wings to pull. Make sure you are pulling in a way to keep crap from getting entangled. What was told to me is to be sure to be reaching "out and around" to get to the hackey, not just going right for it. Make sure you are hooking them up right - work with some local experienced guys. Have a plan for your pre-jump checks and follow it. Some things it will help prevent, which you will do anyways; jumping w/o swoop cords on, jumping with wings unclipped, jumping with uneven wings/swoopcords. Camera wings dont mean, go up and jump with an RW group on your first wing jump because you're a camera guy now. I think it is important to do at least 1 jump solo to get used to them. Maybe even w/o any camera on! ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Have never used one with skydiving but in general, the point is that you reduce the harsness of the flash and give it a much softer feel. It can help if the subject you are shooting has high glare surfaces. There are some really good books on photography that go over a lot of that. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

The other highly likely probability especially with skydiving (have you jumped the camera yet?) is that it isn't a dust spot but a condensation/moisture spot which the ultrasonic cleaner wont do anything for. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

SO what happens next year if I have the skill set to jump a camera???...toss whatever I buy this year in the fucking garbage and start anew??? Maybe you should refrain from posting to this thread untill you can offer up some constructive advise. Edited to add: NO Pickeled Eggs for You!!!! Unless you have some compelling need to absolutely have a camera right now I would wait. If you don't start jumping it for 1-3 years by the time you are jumping it the technology will have changed greatly. If you don't need an HD camera (i.e. you don't have a HDTV or a desire to produce for one) don't spend the money on it now. The features aren't getting that much worse. The loss of the lanc port on the low end models sucks but the higher end models still have it and I would guess they are going to continue to have it. Blowing a ton of money right now on something "high end" is just going to piss you off down the road when you do get into shooting video and want what everyone else has (the latest and greatest.) If you _HAVE_ to have a camera now and don't have a specific feature set you are looking for buy something cheap. Then later when you get into doing more with video buy something that will make you happy. Worst case, if you have $1k burning a hole in your pocket and you want to blow it on a camera, go to the bank and buy a CD with it and earn some interest then buy the camera when you have more of a use for it. I could make some suggestions for cameras but all you have really told us is that you don't want to jump with it now, but might some day. My typical response is the above, wait till someday and then buy a camera - you will get better picture quality which is all that really matters, at least to me. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Yeah, $10 and they had it done in about an hour. I guess I am lucky with the local shop. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

On the topic of sensor cleaning: I have had to have it done once. I while knowing a ton about computers, cameras, and electronics was unwilling to clean my own sensor. If i screwed it up I'm out the camera. There is a camera shop in town that cleans them for $10. They have much more experience and take responsibility for it. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

I'm excited already! ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Most of my better photos have come from times where I took the extra step to adjust the camera for the specific situation. One size fits all is a horrible concept to use when taking pictures. It works, if you don't want to make the most of a situation, but when you want something spectacular it helps to actually make specific adjustments. Going up at first in some kind of auto mode doesn't hurt. The key is to sit and review your pictures after the jump to see what the camera thought was right, how it could be better, and what the conditions (light, haze, time of year, cloud cover, etc...) are. I am still working on that myself. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

sure, voted my 5 votes. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

I used to hang out in there all the time. Then the server got flaky and it annoyed me trying to keep it connected to my IRC client. I chat daily in at least 2 irc channels. I dont bother with the dz.com one anymore though. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/213120/ ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

I would say a damn good call on the City's part. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

I think the site design could be easier to use, but... the photography is simply amazing. The pictures on that site speak for themselves. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

True that you can't sharpen each size (I almost never sharpen anything anyway), but smugmug doesn't use "auto-browser-rendering" to resize pictures. When you upload, they create about 4 copies of the original and resize them (in a server background process) to each size they use on the site. They apply your custom watermark to the small, medium, and large copies, and to the thumbnail if you want. They don't watermark the original, so when someone orders a print it isn't ruined. But yes, I definitely give up a lot of control in exchange for a lot of time saving. Dave Which is why I use gallery2. I have the code local so I can make it do whatever I want / look however I want. It is just as easy to upload pictures AND it integrates with an online photo fullfilment service. Best of both worlds. This is my site, (I have a gallery for my roommate and dad on there too) please don't crush my bandwith. http://skymarshal.dyndns.org/gallery/ ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

I don't hang out with my non-skydiving friends much anymore. I think that has to do with literally spending every weekend at the DZ. It has to do with how much time you sink into the sport. I do things other than skydive with the skydiving people I know. Getting 1200 jumps in 3.5 years takes a large time investment. Some of the people saying they still have a lot of outside friends have taken a much more realistic approach to skydiving. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

*puts on tinfoil hat* I don't think it is working! widescale RFID use is coming. My guess is that we will start to see them showing up in state drivers licenses soon. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

I have found the quality on the canon printers to be exceptionally good. I have been using my i960 for a long time. I want to upgrade to the new pro9000 but I don't have the money right now. They have some good printers in the lower price bracket as well. Here is the page with all the info and msrps (newegg.com has them cheaper) http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ProductCatIndexAct&fcategoryid=117 Make sure you buy a printer that has colorfast ink. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Buying a domain name: http://www.google.com/a -or- http://www.godaddy.com Hosting: I dunno on that one. Search for web hosting and check out prices. One that I have heard to be ok in the past was dreamhosting. Godaddy also offers hosting. Pictures: JPEG - the standard for showing pictures on the web really. Easy software: There are a couple different takes and a lot of it depends on how much you know about designing websites. What I use is Gallery2. http://gallery.menalto.com It runs on PHP and is one of the better looking gallery programs that is free. It has eCommerce integration through either a third party picture producer (there is some profit sharing that most of them request) or you can set it up so that your customers pay you with paypal and you have to fill the orders yourself with your prefered photo production person/lab. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

I just wish I had the money to do it. I know I have the drive, can't say for sure about the skill, but if I had the money I could find out. I am sure she is a cool person and clearly she has the drive and skills. I just wonder how many others there are out there that also have it and lack the means. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Some people have said that going to madison means being close to skydive chicago (2.5-3 hour drive) but there is also Sky Knights in East Troy, WI which is about 45-60 min from madison. We are the closest turbine DZ running a PAC750 all summer and are the only DZ in the area that is open for jumping all winter long. If you have more questions about the DZ PM me I can tell you all about it. It is a club and currently I am helping to run it. The bigger issue though is that Madison is a good school. I haven't met a person who wasn't happy about going there. I don't know if you are a smoker or not but Madison has a public ban on smoking in bars, resturants, and the like. I would love to comment on the weather here but having grown up and lived in southeastern wisconsin (milwaukee) my whole life I am used to it and don't know that my comments would matter that much. My roommate moved here from North Carolina last year and she seems to be dealing with it ok. What I like is that we have relativly defined seasons. When it is summer you know it, when it is winter you know it. Spring and fall are a really murky blending of the two and get you prepared. I was reading somewhere that the median age in madison is around 30 years old. The city has a smaller town feel to it, but has a sizable population. There is plenty to do, that is for sure. UW-Madison is a big school. There are some ~41,000 students. That keeps the area pretty active. You can read more about the city here ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

In the county that I live in, if you pay a traffic attorney to go to court for you a ticket on the highway will go up by about $100 and be changed to a non-moving violation which doesn't affect your insurance or cause you demerit points. It seems to be working pretty well at generating revenue. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka