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What is Royal .0175? Is it the one from Max Cohn's place? Anyway, let me ask you a few questions. What do you think of Schneider Optics lenses (formerly Century Precision Optics)? I have a 0.3 fisheye and 0.55 wide angle adaptors. I am thinking of buying a converter lens in 0.6-0.7 range, and I am thinking of going with Schneider’s 0.65 W/A converter. Do you have any experience with their converters? I am very happy with their adaptor lenses. I also own Raynox HD3030 and HD5050. They are great lenses but they are not exactly zoom thru like they advertise. Thanks!

I also see what you are seeing, the dip in the center cell. (first pic only) I have seen some thing like that (bent in the middle chordwise) on almost all x-braced canopy still pictures. Never this symmetrical though. It is a still picture, so it probably is a momentarily kinda thing.

What are the lines/tapes running from the ends of the center cell to the apexes of black diamonds? I am sure they are running passed the diamonds, but looks new.

So is it working? Except for the LCD... That was the problem with my calculator, too. But if you completely dry it, the blotch might go away.

Hi Dan. From the picture you uploaded (and pictures posted by IMGR2 in the swoop forum), the frontal view of the nose (how the middle chamber is all closed up and the overall shape of the leading edge), line length, number of cross bracing in each chambers and etc.... looks very like Velocity, to me. I don’t know if you remember, but I recall you saying to me you are very impressed with the velocity design (A while back in 2001 at x-keys). I am not saying that is a bad thing or anything. (I think some aspects of Sensi looks very like Velo, too.) Would this be your version of an updated canopy to the existing x-braced canopies on the market? I could not tell from the picture, but are there extra d-lines or anything that might make current velo’s d-line slacks on rear input diminish? Like Stiletto compare with Katana or Vengeance? What are differences between this new canopy and other x-braced canopies? Don’t tease us too much…

Thanks for the info! I will be checking out your site for the 2007 season. Hope to see you some time soon.

Hey. I found out recently that Lazzy is a nickname for Laszlo. Are you the Lazzy I met at Z-hills back in 2002? (I was with Lance and Donny). Anyhow... Nice picture by the way. Question: For 15mm diagonal fisheye lens (like canon’s and sigma’s) used with a full frame camera, can you still use 580EX with a diffuser to cover 15mm fisheye view? "Other than" a fill flash purpose. (Looking at your picture, surely it works that way.) Like for sunset load pictures. Do you get darkened edges? I was just thinking, because 15mm fisheye covers more than 14mm rectilinear lens.

Here, we are using the isopropanol as a carrier solvent to vaporize the water with the alcohol. If you use enough isopropanol, you may end up not having much water left at all before drying, so it will dry quicker. I am not sure if it works with a camcorder, but it did work with my sophisticated graphing calculator. Like I said, better than not trying. Acetone (nail polish remover, etc) will dissolve plastic, so do not use that. Though it even dries quicker. I hope some DZ's are letting you do intentional cutaway with the Safire.

You should ask Freefly Mike. He does take great pictures. He uses the built in flap type diffuser that is on his 580EX. Not the slip on type you buy separately. He said he shoots with the wide end of his 10-22mm. I think he was using 14mm (so 20mm conventionally), sometimes even wider. Maybe merely to diffuse the light for the wide angle coverage. (I am pretty sure not for the bouncing purpose, though.) You should ask Mike this weekend.

I would do the same. Better than not trying. I have actually done this with my $100 calculator when I spilled red wine (more like dumped whole glass over it) on the face of it. The wine dried and got sticky. I used the same method and dried the calculator on a radiator for a day. Amazingly it worked. But use isopropanol/isopropyl alcohol at 99%. The rubbing alcohol is 30% water and 70% isopropanol.

I was wondering. Are you still experiencing the shake problem with your HC7? Just curious.

have you been on your belly most of the time? or you have been diving hard to a formation, standing, going headdown etc like guscabana is saying. by the way i remember reading here at dz.com a few years back that the TRV 900 shake was due to 3 chip design. in the case of hc7, could the shake be due to OIS? i am interested to hear your opinion since you know a lot about camcorders. thanks

I thank you very much for the information.

Wow. Firstly, thanks for the info. “Sony Vegas set to Best/Full, shot with a Sony V1U, full end of the lens. Aperture at 5.6, ND2, 1/60shutter, 30P/FPS” Could you elaborate on this a bit more? You took a still picture with V1U, using most telephoto end, at f5.6. and etc. I did not know you can manually set aperture and shutter speed on V1U. (Can you do the same with FX7?) Just to clarify for my understanding, was this image taken by Vegas from a recorded footage uploaded to a computer, or was the picture taken by camcorder while the tape was played on the camcoder, or you used V1U as a still camera? I didn’t even know V1U could be used as a still camera like HC series. Sony’s Japanese site doesn’t tell much about V1J. Anyway I think the image is great. Good enough. By the way, are the ND settings on V1 controlled by the exposure or are they phisically done by filters that go in front of the sensor? Just curious. I am thinking about buying FX7 successor. Are the image sensors and image processors different between consumer and pro handycams? i.e. HC1 vs A1, FX7 vs V1 etc. What are the differences? Other than microphones and obvious difference in appearances. Are they mechanically different, too? When I played with HC1, I noticed that unless you zoom in and out very slowly, it went out of focus. Is something like that fixed on A1?

By 2/3, you mean something like this? http://www.ecat.sony.co.jp/business/dvcam/products/index.cfm?PD=19622&KM=HDW-750 I guess just having 3 sensors doesnt mean 3x1/4 and 3/4 sensor... For FX7 in this case. Could the highest end handycam produce reasonable 4x6 picture anytime soon? Like in 2-3 years. sorry for damn questions. Video cameras are so complex.

yeah, but as far as i know, if you do that the video will not be continuous. 3-10 sec delay after taking a still shot according to the fine print. I guess we still need a still camera.

Why not take stills from the recorded footage when you get to the ground (video room)? The HC-7 takes 1 mega pixel stills from the recorded footage. Canon's new HV20 takes 2 mega pixels stills. According to their web pages. If they are good enough, that would be great. No more SLRs. I dont think tamdem students really cares.

Same as all the other camcorders as far as still recording capabilities onto flash card. 1: Take still from the already recorded video footage (2 mega pixels) 2: Still picture (3.1 mega pixels) 3: Take still pictures while you are recording video (2 mega pixels) From: http://cweb.canon.jp/ivis/hv20/point-easy-sttape.html#style May be OIS problem like HV 10? As far as skydiving is concerned.

I was wondering. We cannot use optical image stabilization on HV1 (Canon OIS) for skydiving. How about the optical stabilization on this new HC7? You have jumped FX-7, right. I saw that thread. I believe FX-7 has OIS, also. Not the image sensor stabilization. How did that go?

Thanks Guys! Great article.

"The other big advantage of the full frame is for any given focal lenght and f stop you'll get more depth of field (1.6 more than the other DSLRs)." I have read on Japanese Canon website that the larger sensor (or just larger recording media, like medium and large format) has advantage of giving shallower depth of filed, resulting in nice back ground blur at large aperture. I did not know the opposite was true. Where did you find this information? I don’t know enough optics to understand fully, but I am interested. Like you said this would make manual focusing more forgiving. By the way your published pictures are really good. Are you switching to full frame with 24mm-35mm range lens? You are using 15mm fisheye on APS size sensor right? I do see that in a lot of your pictures. I have another question. Have you tried to use one of those software that correct distortion (defishing)? If you have, how are the results?

Thanks a lot!

Thanks for the info. So do you normally have the IS on? Or would you say IS may not be that useful in freefall? You would not say IS might be disadvantageous, right? Not a big deal, but if IS really works well in free fall, I thought people may not have to worry about not shaking head as much. I was wondering, were those pictures taken at 17mm setting?

Does IS work well in free fall? Are you using the IS in panning or tripod mode? Could you put some pictures you took in free fall using the IS? (If it not much trouble.) Thanks.

Century Optics. Bar none. http://www.schneideroptics.com/