faulknerwn

$99 bucks on ebay. That's looking like my price range!

I had retired my old Sony PC109 from tandem video work to just being on my AFF helmet. Its dying a slow death and doing bizarre things. I don't want to use my better camera on AFF jumps just because its far more likely to get knocked around than on tandems.. I'd like to get another camera for videoing AFF - but since its not for any paid video but purely as a training aid - I'm looking for cheap :-) Quality doesn't have to be spectacular. Any ideas?

I wonder if its a PAL thing? I just open my tandem movies in "DV Widescreen" and go from there. PC 330 and imovie. The video quality is a lot higher than when we were using Premiere on Windows. And having to choose "share IDVD" to send it to idvd isn't a major event. I've used both imovie and FCP extensively and for tandems I prefer Imovie. The themes and stuff you can add in as drag and drop really make the videos seem more professional.

I use that same camera and computer setup and import over firewire and have no loss in quality.

Read my student logbook :) http://crwdog.servebeer.com/CRWdog/HowCRW.html That was a little over 5000 jumps, various ratings and a few world records ago. I sucked :-) Keep trying!

In the past few weeks, various tandem things I have seen. We jump exclusively 182's here, and I've got a little over 5000 jumps (probably close to a thousand videos and a couple thousand RW jumps) 1. Had a tandem COMPLETELY freak out and kept alternating between belly to earth and touching their toes - literally! It took the tandem master a while to get stable enough to throw the drogue and the second I got near him I was giving him the AFF pull signal cuz I've never seen a worse tandem student. 2. I've got several hundred videos of this particular TM - I'm comfortable with his exit. On this jump - I think its because the student didn't keep their feet on the step but let them float, when they launched instead of presenting to the relative wind and us being relative like usual, he dropped like a rock, and I'm in his burble getting off as fast as I possibly can while hoping he doesn't throw the drogue yet. 3. I've got some VERY different-sized tandem masters here. There are at least 3 completely different styles of exits. Some drop like bowling balls and some float. They are very different styles and you have to be comfortable with very different fall-rates. And then the fall rates can change QUITE dramatically pre-drogue versus post-drogue and you have to be prepared to react quickly... And then there are the students that drop their knees causing nice back-slides.. Videos of a tandem are a challenge every time. They're never the same twice. I'll see students in such funky body positions that the instructor can't stop a turn and I'll be having to orbit them in a circular side-slide the whole time. You've got to have quite a bit of RW skills to be able to pull it off..

Its an odd concept to me - practically all fences in TX have barbed wire at the top. And I've climbed over a gazillion of em in my area.. I doubt there is anyone around the area who can hop fences with less effort than me :-) Apparently barbed wire isn't common where this dz is?

Mine definitely flips up unintentionally all the time. Often if I roll over to film the tandem opening it flips out when I rolls back over. Annoying...

Its not that it isn't in focus - its not taking pictures at all (like the autofocus can't focus in time.) I thought about switching to manual - but there are so many varying distances in the skydive that many would be out of focus would they not? I thought you would use 200 iso in bright daylight and 400/800 iso in dimmer conditions. Is that wrong?

I haven't actually jumped a Storm - that was someone else's measurements. But that is the standard thought in the CRW community - that they're not compatible (at least at similar wing-loadings) with Lightnings because they sink so much faster. Everyone in the CRW community who has jumped seems to have excellent things to say about them - but its universally agreed that they're not compatible with Lightnings because of their sink rate. That's why people view them as an excellent competition canopy, but not a good big-way canopy because you would have less working-time on a big-way formation. They've been getting lots of jumps and been doing formations with Storms at various CRW boogies and camps - the Storm is really popular with the jumpers.

It might be something like this. On advice from someone here, I switched to TV mode today, ISO 200 and shutter speed 400. I did 5 tandem jumps today. All had great shots during the middle of the skydive. I got exit shots on 3 of the 5 I did today, and on 3 of the 5 openings I did today. On the ones I'm not getting shots - its just not taking any pictures - I'm not getting any random blue sky ones or anything. On at least one of the exits I was probably a bit farther away than the others, so maybe it did lose focus somehow. The video stayed in frame the whole time though. Its odd.

They definitely descend faster than Lightnings - below is a post someone wrote on the CRW list about what they found: ---- wing loading vs decent rate (from Neptune) for Storm vs Lightning Canopy Size WL Decent rate Lightning - 143 - 1.34 - 19-22 ft/sec Lightning in formations 22-26 ft/sec Storm - 135 - 1.43 - 26-32 ft/sec Storm - 150 - 1.28 - 22-26 ft/sec Based on this, loading the Storm at 1.4 or greater will give significantly less working time in the air because of it's higher decent rate (and even higher in formations - probably 32-36 ft/sec, 10 ft/sec greater than the Lightning). I suggest that we load them 1.25 - 1.3 or so for CRW (and maybe still put links in the front).

Sports Mode. Probably whatever the standard autofocus mode is - I haven't changed it. And I haven't changed any metering settings so probably whatever the defaults are. As for the second reply - I really want to avoid going fisheye- don't like the look - but I get extremely crisp/sharp photos with every TM but this one. I just can't figure out why. Its odd..

I shoot tandems with a Rebel XTI (stock 18-55 lens) out of Cessna 182's. I get great exit shots of all of our tandem masters except for one. For some reason - I never get any photos before the drogue is out for him and I can't figure out why. Most of our tandem masters dive towards the tail as they leave, but this one does a more sideways exit. He's also heavier than most, so he tends to drop faster while the others ride the hill a bit more. The camera is on auto-focus, so all I can think of is that it has trouble focusing on him and not the others. Its just odd - the video camera keeps him in frame the whole time - but no pictures get taken. I've tried leaving earlier, leaving later, not taking any pictures on the step and just trying to start snapping right after exit, but nothing works. I also get really nice opening shots of everyone but him - but he seems to have a much more dramatic trap door effect than the others, and seems to zip by much faster than the other TMs. I can't figure out if my camera just doesn't like him or what... Any ideas?

Do you really think that if every rig out there had a Skyhook on it right now that it would never contribute to a fatality? If so, you have almost a religious belief in the skyhook as the savior of skydivers. The Skyhook is a good thing - its not a cure-all however.

I have the older version but love it. I use it for everything - I stopped carrying a laptop when traveling because I can do everything I need on the phone. I actually like the iphone keyboard - the blackberrys are way too small for me but the iphone works well.

I think it depends. I know of several tandem instructors who would turn down tandems anytime to do AFF. I don't do tandem (too short to reach the drogue!) but do do video and AFF. I love upper level AFFs where I get to fly. They're a lot of fun. I can make more money on a video but would rather do upper level AFF. Level 1's and 2's aren't as much fun but I still like them because especially on level 1 - you never know what's gonna happen! There are some people who in it for the money only - but many people are out there because they love to teach..

We use them for our small student rigs (ours are size 200 though.) They fly really nice and are popular with our young jumpers. They're pretty docile.

Its funny - I'm always a lot less squashed in a 182 than in a big plane where people crush me!

At groups.google.com - login and search for crwdogs You can join it yourself now :-)

Why does he say it should be on the left?

I use Imovie 6 for all my tandem videos and its great - the themes and such are very cool. I never use v8...

Read my student logbook: http://crwdog.servebeer.com/CRWdog/HowCRW.html I sucked and it was mainly mental :-) I'm not going to give you any advice over the Internet about how to fix it other than stick with it :-) I even got the bowling ball speech once but somehow I finally got it and 5000 jumps later I'm an AFF instructor :-) Stick with it and keep trying...

Triathlon's are good canopies! I own 3 99's and love them. They surf pretty decent for a 7 cell square, and they're nice and stable and open sweet. And for those of us on a budget, purely because they don't have the PD name they're cheaper. As well as for casual CRW, Spectres and Triathlon's play well with Lightnings, but everything I've read is that the Storm is not compatible with Lightnings. I'm not sure what you hate about Triathlons, but mine open nice, fly good in CRW, and land well. What else do I need?

Its good stuff. I did notice a few minor English errors - I can help you correct that if you'd like. W