johnboy

Geez Laszlo, are you about to offer us the red pill or the blue pill? Cool shots!

Yeah, I have similar thoughts. I've just not done much with photos up until now other than pics of my kids and families. Not much touch up needed there, typically. The 40D budget undoubtedly has photoshop built into it. And I'd take any sports car at least up to 20mph, btw...

Looks like you had a few of them landing in your backyard. You should have grabbed your rig and just gone for it! Nice shots, though!

It occurred to me shortly after I made my last post that it was probably the scanner at the store where I had the film developed. The film was at most 3 weeks old and developed just a few days ago. Film at age of development just over a month,maybe? I don't get prints anymore given the small number of shots I ever feel like printing out of a roll of film anyway. I'm going to try scanning the film on my scanner and see if I can resolve the issue. Or again, heaven forbid I get Photoshop. More than anything, I'm happy that I'm starting to get good shots on purpose rather than on accident. Thanks again!

The Santa outfit goes well with the shorts... Thanks for comments all. I'm not sure how to adjust white balance on a film camera, lest I get Photoshop. Any thoughts for a photo newbie? Heaven forbid I do a search.... I did confirm yesterday, however, that a 40D should be in my possesion come December. Heavy beast, but damn was that fun to play with at the store! Time to double up on the neck exercises I guess. Thanks again!

I only added my still camera about two months ago after upgrading my Hanson to an FTP. I also wanted to get enough time in dealing with just the video before putting more crap on my head. So here are some shots now that I think I have the settings I like on my camera. Be gentle on me!

Thanks for the pointers. I'm not worried about the record indicator all that much. I just suck with soldering irons! I will probably just get the 40D anyway, btw. In the long run it will most likely be cheaper to just buy the camera I really want than go through several other cameras before I get to it. My cameras get used for lots of other projects aside from skydiving. Now which of the kids to sell....

My big thing with the Cameye is the record indicator. The switch is nice and I like being able to to switch the camera to standby for the bulk of the ride up (inflight interview otherwise), but I don't see any real issue reaching up to hit a record button. Although I still wish Sony would keep putting the LANC port on their cameras. As far as weight, that's the internal debate I'm having on still cameras. XT(i) Rebels are by far lighter, but are they as durable? I like the sturdier design on the 30D (haven't played with a 40D yet, but the suped up features sure look nice on paper). Okay. Enough hijacking.... I guess I need to figure out the record indicator for the CX7 because I'm 99% sure that is my next vid camera. DSE, are you FTP guy? I'm just wondering if you've tried topmounting the CX7 with a still camera next to it yet. It would be nice to have everything top mounted and use the front still bracket for a camera flash. Thanks for blazing the trail for us DSE!

The light weight and no tape cost is what is inspiring me. I will miss my cam eye, though. To think that my new 30D (or 40D if Santa is really nice this year) will be significantly heavier.... Blu-ray burner equipped computer is coming soon, too. I'm seriously considering selling off one of my children to afford all the toys I'm soon to acquire.

That's awesome! Way to go! If you keep this up, you might become a regular....

Hey shunkka, any chance of getting pablos or 4 resized for a desktop? Those are some beautiful shots... I've been playing around with my buddy's older Canon 10D which is 6.3 megapixels. Great camera, although I've not taken it to the DZ yet. You can pick those up on ebay in the 400-500 range. Rumor has it Santa's bringing me a 30D for Christmas. Hence I've not upgraded from film yet...

I'd recommend the guys at Napoleon. That's where I did my AFF years ago and the DZO there is one of the coolest guys on the planet. According to one of the guys out here who frequents MI, Tecumseh is supposed to be pretty good too. Welcome to the sport and best wishes!

Just remember what you're doing this for. Granted this is not really a game, I assume you're still doing this for fun. And with that assumption, HAVE some fun with it! As long as you learn something each time, you're headed the right direction.

Dang! How old is that passenger, btw? Looks like a kid.

If it encourages you at all, I did my first hundred jumps, took an eight year lay off from the sport, and as I got retrained, I fell off the plane (static line training second time through) 4 times before I actually let go appropriately! My point? No worries mate! You'll get it. Like Skymama says, just relax while you're doing the most unnatural thing you've done to date. No one is expecting you to get it right on the first try. The air is wierd place to be and you're still in the work phase. Play time is coming soon!

Hey Jenn. Long time no speak! When did you give up the skydiving? Is your man still jumping or did he give it up to? I'll get you guys out to Oregon one of these days. See ya. Baby number three is three months old, btw. Time just goes too fast. Sigh.

LOL

Thanks DSE. I tried that this weekend, and yes, it will take me a few shots to get it, but I defenitely see what you're getting at. The prodigal parachute returned, btw. It was about a third of the way down a 125 foot tall tree hanging way inside some branches. Freebag was in the blackberry bushes about 300 feet away. Paying a tree climber was an awful lot cheaper than a new canopy! Thanks again the help everyone!

Thanks. I'm not sure why I didn't think to search for head position....

Greetings. I'm still pretty new with flying a camera with some 100 jumps or so with a camera. I've looked through the posts here and am not having much luck in finding what most camera guys are doing at deployment. So what is the general consensus? I ask, because last weekend I had such a brutally hard opening, I'm pretty sure I broke suspension lines on deployment. I've not been able to inspect the canopy as I chopped it as it was not even close to controllable (sp?) and it floated off into never never land. Two Cessna flights at 500 feet with the door open still did not reveal where it landed. Damn trees! Anyway, to get back on point, my neck is still twinging a bit from that one, and I'm debating on whether I should be getting hands under my chin to help support my neck should I get another whiz bang opening. It seems to me that hands under chin would put you more head down, but isn't this happening a little anyway, if you're trying to collapse wings so as to not induce a spin at deployment time? I still haven't figured why that parachute smacked me so hard. It was a Hornet 190 that treated me wonderfully for the last 250 jumps or so. I will miss that canopy. (sigh) Help would be much appreciated on this one. Thanks!

I too have developed a pre-jump ritual to the point that I have more than once driven the DZO/pilot a bit nuts that I'm not ready when he decides I am. In spite of the butt chewing I have received for this, I won't bend. I've not been flying camera long enough to get so comfortable as to get cocky, and quite frankly, I hope I never do. My ritual, btw, includes touching all my handles before I leave the aircraft. Nuerotic (sp?) as that may be, I was real glad this past weekend when I had to chop that I was able to do so without hardly having to think about it. With a beautiful wife of twelve years and three little girls I like coming home to, I plan on being conservative in my choices forever. Though the question was asked rhetorically, death may not mean much to you when your dead, but it has the potential to upset a few people around you! Off topic briefly, thanks to all the guys smarter than me posting here regularly. I hope one day to consider myself amongst the better of the camera flyers rather than the average one that I am now. Getting my jump numbers up to match my time in the sport should help a bit! However good I get, I appreciate being able to learn from all of you.

I'm using that camera's baby cousin, the TRV-25 with a 0.5 lens on it. I've been using it mostly for tandems so far. Fantastic camera. Go for it! You won't be dissappointed.