AndyMan

I've put well over 500 jumps on my Digital Rebel, and am very happy with the results. Other people at my DZ have put over 1000 on the newer Digital Rebel XT and are also very happy with the results. The cameras have proven durable and reliable. I can't think of any freefall application that would require a more expensive camera. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I think you're over reacting. It may fire on on a very short specific list of planes that happen to be malfunctioning - to say a rare case is a collosal understatement. There's only a few planes that can pressurize when used in jumping, but that plane has to malfunction, too. When it does fire, it creates a managable inconvenience but not a safety hazard. By definition: if the plane is pressurizing, the door is closed. Quite frankly, I'd be surprised if I ever hear of this specific issue happening again. An issue to be aware of? Sure. Just like turning off the student Cypres's when descending. Turn off the Vigils before pressurizing. Never buy one? Well, that's a personal choice, but I don't see any reason to go that far. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

We had a case where the tandem student pulled the camera flyers pilot chute as the camera flyer was climbing out. The camera flyer was quickly tackled into the corner of the otter as the door was closed. The student couldn't explain why he did it... just that it didn't look right. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I haven't. I've only seen the Parachutist ad, and the phrase "Femur is not a verb" really annoys me. The fact is that femur is a verb. Denying it does not make it so. Wishful thinking does not help. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

You didn't mention what lens you're using. Some older lenses don't work with newer cameras, even if they work fine with older cameras. I had a similar issue with a Sigma 22 and another off-brand lens. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Many people shoot the Sigma 15mm in freefall. It's pretty wide, so you need to fly close. It's got a very long depth of field, so it's easy to get everything infocus. [url]http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=47779;[/ur] Most people use a different lens for landings. I use the stock lens off of my film Rebel - a 24 - 85 zoom. It's incredibly innexpensive, and by no means is a great lens. . It's probably comparable to the one you were using. It works for me. Depending on the pilot, I may try to get really close with a 28. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Well, sort of. It's not the choice of lens that was causing the problem - just that you were shooting at the telephoto end of it. Zoom out to the wide angle end of it, and you'd get better depth of field. I know of a lot of people who shoot perfectly good freefall shots with the stock lens. It's not ideal, but it works pretty well. Likewise, I know a lot of people who shoot perfectly good freefall shots on full-auto with sports-mode. It's not idea, but sometimes it works pretty well. The factors came to a head when you zoomed out your lens for canopy shots, which tightened the depth of field. I shot this picture with the stock lens - but certainly not on sports mode. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=45507;t=search_engine I put the camera into "AV" mode, which allows me to set the f-stop and it will auto-select a shutter speed. I set a small aperature which gave me a large depth of field, so everything is in focus. Since I had a small aperature, the camera compensated by having a slow shutterspeed - which gives the motion blur. I handled the motion blur by tracking the canopy, so the blur would show up on the ground - not the pilot. I like how the effect gives a real sense of speed. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

NTSC or PAL is really a question that only you can answer. It's a toughie! As for the other part of your question, the PC350 and PC1000 are both very good cameras, but the 350 is no longer in production. The PC1000 is one of their most expensive cameras, but the picture quality is excellent. Cheaper options are the HC21 and the HC42, which are very good too. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

That's about what I did. I'm a lot more aggresive now but I'm thankful that I've got the skills I built on the bigger parachutes. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Not only is it feasible, but it's a LOT more likely to succeed. One person stopped a tank in Tiannamen Square. With a gun woul've been fodder. One person refused to give up a seat on a bus, and started a process that ended segregation in America. No gun. One person gave a speach about one of his dreams, and continued the process that ended segregation in America. Ironically, it was a gun that ended his dream. One person led India through a peaceful revolution by praying and talking. I meet a lot of Americans who hold onto their guns in an idea that it somehow protects them from the government. I can't think of many recent examples of that actually working. Every example that I can think of, where a citizen arms himself against the government and stands up, it ends badly. Ruby Ridge, Waco, or even the Oklahoma bombing works as an example - standing up against the government while armed never works. Standing unarmed and inspring others seems to do a much better job. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

The trick to getting everything in focus is a concept called "Depth of field". "Depth of field" refers to the size of the area that will be in focus for a given focus setting. If you have a large depth of field, you'll have a wide range of bits in focus. If you have a short depth of field, you'll have a short range of bits in focus. Depth of Field is primarily affected by two things: 1) The Lens, and 2) The F-stop of your aperature. 1) Telephoto lenses, and zoom lenses at their telephoto settings tend to have Shorter depths of Field, and wide angle lenses tend to have longer depths of field. That means that shooting with a wide angle lens it's easier to get everything in focus than with a telelphoto lens. 2) You'll notice that a small aperature on your camera corresponds with a large F-stop settings. A large F-stop (small aperature) setting corresponds with a large depth of field. A small F-stop (large aperature) setting corresponds with a small depth of field. Yes, it's confusing. So go get more in focus, you need a larger depth of field, which means you need to make sure your camera is shooting with a large 'F stop. Shooting with a large f-stop means there's a small aperature, so not much light is getting in. Not much light means the camera needs a longer exposure to compensate. Sports mode, on the other hand tells the camera "give me the fastest shutter speed possible for the given conditions". The camera picks a fast shutter speed, which means it'll also pick a larger aperature, which corresponds with a smaller F-stop, which means a smaller depth of field... which ultimate means you get either the pilot, OR the canopy in focus... but not both. Depth of field is a dificult concept to understand... but if you can figure it out you'll be a much better photographer. There are a few websites online that give very good primers... Start here: http://www.google.com/search?q=depth+of+field The key problem here is that you used sportsmode - which is good for freezing fast moving objects, but limits your depth of field. The recomendation is to avoid sports mode, and learn about how your camera works by playing with TV and AV modes. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Didn't you get the memo? Now you're supposed to blame the Conservative MP's whenever Canada does something that offends you. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

This one has some odd historical parts to it. To answer your question, I don't know of any Canadian who doesn't want the border guards to have guns. Except that is, for the old border guard Union. The border guards changed unions about 2 years ago. The old union was a union of government burocrats - they didn't want guns. In 2003 the union changed to a cop union, so now they want guns. I'm sure they'll eventually get their guns, nobody really is against it. The only reason I can see that they don't have them now is that the government (like all governments) moves slowly. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

That's asbsolutely amazing.

It might be smart to tweak your website to make it less attractive to these types. People are posting these links so that search engines (like google) will boost that other websites pagerank. If you add the text "rel=nofollow" to your anchor tags generated by your forums, google will ignore those links when it calcultes pagerank. IE, change links that look like :click here! so that they look like: click here! Doing that will take the motive away from people posting on your website. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I'm amazed at the 9 people who hold their students breasts during opening. Am I missing something here? _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Ok, since you seem to be such an expert, Please compare and contrast the difference in stats between those published by David Frum and Statistics Canada. Can they be rationalized? I even made it easy for you by linking to the StatsCan report. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

The Cam Eye II has never had the ability to turn a camera on or off. The cam-eye only has the ability to turn a camera from stand-by to record mode. That's the same functionality as hitting the record button at the back of the camera. It's a bad idea to turn the power on on the ground, as when the camera is turned on in stand by mode the heads spin up. Leave your camera in stand by mode and you'll quickly kill your battery. Most jumpers I know do not use the Cam-eye record button. Me? I turn on my camera when the "door" light goes on, and hit the record button just before exit. I turn my camera off using the main switch right after opening, unless I want to film canopies or landings. I use the Cam-eye only as an indicator. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

This story sounds an awful lot like the one posted by Erica, here: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1955857;#1953919. In her case, she was measured by Justin @ Mirage, and the rig never fit her right to the point that it was borderline unsafe. Ward Hessig himself pretty much told her that she was shit-outta-luck, and they wouldn't fix it, nor refund her money. To me, I don't judge a company by what happens when everything goes right, I judge a company by what happens when everything goes wrong. By that standard, "Mirage sucks" would be the understatement of the year. If I were you, I'd send it back, demand a refund and scream as loudly as you can until you get it. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I really don't know. I do know that of the 4 DZ's I've called home over the last 6 years, 3 of them use modern ZP canopies. Correspondingly, those 3 DZ's had a higher level of canopy skill and instruction than the one using old equipment. This misses the point though. The real point is that student gear *is* better - across the board - than it used to be. Canopy instruction is better than it used to be too. Does this mean a 200 jump wonder should be jumping a Stileto? No. It does mean people will progress faster than they used to. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I understand that sentiment... but how do you deal with the time it takes to focus? The delay on the first shot seems to rule it out, for me. Do you use USM lenses? There's nothing worse than hitting the shutter release only to hear the AF searching! _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

That's pretty. I love motion blur. What shutter speed? _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

No, it's more than that. A Stiletto is less scary because newer people didn't do their first jump on an f-111 Manta, or a Raven 4 like I did. Newer people are doing their first jump on a ZP canopy, and are comfortable at a 1.0 wingloading under a Saber2 before they get off their 22 jump student training. It's only common sense that they're going to progress quicker than the people who came before them. Student canopy training is far better than it used to be. Student canopies are far better than they used to be. Add those two together, and students are progressing far faster then they used to. And yes, their own delusions are just as fantastic as they used to be, too. Some things just don't change. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

For a long time I bought into the standard advice given by (seemingly) everyone, which was to shoot manual focus. I did that for a while but got very frustrated with shots that were out of focus. This makes sense - since we generally take shots from different distances based on what we're shooting - tandem, vs 4way, vs 20 way, vs freeflying. I never managed to keep straight the different focus settings from the different distances. I switched to auto-focus, and am generally happy. I go back to manual focus in a few cases, most of which are the few cases where it's important to get a good exit shot. Tandems are a great example of this. Shooting exits is tough in auto-focus mode since the camera will lock onto the plane instead of the jumper, and it'll get confused.... it simply won't take the shots on exit. I shoot tandems in manual focus. I imagine I would also shoot balloon exits manual, for the same reason. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I can't tell you all how funny it is to watch a bunch of Americans argue about violence in Canada. I wonder how many people posting in this thread have ever been there, if not for more than a day or so. It's even funnier when people are arguing based on numbers written in an op-ed piece by the Bush White House staff. Yes, it really is that David Frum. A much more interesting (never mind reliable) source for numbers is Statistics Canada: http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/020925/d020925b.htm. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.