The111

Shiny! And just like me, you have no nose. And also just like me, you brilliantly turned your dining room table into a workbench. Great minds think alike. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Coming out of the ball is a piece of cake, there is no way or reason to make it easier. The problems most people have are: 1) Getting into the ball. They either physically can't get into it, or more likely, just think they can't. 2) Not staying in the ball long enough. They think the ball is making them spin faster and immediately get afraid and get out of it. And it's true, the ball WILL make you spin faster... INITIALLY. This is only due to rotational inertia and not aerodynamics at all. You need to STAY in the ball for a good 5 seconds (assuming you have altitude of course, if you don't... PULL) and wait for it to start to slow down. If you're scared you may think that 1 second was 10 seconds, and immediately abort the ball when it would have helped you if you'd only stayed in it. I've seen this far too many times. Step 1: ball up Step 2: wait Step 0: STAY CALM You can check your alti while you're in the ball. You probably have all the time in the world. DON'T PANIC. You will speed up at first. If you panic and abort the ball, you've just taken one step forward and two back. WAIT in the ball until the spinning slows down. Then you can come out of the ball, and you won't need any assistance doing so. It's easy. I have never once heard of somebody getting stuck in a ball (because it's not possible). www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Bill, none of those posts count. You see, he is REPRESENTING the CITIZENS of a group of haters. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Capitalizing different words each time doesn't change the meaning of a simple phrase. But, to answer your question (after you ignored all 4 of mine), I have a difficulty understanding your definition of "represent," which apparently means "push the agenda of a moral code you don't personally believe in." Probably the difficulty stems from the fact that this is not what the word actually means. It's impossible to represent something you don't believe in... you can only pretend to do so. So again I ask, what would motivate somebody to do that? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

As has been said multiple times, this is not about closeted gays, but about anti-gay closeted gays. I sure as shit didn't read all the previous posts Did you read the thread title? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

As has been said multiple times, this is not about closeted gays, but about anti-gay closeted gays. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

So not a hypocrite, but a jerk? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

And how is pushing for an agenda you don't believe in an accurate use of the word REPRESENTATION? Why claim to REPRESENT a belief you don't actually believe in? What is his motivation? How is he not a hypocrite and a liar? What would motivate you to try to shut down skydiving in the US, while continuing to do it every weekend? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

How is anything a victory if it's all pre-determined? For that matter, why would you want to achieve victory over something your god planned for you? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Per your definition of monster, maybe you were able to prove that. Per most definitions of god, you cannot prove it. Either way. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

There's nothing humble about having an invisible friend who knows everything. The most humble of all are agnostics. They claim "I don't know"... which is a very honest and humble answer to all the "deep questions" so many love to argue over, and can never prove one way or another. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

But what about the one true god? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

A little confused? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

If this made any sense, so would the following: It takes a lot of money to be broke. It takes a lot of happiness to be sad. And it takes a lot of logic to be insane. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

http://www.matthoover.com/gallery/skydiving-photos/2010-02/ www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I don't remember anybody claiming they were going to knock down 100's of trees and make the landing area bigger. What are you basing this on? The satellite photos were available for all to see, and they were accurate. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Not true. I refused to land at the airport (more to do with wind shear from the trees than the actual crosswind part of the landing), and a friend with 2000+ jumps nearly broke his heel the one time he landed at the airport. An advanced license does not fix the weather. The event was plenty appropriate... the weather was not. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

You've complained about the crosswind at the DZ several times now. That is indeed part of the weather. I've been to this boogie 5 years in a row now, and the wind has ALWAYS been coming out of the east. The only reason it was different this year was because of the cold front coming from the US. Again, part of the weather. The main landing area wasn't really very small. It was long and narrow. Area is the combination of both length and width. Again, the weather (crosswind) made it undesirable. I will agree with you that the gravel surface was not desirable, and was not part of the weather. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I'd like to try a Storm, but my Pilot keeps me so happy, I wouldn't even bother swapping it out for a test jump. Though the Storm does sound nice. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Yeh, I was more replying to the guy you were quoting... should have just quoted his post. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Same speed as whatever your team/tandem is doing, which usually in my experience is 110mph-135mph. But again, as I've already pointed out, it's not just about speed. It's about direction. Opening while moving chest/belly first, vs opening while moving headfirst. In the latter situation, you go through more of an rotation on opening, and all rotations are accelerations. If you want to minimize opening shock (which is dependent on accelerations), you should be moving straight down (in a head high position) as much as possible on opening. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Any underwear? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Ok, I applied a little bit more highlight tweaking then you did, also did a really quick clone stamp job to kind of get rid of the lens flare (still visible but a lot less) and I added a tiny saturation and a few other things, and a USM. Here is the result. I probably overdid it a bit with the saturation, but the main point was to see how much of the highlights we could get back (which unfortunately wasn't much... there is a lot of blown out regions to begin with). www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I don't know exactly how the new criteria works, but assuming it requires a photo from directly above, you can't test the photo in question using that criteria. Which, along with spherical distortion, is another flaw that will NEVER go away from any grid-type solution. There is no way to center yourself perfectly as a photographer, and no way for the photo viewer to verify precisely where it was taken from. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Yeh, that looks better... but unless the shadows are really bad (which yours weren't) I rarely fix shadows AND highlights at the same time, as it makes the colors look really fake and kills depth. Try touching only the highlights (not the shadows), and I'd push them even further than you did. I'll give it a shot of my own when I am back on my home PC with PS. There are more advanced ways to do it like using curves, or even a fake HDR with curves/layers/masking, but they're more difficult and often yield very similar results. And yeh, I'm calling the same thing a lens flare that you are referring to... www.WingsuitPhotos.com