dragon2

If you are considering a safire 1 119, remember it's about 108 sqft! Quite small regardless of wingload for ~300 jumps. A safire 2 119 might still be too small, I'd go for a sabre2 135, safire 2 129, fusion 135 or pilot 132 first those will all give you plenty more performance than a sabre 135. ciel bleu, Saskia

Didn't fly as well?? I love mine! It's a size smaller than advertised so that may surprise you esp. if you're downsizing, but other than that, it doesn't open, fly and land all that different from a safire 2. I've just paid a LOT of money to get my safire 119 relined I love it so much

Sounds like a reefing system to me? See attached pics ciel bleu, Saskia

Yes, 35mm sensors as opposed to DX cameras which have APS-C sized sensors. ciel bleu, Saskia

Hmm i was talking about main spring pilot chutes, not sure if the same simple technique should be used for reserves ciel bleu, Saskia

You just sit on it Use a long packing cord or piece of line, this goes through the pilotchute, now compress pilotchute, hold it down firmly (I use my knees) while closing the rig. ciel bleu, Saskia

Dogs, kids, all cool as long as you keep 'em where they do not bother anyone and clean up after them. We had a few dog-related incidents at my DZ, like 2 dogs running playing unto the taxi way and the owner of one of them who's a skydiver complained someone left the gate open, well yeah it's a gate for keeping the public behind we not there to mind your dog, same with bigmouth kids "yeah but YOU are on the other side" One small dog almost caused a serious/fatal incident when a swooper accidentaly put his foot down on it when turning to a blindman, he ended up with linetwist heading for the fence at full speed, he thought he was dead meat but managed to twist away far enough to avoid injury. WTF is a dog doing on that side of the gate, the "solution" was proposed to not land there anymore, hell, the only solution in my book is to keep the dogs behind the %^& fence! BTW the dog survived too. Don't get me wrong I love dogs, but they need to be well behaved, quiet and no bother and we don't want to have to babysit them if you can't. Same for kids, having my camera helmet jumped on ruined my video camera that was in the hangar (€ 1050 thank you very much) and of course no one offered who done it or offered to pay for the damage And yesterday I asked the parents (one of them a skydiver) to keep their kid with icecream out of the hangar, response: "do you know how hard it is to control a 1 1/2 yr child" not really but she still shouldn't be in the hangar with food as no one should, esp drippy sticky food. If you take responsibility i'm fine with just about any pet (/kid). Heck we even had a girl come to the DZ a few times with her cat, it was on a leash, very well behaved

Sounds like a "spider slider" (ca 1980). Bob Like a reefing system? Or like an RDS? ciel bleu, Saskia

25 jumps in 2 months is good, keep that up and you'll probably be ready to fly camera at the end of the year, not much sense in buying a camera now since they change so much and prices keep dropping, unless you want it for non-jumping too. ciel bleu, Saskia

hi Ton, Take a look in the instructors forum, some threads about handcams there. ciel bleu, Saskia

It's way too wide for me, also the distortion is really pronounced, not my favorite for showing people's faces. Keep in mind you have to fly inches from your tandem to get fullframe pictures, with a 15mm or 16mm this distance is 1ft-3ft for nice filled pictures. I can't really see this lens working for freefly, unless you fly it for inside pictures and even then you have to fly very close. But I'm not much of a freeflyer so maybe someone else does use this or a similar lens with success. BTW if you jump Nikon, don't buy this lens get the 10.5 mm nikkor fisheye as it is much better. For canon, you have little choice. ciel bleu, Saskia

The canon cameras all have no-card-door release levers, I think this may be a good thing as up to now all the jumpable nikons except the D80 have had their buttons on the back of the body meaning you can't get to it when mounted up front, a major pain in the ^&* for me at least. The D80 door has no button and it's just fine. First D700s in the shops should be here (= Netherlands) in a few weeks at least that's what a photographer I told to just said today, also there is a show here this weekend which has a demo D700, i'm not going though have to jump I'm not buying this camera anyway, I'm jumping a D200 for a few weeks until my new D80 remotes arrive, I like the D200 very much but it is just too heavy for me to jump fulltime. I'll wait until there's an affordable FF D80-size camera ciel bleu, Saskia

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0807/08070103nikond700previewed.asp ciel bleu, Saskia

Some more tips: shoot in raw (or jpg+raw), use the long shutter speed noise reduction setting if your camera has it. ciel bleu, Saskia

Probably, but crw bridles have their own problems: easy to get holes in your canopy if not very careful when packing esp. when using a bag instead of a tailpocket, also the bridle can knot up so the canopy can't spread out, can be quite hard to see as the canopy is "square" from below. All in all I wouldn't recommend a crw bridle to fix a pilotchute over the nose ciel bleu, Saskia

Best lens is a fixed lens, like the canon 15mm fisheye or sigma 15mm fisheye. These are faster (f2.8), smaller, lighter and better quality (very very SHARP). If you HAVE to jump a zoom (why?) generally the good ones are heavier, bigger and some are very $$$ plus zooms tend to break easier, I'd go for the canon. The sigma is slooooow, big and heavy and just not crisp if you're used to nice fixed lenses (I have one, wouldn't jump it unless I really need the 10mm but then i'd MUCH rather jump a 10.5mm nikon fisheye). Tamron have some decent lenses but this one i don't like all that much. Bottom line, what's wrong with a canon 15mm fisheye? ciel bleu, Saskia

Here is a list of canopies and when you are allowed to jump them over here, it's a good guide for how hp a canopy is: http://parachute.nl/fileadmin/knvvlpa_upload/pdf/BVR_bijlage_B_versie_10-2007.pdf The listing is by canopy brand/type, total jumpnumbers, jumps last yr, max wingload and minimum canopy size. ciel bleu, Saskia

You don't launch from the camera step you drop down. ciel bleu, Saskia

At the moment I would not order anything from PdF, they are going through a rough patch or whatever anyway they are impossible to get ahold of and have been for some time. A shame, since I like atoms and especially techno reserves a lot. I'd strongly advise you to give up on them and order somewhere else. ciel bleu, Saskia

sabre2, maybe a fusion. ciel bleu, Saskia

The nikons here are all wired like that (since the same guy made all the remotes), they meter and focus continually when on, so they're always ready to shoot, it of course eats up some battery but I can still go for weekends without having to charge. Especially a D70s can go for a looooong time so it really doesn't matter (with these cameras anyway). ciel bleu, Saskia

Ehm what does having a mac have to do with wanting a digital altimeter? You just looking for a gadget? Anyway there's been plenty written about digital altis, their suitablility for novices/wingsuiters/swoopers/... and about their compatiblility with macs too. ciel bleu, Saskia

I was the same way when I started jumping

I was at 1:100 for my first 700 jumps, 2 intentionals in there though, hey had to keep up my averages Oh but one wasn't a cutaway, had a total on a wingsuit jump ciel bleu, Saskia

I've never jumped a PC100 but my hama .45 was just slightly wider than my nikon 20mm and my nikon 16mm is way wider (20mm works out to 30mm vs your canon 18mm works out to 29mm). I do prefer my photos to be wider than my video but my best guess is the hama .45 will work for you. You could also buy a raynox hd .3 lens and zoom that in to match up but i'd try the hama first. Note: both these lenses are "regular" lenses not single element ones so they're on the big side for sidemounting if that's what you're doing. ciel bleu, Saskia