PharmerPhil

Amen. It scares me when I see camera flyers leaving big lens catching loops of brakeline hanging out there. I usually (always?) use packers, but I always stow my brakes and excess line as soon as I land. Thanks for the post, and I'm glad this worked out okay. I look at helmet cutaways the way I look at AADs. Never want to use one, but it is reassuring to hear when they do work properly.

Simultaneously press Apple (command), Shift, and 3.

I've never used iMovie, but I am guessing if that is your tool, Compressor is out of the price range. How about just using Quicktime Pro? It has an export option using H.264, and you can choose a data rate that will keep whatever length movie you want within 5m. It comes with FCS, but you can buy it alone for only $30. http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore?productLearnMore=D3380Z/A

Check out the specs here: http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665291496 On the rt. hand spec column it says: Memory Stick PRO™ Media Compatibility *Tested to support up to 8GB media capacity; does not support high speed transfer function; does not support Access Control security function.

I noticed on one of the spec/info sheets for the HDR-SR12 at sonystyle, it said: "Memory Stick PRO™ Media Compatibility... does not support high speed transfer function" Wassup with that? Does that you can't dump files faster than 1x?

Try getting a dog. I think they're cheaper than wives, and they never play with your camera stuff.

I wouldn't want to be working the Toshiba booth at CES right now.

One thing that may be obvious to people on this forum, but not so obvious to the outside. You will usually only find remote shutter release ports on DSLR cameras. They are very rare on all-in-one, or point-and-shoot cameras. (Sorry if you already knew that.) Camera shops don't know about "bite" switches, but they should know if a camera has a "remote shutter release."

More good news for Blu-ray from Warner Brothers who today announced that they would release movies only in Blu-ray going forward. They had previously been the only studio who was releasing HD disks in both formats: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20080104/D8TVBARO0.html

$150 sounds very cheap to me. But then again, $75 sounds too cheap for a normal video. I assume when you do a standard DVD your camera export and timeline are all SD. How much longer does the edit and render take when you have to do the whole thing in HD? How much longer does the burn take?

That would work too, but it will chew through batteries alot quicker. Particularly if you use auto-focus.

I don't have a 40D, but do have a 20D which (I believe) is similar as far as the power switch goes. If you open the battery door, the camera powers down. My camera is front mounted on a Skysystems Vapor, and I have to turn on the power switch before I mount the camera. I simply open the battery door to power it off, and reach up and close it right before exiting. If I do a go 'round and am worried about the time, I just fire off a shot and the clock starts again. Never had a problem doing it this way.

I have been hoping to hear something concrete about this. Keep in mind that this is not by any means official, and Apple is historically very secretive about specific product anouncements. But this Analyst (Wu) is the same one who recommended a strong buy for Apple a year ago September based on his belief that the "Apple cell phone is real and ready for production." http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/01/03/apple_set_to_ship_macs_with_blu_ray_support_report.html Apple is already on the Blu-ray board, and makes a lot of HD content creation tools. Of course there is that little company in Redmond, WA who still supports HD-DVD...

Two places to start are right on Apple's web site. The home page (as of today at least) has a link right in the center for a guided tour of Leopard, their latest operating system: http://www.apple.com/ Three clicks away I found this "Portables Fast Start" page which looks helpful: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303638 If you wanna get in depth with any given Apple program, you can find the manuals for those programs in the support section. If it is a non-Apple program (Dreamweaver, Photoshop, etc.), get a book. there are usually tons for any popular program at any book store. Good luck.

I've found that the stations can usually deal with whatever media you give them. I've been able to firewire to their camera a few times. Other times I just dub them a MiniDV tape (only good stuff), and they can use that in thew studio (I never give away my original footage). Timing is key though. If you think you'll just do another tandem and them give them the footage after, you may find that they have already left to make their deadline. Talk to the producer/reporter early on (they are often one and the same person for local news stations). They will usually appreciate any help/material you can give them. They have a job to do, and a product to deliver too. Make it easy for them. They will usually introduce you to the cameraman who knows what will and what won't work technically. I find that a lot of the talking heads don't really know the tech side, or how they will deal with the footage. Keep the braggarts and horror story tellers away, and make sure if you line up interviews that they are with people who know what the end game is. Positive promotion of the DZ and the sport. They may prod you for info on the dangers and accidents. Keep it in perspective, and keep it positive. Someone with a marketing or customer relations background can usually speak "in headlines" and give sound bites that work for the media, and help promote the sport and the DZ. And find a customer who just had an orgasm from their first skydiving experience. That usually makes for a good interview.

Effective January 1st, the TSA is instituting new regulations on carrying spare lithium-ion batteries on commercial flights. I just became aware of this, and it appears that any battery installed on a device (i.e. on the camera or computer) is okay. However, any spare batteries are now prohibited from being in checked luggage (I think), and there are limits to how many large batteries you can carry in your carry-on luggage. More info here: http://phmsa.dot.gov/portal/site/PHMSA/menuitem.ebdc7a8a7e39f2e55cf2031050248a0c/?vgnextoid=24e4ffc638ef6110VgnVCM1000001ecb7898RCRD http://www.tsa.gov/travelers/airtravel/assistant/batteries.shtm I'm no expert here, and I think there are actually techical limits as to the amount of lithium in the spare batteries. That is, this may only apply to extremely large batteries such as are found on ENG cameras, and those large flat notebook batteries. But the way I read it, it still prohibits all spare batteries form checked luggage. As one who routinely carries two spare video batteries, one spare laptop battery, and one spare DSLR battery, I would love anyone with more info to chime in.

One more thing (meant to say this). Another solution is to set your auto-exposure compensation (the little +/- button) to over-expose your image. In this case, probably by a full stop. This is similar to what video cameras do when you set them to "backlight," and is useful anytime your subject is darker than the majority of your frame (i.e., a person sitting by window, or with bright lights behind them. Again though, once you turn away from the plane, you will probably not have a setting that wil work for the rest of the skydive, and the sky will still be completely washed out for the exit shot. Honestly, looking up at a subject with a mid-day overcast sky behind it will rarely result in an award-winning photo.

Yeah, what do they know.

When a camera is set to auto exposure, it looks for an image that is exposed at 50-percent brightness. For most normally light scenes, this works fairly well. And if you shoot skydivers from above, with the ground below (not counting BSR violations), you usually get a decent image. Unfortunately, if you have a large area that is very bright (like your overcast sky), the camera thinks the whole image is too bright, so it brings the exposure down to acheive this overall brightness of 50-percent. This means that the small area of the plane is underexposed and appears very dark. Often you can brighten the shadows with software, but this isn't ideal. The situation is complicted by the fact that most digital cameras have less dynamic range than the human eye. That is, the difference betwen the lightest portion of a scene, and the darkest portion is too great for the sensor to completely handle (print film is better in this regard, but this still would have been a tough shot). Two more solutions come to mind for this kind of shot other than filling the frame more completely with the subject as Quade has pointed out. One is to set your exposure manually for the primary subject--in this case the underside of the plane. This is difficult (and changes for different shots in the skydive), and it would make the already washed out sky even brighter--probably completely white. The second solution would be to jump with a powerful flash (not the built in flash), and have the flash lighten the underside of the plane. Personally, I always jump an external flash when shooting up at the sky for things like balloon or helipcoter exits. However, if you are new to jumping camera, I wouldn't add the extra equipment and distraction at this point. What you have shot here is a very difficult shot to expose properly, and probably won't be typical of the bulk of your skydive photos. Good luck, and keep working it.

That's the scariest part of all this. People just keep making more dangerous helmet setups, and no one says anything, so the next wanna-be camera guy comes along and figures it must be okay. I am sure the original poster is very proud of his work, and thinks it is okay. I think it is very ill-conceived (sorry, that's just my opinion, I hope you take it well). That is a huge protusion on the side of the helmet, and the still camera has snag points on all the three sides I can see. If you want to mount something on top of a helmet, get a helmet that is designed well for that hardware. (I might guess that the manufacturer designed that little flat spot on top for a PC-type camcorder or a bullet-cam, but that doesn't make much sense if you have a side-mount box too). Recommendations? Well, think things through ahead of time, and include what equipment you plan on putting up there before picking a helmet. Get the advice with someone who is more safety concious than yourself (that may throw out the old recommendation of asking "other camera flyers at your DZ"). Get a helmet suited for what you want to mount on it. Make, or have someone make, deflectors/spacers/whatever to minimize the places lines can get caught (under that huge lens, on both sides of the SLR, by the W/A video lens, etc.). There is also a difference between Norm Kent jumping a huge well thought out large film rig, and some B-License skydiver simply buying a bunch of stuff and throwing it on a stock helmet for the weekend. Yes, many camera helmets are snap-prone. Many could be made much better though, and this doesn't pass muster...IMHO

I haven't seen a sony (or any other camera) that didn't have this. It's called the record button, and it is as easy to learn by feel where it is as it is to learn by feel where a CamEye (or other) is located. My guess is that they will have that either way at this point. Why would their marketing departments want to spend any additional dollars where there is no chance of gaining market share, and where the audience is so miniscule? I used to work in consumer electronics, most of the time for companies much, much smaller than Sony. And we wouldn't have cared at all about the numbers that the skydiver market represents (certainly not enough to re-tool or add cost to an item). I think we are just lucky that the consumer stuff has worked so well for us for so long.

I would be very careful. Yes, Pentax makes great cameras (my first freefall film camera was a Pentax). But I would not count on using this camera for skydiving until you investigate the shake reduction. A quick check of the dpreview site showed the camera's CCD uses a This sounds like it could cause problems with freefall similar to the optical image stablizers in video cameras that have proven unusable. And yes, fill out your profile.

I've got lots of jumps on a 20D without any problem (totally exposed, front mount). I know there is a menu item that determines how long the camera stays on before shutting down, but the times are measured in minutes, not seconds. It is called "Auto Power Off" and the shortest setting is 1 minute. I leave mine at 4 minutes, and if we do a go round, or I am just bored waiting in the door, I click a shot off. Never had it shut down prematurely. Just some thoughts. Do you get error messages when it shuts off? Does the battery show as fully charged (temperature affects batteries)? Do you use the exact identical helmet set-up in the tunnel? (I just re-read your post, and it makes me wonder about that switch, but its wiring is pretty simple. Try that same switch on the ground, in the tunnel, etc.)

I hope we don't squash debate based on someone's newness to the forum (scottjaco has at least been on dropzone.com longer than either you or DSE, if not on the video forum). It is just this sort of give and take that I come to the forum for. Yes, DSE has brought a wealth of knowledge and experience to this forum, and his contributions are very welcome. But let's not suggest someone back off if they happen to disagree with him. I am personally very interested in the audio part of the discussion. I just shot a two-hour Xmas concert (mostly choral) and used my old DSR-200 as one of three cams just so I could feed my main audio to it (16-bit PCM uncompressed). I do wish there had been better audio options adopted in the HDV format. (I know, not really skydiving related...)

If you have higher aspirations in video editing (and if you can afford it) one good thing about Final Cut Pro or Final Cut Express is that the work flow and tools are very similar to other high-end NLE programs. That is, once you learn it, the jump to things like AVID or Premiere is pretty simple. I don't think this is true of iMovie or other low-end programs (but I have never used iMovie, so I may be full of it). Of course, one thing nice about iMovie is that you don't have to buy it...