LukeH

Hi Maretus, I've heard that slider down opening can bend the pins in HPBG toggles, but never heard of an actuial case of it happening. Also I've had a line over slider up, the canopy was turning quite fast. Lucky enough I was far away from the wall and a little high. I'm not sure I would have had time to release the toggle on most of the slider down stuff I've jumped. Have you thought of doing a release drill off one of your friendlier slider down objects? -Luke

You are reading far too much into the post, wasn't it just a good excuse to post pictures of himself! Same thing happened last time he made a WS base jump. sorry Kris i couldn't resist, if i had cool pictures of me i'd find an excuse to post them too. I see you are still doing the same things with your arms as last year, did you try rolling your shoulders so your elbows are down level with your body? I think it will help. You were asking about flights back to the camping on here a while ago, did you get to try it out?

this is another nugget i hear a lot. people seem to forget that if you switch to fullframe there in no longer a crop factor. so if you were happy with your fixed XXmm on the APS-C format sensor it will now be 1.6 times wider, (15mm will be wider than the 10mm on APS-C). so you will probably be buying new lens(es) anyway. i don't know if canon are intending on retiring the APS-C format sensors in 1, 5 or 10 years, but i suspect they will be keeping them around for at the very least 3-5 years (but probably much longer). they have developed a few lenses for this format (as have Sigma) so for now they seem committed. the main reasons i bought the 350D and not the 20D is that it is smaller, lighter and cheaper, so for me it's better suited to helmet mounting. i would MUCH prefer to have the 20D or 30D for use on the ground, but as i'm only getting back into photography i figured i'd make do with the 350D on the ground for now. the same logic applies to the even bigger, heavier and more expensive full frames. eventually i'll probably buy a full frame, but i think i will continue to use the 350D or it's replacement in the air. the picture quality is good enough for most tasks. i wouldn't like to stick 3k worth of heavy camera body on my helmet unless i was getting paid (and i don't mean for a tandem!) so i reckon i'll get good value out of the 10-22 over it's lifetime. as it is such a nice lens i'm sure there will be a decent second hand market for it too. if you were to always 'what if' about technology you'd never buy anything!

i hear a lot of people say they would never use the 10mm setting in the air. and they are probably right because it is really wide, but just because you aren't going to use the entire range of the lens doesn't mean it's a waste! i use mine usually between 14mm and 20mm in the air, and i like having the option to change. even if you just use it at 15mm and 20mm it's still cheaper than buying 2 fixed lenses. you can change it on the plane, and less changing of lenses is better - reduce wear and keep things dust free. the fixed lenses are not significantly lighter, but they are a little bit shorter. probably only an issue if you are front mounting. as for the fixed lenses being faster, yes they are, but do you really want to use wider than f3.5-f4.5 in freefall? only if your want a shallow dof...

'the best' depends on your criteria... There are a number of factors that should be considered: 1) Is fisheye ok or not? 2) Is fixed focal length ok or would you like zoom? 3) Weight 4) Cost Here is a list of the most commonly used wide angle lenses on Digital SLRs for skydiving, their weight and their cost from B&H (imports can be cheaper) this list excludes the kit lens: ---Fixed-Fisheye Sigma Fisheye 15mm f/2.8 .81lbs $499 Canon Fisheye EF 15mm f/2.8 .73lbs $579.95 (Before $35 Rebate) Zenitar 16/2.8 fisheye .6lbs $120-$150 (not available from B&H) ---Fixed-Aspherical Sigma Super Wide Angle 14mm f/2.8 EX 1.44lbs $899 Canon Super Wide Angle EF 20mm f/2.8 USM .89lbs $420 ---Zoom Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM .85lbs $689.95 Sigma Zoom Super Wide Angle 10-20mm f/4-5.6 1.03lbs $499 here is a list of what people seem to be using: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2228784

it is NOT insurance. it is an annual patronage to a particular swiss helicopter rescue service. valid for 1 year, supposedly for all of Switzerland, some/all different services have agreements in place to collect each others patrons. if you get suck, injured or killed they will send the chopper for you. as a patron you do not have to pay for the rescue. the service in question is this one: http://www.air-glaciers.ch/fr/default.asp

It's $750 US from B&H. I'd be wary of any retailer selling one for $100 less. Check them out on http://www.resellerratings.com/ or similar. If it is a private sale, apply usual cautions. BTW if Canon stick to their usual product cycle the XT should be replaced in the next month or so. That's no to say that they will or that you should get the new one, but the prices of the XT is likely to drop if a new model comes out. Edited to add, $750 includes the kit lens, you can get the body only from B&H for $650

my VERY limited experience of jumping in highish winds was that the wind acting on the jumpers body made it turn like a wind vane. i.e. launching head high with wide legs makes you turn into the wind. on one particular load, the same effect was noticed by both jumpers, there was no noticeable side drift so i don't think it was anything to do with focusing on a fixed point. or a subconscious turn. the delay was short, about 2 seconds, a further turn in the same direction was observed by both jumpers on opening.

i thought the two cameras they released are DVD and HDD? neither of which are particularly suited to Skydiving, and probably cost in the region of $1,500

I assume you took wind conditions into account for these tests, could you post the details of the canopies used and the GR measured for each? Did you figure out anything else useful from these tests e.g. how much higher a vented version (Blackjack or MDV) starts to move forward?

i think you can do it all with one piece of software... GPSBable 1.3.0 get it here: http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=588268 you'll need to manualy trim the data to get rid of pre and post flight points.

making a minimum of 200 jumps (in 18 months) should increase your general awareness to a reasonable level - perhaps suitable to consider jumping with a wingsuit. wingsuit flying is a lot of fun, it looks (and can be) fairly easy when everything goes well. lots of things are easy when everything goes well. what separates a jumper that is ready for wingsuit flight from one that is not is their ability to cope when things go wrong - without endangering themselves or others. 200 is not a magic number, a jumper with 201 jumps is not necessarily more suitable for wingsuit flight than one with 199 jumps. but as a general guide line i think 200 is reasonable for someone with their head screwed on. some people may need even more jumps. remember 200 is the minimum recommended. if you figure you have 30+ years of skydiving ahead of you, what is the rush? (same thing applies to downsizing canopies) what would you think if someone decided that they didn't need any skydiving training, they just forged their logbook and went and jumped with a friend. well it's been done, and some people survived... doesn't make it smart.

known problems

sounds great. the DZ looks great. no need to buy me jumps... just my air fare will suffice! seriously though. if you have a budget let me know what it is, and i can make some recommendations.

My comment was meant to relate to "In many cases, desktops are now slower." I still don't believe that this statement is correct. I can see that the way i quoted it looked like i was trying to take it out of context but i wasn't, so don't get your knickers in a twist. no i don't have a HDV camera. Yes, this does not mean that the same number of read and writes are made when editing HDV. The point I was/am making making is that you will be able to get a better price / performance ratio with a desktop, this is what the poster was actually asking. Instead of trying to defend and prove you individual points try stepping back and looking at the bigger picture. You may be the local "DV Expert" but sometime other people know what they are talking about too.

Do a search on this forum for HDD based cameras. There are know problems with using comsumer grade HDDs above 10k feet.

7200 RPM drives are fast enough for DV and possibly HDV, however most laptops come with 5,400 or even slower hard drives. you can get HD's for desktops up to 15,000 RPM (although 7,200 should be ok). yes you can buy 7,200rpm drives for laptops but they are fairly new, not avaialble on all laptops and you'll pay a premium. the same things applies to graphics cards - high end is available for SOME laptops but at a premium 120GB may be enough if you don't store much on the system otherwise you'll have to lug around an external HD and power brick, not to mention the extra cost on top of your Laptop cost. quite a bold statement, i don't belive you are correct here. Laptop's have come a long way, and if you NEED portability the trade offs are probably worth it, however if one of your primary uses is digital video editing, and you don't need the portability then a desktop is the way to go. if you go to Alienware or some other high end laptop maker i'm sure you could get something capable of editing HDV comfortably, but you are talking about big $$$ BTW i have a 18month old Laptop that i use for video editing. I bought it because i needed the portability. I'd much prefer to have a desktop when i'm at editing at home. My next PC will be a desktop, and i'll buy a small light laptop to use when travelling (but not video editing).

wait a week or two and buy a computer with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor (to be released on July 27th) Use Adobe Premiere Pro 2 for editing. Get 2x 1GB of RAM modules & 2 fast internal hard drives (60-100gb for the system drive, and 300+gb for video storage) Don't buy a laptop if you don't need one, the Hard drives are much slower to conserve power and lower capicity to conserve space, not good for DV video editing but workable, probably not workable for HDV editing. The desktop will be cheaper and probably more powerful.

Nice pictures, I'm jealous. The guy in the orange and white phantom is a bit all over the place, was it Norman Kent?

Is your Full face not quieter and offering more protection than an open face on all types of jumps (rather than just the types you mentioned)? Crazy or not, I still haven't figured out what your rational is

what do you prefer about the Z1 over the Openface for wingsuit flying?

you are living on the wrong continent

unless you go to HD the resolution is going to be the same (pretty poor for prints) the 3CCD will probably have nicer colours. i doubt you could get bigger than 5x7 the HC3 can take 3 'proper' stills while shooting video. frame grabs are 4 time higher res than DV, but there are considerations of the HDV format to take into account.

ok, i can understand that (i don't necessarily agree but that is beside the point) but if you choose not to stow for this jump because you feel it is safer, then what is the rational that makes you think you should do aerials and therefore be required to go stowed at the same object? i assume by your rational that to you the stowed aerial in even less safe than just going stowed.... so why would you add two risk factors when you aren't totally happy just one of the two risk factors on it's own. it's not really a question i'm looking for an answer to. just food for thought. c-ya

it depends on your flying style. if you like to fly on top of what you are shooting, or in formations then a fixed 15mm may be good. otherwise i'd say a Canon 20mm for fixed, or if you want to be able to change the Canon 10-22 or Sigma 10-20. lots of people do use the Sigma 15mm, but lots of those people shoot frames full of blue sky and not full of the subject. on the plus side it does make framing easier. do you like the fisheye effect?