The111

Yeh, Saskia's was typical outdoor skydiving footage, mine was running around my house in poor lighting chasing my cat... pretty shaky footage with a lot of bandwidth peaking I'm sure. Hopefully it fares better with stable freefall footage. And yeh, I did figure out (after a while) to put it on HD 1920x1080 project settings instead of HDV 1440. And... doesn't high bandwidth generally correspond with low compression, and vice versa? (EDIT: for the same piece of source material, I mean. I guess what you were saying is not that high bandwidth and high compression go together, but that both of those things increase CPU load, which makes sense.) www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I understand what you're saying, but my 30p web renders don't look jerky, even when viewed on a big screen. Well, maybe render was the wrong word... I meant just "previewing" the project on the fly in Vegas. But heck, my laptop can't play one of my MTS files smoothly even using WMP/VLC... which makes no sense since here I tested a MTS file from Saskia (from the same camera) and it viewed very smoothly on my laptop. WTF. Trying to view the test footage I took last night (which was in a low lit room), my laptop CPU (both cores) go to 100% and the footage plays at about 5 fps and the sound loops. So I can view her test file, but not my own? Maybe hers were a lower bitrate... but if anything that should take more CPU, right? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

By "downconvert" you mean de-interlace... which is where all the hassle comes from and the reason I want a device that records progressive to begin with. Also, my desktop i7 powerhouse rig has no problem with these AVCHD files... can even preview a Vegas project at full quality rendering on the fly. But my new laptop with Intel T4200 mobile processor cannot even come CLOSE to rendering these files smoothly, even though it does great with the HC5 MPEG-2 files. Oh well. Thanks for the quick email reply Trunk! www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Sounds like a problem with the camera. If I set my "power on with LCD open" setting to OFF... it never turns on when I flip the LCD open, with or without the Hypeye... just tested it both ways. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Sounds like we are on the same path Scott. I am leaving my HC5 for the CX100 also... I loved it, I just got sick of tapes. Also 1920x1080 is great... now if only we could get 1080p I would be happy. I'm super sick of interlaced video and the hassles it entails. Hell I'd take 720p over 1080i. Also am considering going from my XTi to the T1i. My only concern is whether or not my 10-22mm lens can actually resolve enough for the 15MP to be fully utilized? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

No, I just bought one. But next time you capture video from me you don't have to bitch and moan about my tapes. I got it in black. What does that say? And no, the Hypeye definitely flips the entire image (the recording/playback AND all the surrounding controls/info). I just tried even turning it on without the Hypeye connected, flipping the display around, and then plugging the Hypeye in, and it literally "mirrors" it at exactly the moment I plug in the D connector. I sent Trunk an email to make sure he sees this thread, I'm sure he will get to the bottom of it.

I finally got a CX100. Goodbye tapes! Only $400 too, what a great deal. I haven't jumped it yet, but I just spent an hour figuring out how to operate the camera in and out and reading the manual. Pretty happy with it for the most part. I'll miss having a viewfinder, but I guess I can live without it. I also don't see any type of SMOOTH INT RECORD (timelapse) like the older models I've owned had. And now I finally have a chance to use my Hypeye that I won last year in the video contest! So, I hooked up the Hypeye and for the most part it works, but one little glitch I've noticed. If the Hypeye is hooked up, and I flip the LCD all the way out, around, and back up against the body... the image becomes mirrored horizontally. And the LCD becomes unusable. Is this normal? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Damn nice video Matt! I might of skipped it over had it not been for Ed's cloud comment (and he was right, those clouds were awesome), but the whole thing was really well done. Great editing and music (I love Clint Mansell), and great flying. I also love it when I see myself in a video and know exactly what shot I was taking. At 5:42 I was taking this one. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

That's a good question... but in this case he said that he did ball up. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Christ that looks scary. I don't know if I'd do it. I trust my rigger and wingsuit maker more than I trust whoever laid that crazy cable. Nor do I think it would be a good idea to wear your wingsuit on it. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Please nobody with a gigantic suit actually try this. I know you know this Ed. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

First, glad to hear you're ok. When you balled up the first time, how long did you STAY balled up? The thing is, when you first ball up, you will actually feel an INCREASE in speed. Conservation of angular momentum. The same reason a dancer goes faster when they pull in their arms. However, this temporary increase you feel in the first second or so is completely unrelated to the forces that caused the spin in the first place. If you stay balled up for 5 seconds or more, the spin will slow down because there is nothing left to perpetuate it, and air resistance will slow it down... you will basically "coast" to a stop. What often happens is that after 1-2 seconds (which can seem like much longer in an "oh shit" moment) the person will give up and "unball"... which just starts generating the aero spin forces all over again. If you were unzipping your arms, you definitely unballed, since you can't unzip your arms from a ball position. I'm also curious how much tail is still exposed to the wind in one of these new large suits, while completing balled up... maybe somebody can take a photo of themself all fetal on the floor. I wasn't there, so my words don't mean shit, but I would be curious to see an outside video which shows you maintaining a tight balled position for 5+ seconds.

There goes the neighborhood. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Nice try Mike, but you only get to be #3. Even though Scotty will show up and put himself above Scott as #0. 1. Scott Bland 2. Justin Shorb 3. Purple Mike 4. Matt Hoover And let's not forget, last year's video: http://www.matthoover.com/gallery/skydiving-videos/Puerto_Rico_2009-HD.html And photos from last year: http://www.matthoover.com/gallery/skydiving-photos/2009-02/ God, it feels like yesterday... and already we're planning for the next one? I have one good shot in mind already, actually.

Somehow I missed a lot of this thread, but I just caught up on it all and must say: Excellent job FLB. Great video Costyn. Great editing Jarno. Great flying by all 3. Probably the cleanest flying of this kind I've ever seen on video, and the jumps went on forever... nice job on not dirty flying. If only Omar still jumped and the two of us could have made it. Were the FLB flyers both wearing Phantoms? My P2Z should be here any day and I can't WAIT! www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I did my first few hundred jumps in DeLand, and was told by many many locals that Jon LeBlanc (PD) recommended at least 18" (and I believe up to 36"?) unstowed. I never heard him say it personally, but I assumed it was true. Usually I stow leave about 18" unstowed and just make my last stow super loose with an oversized band. Edited for typo. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Not an instructor, but I just tried to reproduce this "lockup" on the ground for my own curiosity, and I couldn't seem to. No matter how tightly I tucked it all, the pin still pulled out no problem. Maybe I'm missing something. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I don't think my rig has a little velcro patch, but I could be wrong. My first rig did, which "programmed" me to always leave that amount of slack, so I still measure it out now as if there was velcro there. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I've always pointed my pin down instead of up as so many others do (and I get shit for it sometimes, but I have my logic). One of the criteria for this freak mal to happen is having your pin pointing up. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

That guy's chest strap seemed awful high... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I think I've seen that video before, but didn't know all that background info. Scary stuff. I sprained my ankle landing off on my first camera jump (SOLO in a wingsuit) because I wanting to film a puffy cloud too far from the LZ. Stupid. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I'm not a BASE jumper nor a proximity flyer (except for clouds), but I would be worried about the mental distraction of a mount like this in an environment as mentally intensive as proximity flight. I mean, a camera on your head (out of sight) is bad enough for a distraction. If I had something in my hand, I would be thinking about it no matter how hard I tried not to. To each his own though. The angle is indeed kind of cool. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Damn. It was probably 2004 when I saw my first Wes helmet. I didn't even have enough jumps to fly a camera yet, but I was already fascinated by the helmet. By the time I was flying cameras, I knew I had to get one of his helmets, but I took the road less traveled and decided to try to build one myself since Wes offered the "instructions" on a CD for purchase. Trying to build one of these things yourself will give you a much larger respect for what that man did! I emailed him a few times for help/advice with the building process, and he was a bit standoffish the first few times, but with time he started not only answering all my questions, but eventually began emailing ME to ask how the helmet was coming along! The kicker was one day after I had finished my helmet, he sent me a bunch of his new ideas and some pictures and asked me what I thought of all them. I felt honored. He even mentioned wanting to use some of my pictures in the instructional video he had always planned on producing. Even though I lived only an hour away from him, and jumped at DeLand now and then, I didn't get to meet Wes until months after I finished my helmet. I stopped by the shop one day while in town and talked with him for a few hours. He showed me all his crazy shop toys like potato guns and tennis ball launchers. He really loved building stuff... not just helmets. I am very glad I did get to meet the man behind my helmet. He was an interesting one of a kind character for sure. I'm also very glad he got to have his work somewhat immortalized in the Sky Systems helmet he designed. Selfishly, for the skydiving community, I wonder what will become of his "build your own CCM" plans. Since building my helmet I have had numerous people ask me for a copy of his instructional CD, and each time I told them I refused to copy it, and they needed to buy it from him to fund his genius. Sadly, that option has passed along with him. EDIT: Not less than an hour after writing this, an old friend emailed me asking where he could get instructions on how to build a CCM (I am pretty sure this was unrelated to my post... just a strange coincidence). www.WingsuitPhotos.com

My XTi has always had some stuck red pixels on the sensor. Any image that I plan on publishing electronically or printing, I have to make sure to edit first to get rid of the red pixel clumps. Several times I've printed something to sell to somebody only to notice I forgot to get rid of the red pixels, which while very small, stand out like a sore thumb to me, so I have to re-print the image. NEVER AGAIN! http://www.mice007.hu/2008/06/a-way-to-get-rid-of-stuck-pixels-on-a-canon-40d/comment-page-1/#comment-269 A very simple method that worked for me and my pixels are unstuck now. In short, all you do is put it in manual sensor cleaning mode for 30 seconds (no need to even remove lens), and voila! I can't believe it... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

That's the suit made for this guy, right? www.WingsuitPhotos.com