The111

I've said it once in this thread (and in several others) and I'll say it again... the Canon 10-22mm is not heavy. It's big, for sure, but compared to dozens of other lenses, even fixed lenses, it's fairly light. The Sigma 15mm is one of the only lighter ones and even that is only by a tiny bit. Canon 10-22mm : 13.6oz Sigma 10-22mm : 16.6oz Sigma 15mm : 13oz Tokina 10-17mm : 12.3oz Tokina 12-24mm : 19.2oz Tamron 11-18mm : 13.2oz Sigma 18-50mm : 15.9oz It is a bit pricey, but I wish people would stop calling it heavy. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Get a Sony PC100. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I LOL'ed. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

You passed up your chance for Window Cave last year! Beautiful pics Yeyo, did you take them? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I have Canon 10-22mm but I almost always use it at 15 or 16mm in freefall. Other range is nice for non freefall shots. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

When I had a box that was too big for my HC90 I shimmed it with business cards and covered them in gaffer tape. I learned that trick on here. Not perfect, but can be a solution. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I think Phil is saying that the biggest risk of camera flying can be more mental than it is physical. Regardless of how good you can fly you can still allow the camera to occupy too much of your brain - it can happen to all of us, I've heard stories from the best guys, with 10,000 photo jumps, of it still happening. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

You computer colors must be calibrated wrong... that looks very purple on my monitor. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

The Canon 10-22 is big but it is not heavy. Before I bought my 10-22 I searched about 2 dozen different lenses and this was one of the lightest ones, even lighter than most fixed lenses. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Who won? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

If you buy a camera now it will be probably 3 generations obsolete by the time you are ready to fly it. Unless you are going to use it a lot for other things right now, don't get it yet. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Wow, by nose oil I guess you really meant nose oil. The things I did not know! I will have to see if it really works on beer foam. Good party trick? ...you decide. "Hey baby, want me to de-foam your beer?" I had no idea my greasy nose was good for anything. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Cool, looks like a pretty DZ. In the newer versions of Photoshop the "shadow/highlight" tool will fix the lighting quick and easy... not quite as powerful as curves and levels but much much easier to use, not much thinking required. That's usually all I use. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Very cool landscape and cloudscape. Where is that? Look at the attached file for some lighting adjustments. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Agreed, the movie is a bit too slapstick and overboard with some of the stuff... but it's scary how much truth is in some of the ideas. President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho! My girlfriend's favorite part of the movie was the "ow my balls" show. I can still make her laugh to this day by simply repeating that line. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Yeh, today was a particularly humid day even for us. What kind of thread sealant do you use? Does "polishing" have any degrading effect if you do it too often? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Thanks to everybody for the kind words. Put 3 jumps on it today with the whole setup, flash and all. Definitely is a load on my neck, but not too unbearable, like I said it's well centered. The worst is sitting on the plane, if I lean over to look at my chest strap or something, once it gets off center it wants to drag my head down. In broad daylight the flash definitely doesn't do much, even if I get underneath someone and they are backlit the flash still doesn't light their underside well unless I'm pretty close. So maybe just save it for sunset jumps and conserve my neck on the others. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Wes has always taken audibles and cracked them open and added on wiring. But now you can get a Neptune with an external connector so you don't have to break any seals. You have to ask Alti-2 for it special, and it costs a bit extra, and it has no speaker in it (so you NEED another remote speaker for audible use), but it is worth it if that's what you need. It has a female MCX connecter jack on the botom. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I'm assuming you put the stuff on the inside faces (back) of lenses and filters too, right? Do you put it on the actual camcorder lens itself, the little one that hides behind the automatic door? Thanks! www.WingsuitPhotos.com

With my old HC90 and Diamond 0.3 lens, I never had any serious fogging problems, and I used nothing special. If I went through a really bad cloud of course the front of the lens would fog momentarily, but it would fix itself fast. With my new HC5 and Raynox 5050 lens the fogging has been HORRIBLE. Fogging on the front of the lens and not clearing (giant water drops continually rolling down the lense), and fogging on the back of the lens (or maybe even on the front of the camcorder lens for all I know) and that fog was still there on exit on the FOLLOWING JUMP. Of course, today was pretty moist in general... even my XT lens filter fogged on the inside, which has never happened before and I've always jumped the same combo there. So I guess I will have to give cat crap a try. The only thing I use to clean my lens now is disposable lens wipes. Wonder if I could just put cat crap on top of there, or if the solution on the wipe would negate the crap? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Olivia, he is indeed in WI and his cell # is same as always I believe... I talked to him a few weeks ago, PM me if you need the number. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I knew a guy who went straight to AFF (no tandems, etc) and had a cutaway on his FIRST jump. That's gotta be fun. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Yeh, but an FTP wouldn't fit you this good. It sounds lke a lot of $, and it is. The whole setup probably would have cost somewhere between $2000 and $2500 from Wes, just guessing from what friends have told me who got a setup from him. I've heard people on DZ's say they made a helmet for $25, and I don't know how. You can't even get the fiberglass for that much. I kept a running sheet of my costs and some of the detail is lacking (I have dozens of entries that say "Home Depot: $20" and am not sure exactly what I got. But it is amazing to see how the costs add up. Little things like a $5 box of disposable gloves. I probably went through 3 of those. Fifty cent brushes. I probably went through 40 of those. That's $35 right there for gloves and brushes. Probably close to $40 on sandpaper if I had to guess. Also my composite supplies (fiberglass, epoxy, mold releases, epoxy fillers, epoxy coloring agents, caron fiber) were all ordered from US Composites and I paid probably $10 shipping on every order and probably ordered from them 10 times since I kept finding extra things I needed $70 Instruction CD from Wes Plaster Cast $40 plaster (we did this twice because we screwed up the first one) $70 SCUBA hood (a really nice 7/5mm from Henderson - for the plaster wrap, and to later use as the helmet liner) $60 misc tools/materials for constructing and sealing cast (polyester resin, gloves, brushes, dust masks, goggles, tape, mold release wax, hacksaw blades, sandpaper) Foam Head Mold $130 tools/materials for constructing head mold (polyurethane foam, more polyester resin, mold release wax, microballoons, more sandpaper, more brushes, gloves, mixing sticks, mixing cups, That's $370 and I haven't started on the helmet yet. Helmet Shell $160 fiberglass/epoxy $75 misc supplies for setting up layup of CCM base and crown $85 drill and several bits $100 Terry Schumacher's cutaway hinge $30 latch hardware (very difficult to find hardware, only a few stores online I could order from and all had minimum orders so I got extra) $130 (Ace/WalMart/Home Depot) Not sure about this one, lots of little things adding up in here for sure, also some hardware from Ace) That's $960 now, still have carbon fiber top plates to go, and other end details. $240 carbon fiber plus more epoxy (I messed up a lot when I started working with the carbon fiber and had to scrap quite a few of my first plate attempts. The stuff is expensive, but without my fuckups this entry would say $80 probably) $150 misc supplies/tools/materials for working on top plates (lots of little costs adding up again, plus I bought a LOT of accessories for my drill, plus punches, taps, files for working with the CF, and hardware for fastening everything together, I bought some I didn't need) Add $100 for my paint job (a good deal) and we're at $1450. Add another $50 for electrical supplies (those little MCX RF connectors on the detachable mouthswitch are not cheap) and we have $1500. In reality the total is probably even a bit more. If I wanted to build a second one, I already have my completed head mold (first $370 saved) and some leftover fiberglass and carbon fiber, and all my tools. I could probably do it virtually for free. Maybe $200 (for all those little unexpected costs) plus paint, plus $100 if I want another cutaway hinge from Terry. Even without making mistakes and overspending... a custom helmet is NOT cheap. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

More pics... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Well, it is now 16 months since I began this project. I didn't exactly work on it nonstop though. There were many periods where I wouldn't even touch the project for 3-4 months, as other things in my life took priority. Also, a lot of the time was spent making mistakes and then fixing them since this was my first time doing this. I have said I could do this again in 8 weeks if I wanted to, and I very well may, since I could make the second one better. The helmet itself is about 12oz heavier than I wanted it to be (52oz total including top plate) due to some mistakes I made early on. This extra weight shouldn't be too killer, especially since it is distributed around my head, and not way up above like the cameras. Some of you may have seen this video I made last year after I got wrapped in plaster. I have similar video footage of a lot of the other steps of the project (head mold construction, and fiberglass layup), but I will post those at a later date. For now, here are some pictures of my helmet. It has a Sony HC5, Canon 350D + Canon 10-22mm, and Canon 580 EX II which was just added. I jumped the helmet for the first time last week with just the two cameras. That was around 8.5 pounds and I was a bit worried at first (my old setup was 6.5 pounds), but I put a few jumps on it and it felt fine. The weight is VERY well centered. I literally spent several hours with my top plate balancing on a dowel figuring out where to mount everything for good CG placement. With the flash it will be exactly 10 pounds. I will jump this setup for the first time on Sunday. If I ever do choose to build another helmet I could shave maybe 3/4 to 1 pound off of that. As far as cost, I thought I could save a lot of money and time by doing it myself versus paying Wes to do it. I was sort of right (definitely NOT on the time though). My total cost including paint job and lots of one time fees (tools I didn't have) was around $1500. That was slightly cheaper than it would have cost from Wes. But I have enough left over fiberglass and other materials to do a second one for free, probably. I also did some things differently than Wes, most notable hinging the door sideways and using a cutaway system (Terry Schumacher's that he sells to Bonehead for the FTP). This was one of the primary reasons I chose to do it myself (wanted a cutaway). All of the cameras are on carbon fiber plates which are quick release slide in and out of position, and held in place by one thumbscrew only. This is Wes' design, I just copied it. Also the Alti-2 Neptune you see on the top plate is wired to two remote speakers inside so I get my alarms in both ears, and I always have access to the Neptune without having to pull it out of a pocket or something (not that there would be room inside this style of helmet). I apologize for the stream of consciousness stlye of this post. I've been up for almost 24 hours putting the finishing touches on this beast, and my brain is running in circles. I had to post these pictures though before I went to bed. If anybody has any questions, please ask. I also apologize for the crappy quality of the pics, had to use my g/f's point and shoot (some of the colors came out funny) since my DSLR was obviously unavailable (except for the last one, and the flash didn't seem to like the mirror there so I had to use some weird settings). Lastly, I'd like to thank Wes for innovating such an awesome design, I may have been able to build it but I didn't create it (I purchased the instructional CD from him for $70, well worth it). His website is HERE if anybody wants to take a look. In addition, I would like to thank Brett Thomas from Texas (camera for Deguello) for all of his help. I've never even met the guy, but Wes set me up with him since he had built some of his own CCM's in the past. Brett answered all my emails and spent hours on the phone with me helping me through the project. I wouldn't have got it done without him. Goodnight! www.WingsuitPhotos.com