pilotdave

Yup, that's exactly what I do... I don't tend to just give away prints that people ask for... in fact, if they want a print, i have them order it off my site so I don't have to get involved (the entire reason I put up the site in the first place). I recently decided to put some of my own pictures on my walls... had never done that for some reason. So I printed and framed a shot that I really liked of another jumper. Then figured he'd like it, so I printed an 8.5x11 for him. Then after a few days I decided it was silly to have his picture on my wall so I took it down and gave him both of them. Dave

I don't disagree... but I better not discuss the number of 13x19 framed prints I've given away for free. Gotta give the frames with the prints... they're so hard to find.

Don't worry... when a civilian dropzone sees a -400 otter in 20 years, there will be LOTS of duct tape. Gotta cover those big square holes where the screens used to be. Dave

Cockpit shot... Dave

You're not bothered one bit by the fact that UPT requires 500 jumps before you're even supposed to jump with a tandem, plus 100 camera jumps if you want to film the tandem? Oh, and 100 jumps within the last year, even if you don't bring a camera along. You meet none of their requirements. I don't care what brand of tandem gear your DZ uses... I'm just curious if it's something you've thought about and just disregarded because you're better than average? I understand that you have people supporting you at your DZ. But you also need to know when to say no when other people are saying yes. Dave

They SHOULD go for more than that. But I barely sell any at those prices. My 8x10s are $4. Unless you want it on metallic paper, then it's a whopping $4.50. I once sold a pretty big print... 16x20 maybe... but made a mistake in my pricing for that size on that type of paper. My profit was 21 cents. He then spent $250 to have it framed. Awesome. I'm not doing this for money, I don't have years of experience (well, 2 and a half years of stills now) and I don't get invited to photograph events. So I'm just in this for fun. Not a chance of breaking even on my expenses... not when smugmug alone costs me $150/year and I don't even come close to making that much, let alone paying for cameras, lenses, jumps, etc. I really don't see why an amateur like me should be so worried about digital files "getting out." People want them for their web pages. No idea how many profile pictures on facebook I have shot. I enjoy finding them. I even know of at least one right on this site. I'm honored.

I sell them in 3 sizes (because that's what smugmug allows)... 1 megapixel, 4 megapixels, and full size. I price them cheap because I don't do this to make money... I sell them so that people don't bug me for pictures all the time, they can just buy em. 25 cents, $1, $10 (at the moment). I use higher prices for tandem photos if I shot stills and they didn't buy a stills package... and I use an obtrusive watermark for those. My DZ got a myspace page early this year... no idea why. But someone asked me to upload some pictures to it. I realized that a bunch of jumpers have myspace pages (even though they are too old for that sort of thing and myspace is the devil). I was surprised to find that a bunch of them had pages full of pictures I took, downloaded from my website. Oh well... that's what I post pictures for I guess... so my friends can enjoy them. I've actually sold over 300 pictures (probably more digital download sales than prints). No idea how many I've given away. Thousands, I'm sure. For a short time I started using an obtrusive watermark across my pictures. I almost immediately got a request to remove it so that my friend could download the picture. I've pretty much given up on getting people to buy the pictures they like for 25 cents.

Alright, my turn... Two weekends ago. My 3rd attempt at classic accuracy (all that day). Misjudged my approach and came up short of the tuffet. Should have realized it higher, but I felt like I was going to make it and needed to sink in. Held in brakes too long... when I realized I was short of the tuffet I flared the rest of the way to try to slow my descent a little. STUPID me, accuracy canopies just sink faster when you do that. Thought I was gonna be ok, then SLAMMED into the ground. Feet, butt, ouch. That hurt. Nothing serious as far as I know... but boy is my butt sore. Dave

What do you mean by "create lift?" I assume you are saying that the wind speed in the tunnel is slower than your natural fallrate so you need to fly in a slower body position in the tunnel? Dave

Get a helmet you want to jump now. Get a camera helmet when you want a camera helmet. I wouldn't personally recommend a sidewinder as a camera helmet... just not very versatile, no cutaway, etc... you can get more info on camera helmets when you need it. If you want a full face helmet, there are a lot of options... see if you can try some on to decide what works best for you. For a mudflap mount, I just bought one of THESE. Haven't jumped it yet... waiting for a new altimeter to arrive to mount on it. But it seems to be very well made and looks like it'll work well. Oh, I'd also recommend against a parasport audible. Don't specifically know anything about that one, but they have an awful track record. I do like their helmets though! Dave

Canon 5200mm Dave

Send her to my place. She can move anything she wants to vacuum my floors. If I put my rig in the shower, will she clean that too? Oh, and no, I wouldn't be upset if I had a roommate move my rig to vacuum. Dave

Normally a 182 all winter. Possibly (fingers are crossed) a 206 this year. Plus our 182 for the busy days. Dave

No, I mean all the dropzone owners that accept their certificates and have allowed them to continue operating for years after it was widely publicized that they were a bunch of crooks and scam artists. They are as much to blame as the owners of skyride. Dave

Running their dropzones... right where they've been all along. Dave

Quit yer bitchin' and finish AFF! January is when you want to travel for fun, to jump at a boogie, not to finish AFF. You've got plenty of time before the season ends. And you're not afraid of the cold are ya? C'mon, we'll be jumping all winter. But if you do have to go elsewhere to finish, you'll be best off finding a dropzone that teaches the same student program, the ISP. Some dropzones are still using the older AFF program, levels 1-7 instead of categories A-H. They're not so different, but it does make it simpler if they don't have to kind of translate from one program to another. You're getting dangerously close to your coach jumps (when you get to come play with me). You can knock them out really fast. We've got a lot of coaches and not enough instructors, so once you get to hop n' pops, things will really speed up. Gets cheaper too! Dave

Oh its definitely true. I got that bad on a flight to a dropzone once. Everyone in the plane had a headset except for me, so I was a bit in the dark over everything going on. Someone yelled to me that we were 5 miles away or something like that. Thats when I REALLY started feeling like I needed to go. Well, turns out that we were 5 miles from SOMETHING, but not the destination! Half hour later I was ready to explode. Really didn't think I was gonna make it. Lesson learned... no more coffee before going on a trip. Dave

Sony Premium MiniDV tapes are crap? Dave

Would that be THIS botched gainer exit?

They both have advantages and disadvantages. I'm not ready to go tapeless... When I fill a tape, I pop in another. They cost less than $3 each and hold an hour of footage. I can firewire footage from one minidv camera to another... very convenient. Memory card cameras require you to dump the footage SOMEWHERE, or keep buying very expensive memory cards. But memory card cameras will be the way to go. They're really convenient for some things. You can transfer footage faster than real time. That would be awesome. It's also easy to carry an extra memory card in a jumpsuit pocket... I do that for my still camera already, just in case. I don't carry an extra tape with me. I definitely prefer tape, but I'll change my mind one of these days... I won't have a choice. Dave

http://web.archive.org/web/20050307150002/http://www.tridenthc.com/ReflexSizes.htm It's a -S, not -5. For S-class. A version of the reflex with a shorter container. Dave

You could fund your skydiving career by packing for me alone! I'm NOT picky! BTW, AFF gets easier and easier as you progress through it. Everything just keeps getting funner and funner on each jump. Dave

Mine's not as cool as yours but thought it was ok... Movement toward the door. Dave

You're famous! But not as famous as Justin... http://powelltribune.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=281&Itemid=1 Dave

And why'd they forget to mention that skydivers absorb oxygen through our skin so we don't have to breathe in freefall and we could suffocate in clouds? Eh, I guess that's common knowledge. Seriously though, none of the technical errors you mentioned bothered me. It was a good show. They can't cover everything. Dave