Zlew

Best of luck in your new adventure, and keep us posted on how things go!

anybody have any vid of openings (other than the 10K foot snivel opening http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2qi4BZCxKE )?

I'm curious about this... I thought highly-loaded cross braces weren't considered suitable for wingsuiting? What's different about this one? (no, I'm not thinking of getting one) +1 I know you can't take the manufactures word without a grain of salt, but I was suprised by how they are positioning this as camera/wingsuit/general high performance wing. I am thinking about upgrading my spinetto next season and have been a little bit torn on where to go (Katana? Velo? Neos?). I fly a lot of camera so openings are really important. I don't swoop by today's standards (I still call it surfing if that helps show my age), but I usually do 90-180 carving approaches. So I want to be able to still do that, but don't need or want a full blown swoop competition winning wing. A more modern design, a more rigid wing...responsive, good openings, but not a single purpose swoopn' machine.... I wonder if this will fit the bill.

Most places sell that lens as a "hd lens", and it is what I currently have on my camera. It is fantastic, and I highly recommend it. Very small and low profile, super sharp and a great all around lens. It is non "zoomable", but that isn't an issue for me. I think the OP would be very happy with this lens.

For me, they are for a lot more than just fallrate. One of the other keys for shooting things like tandems is getting low and close enough to see the students face. The way many tandems fall, the student is positioned such that if you are not below them, you will get a great shot of the TI, and mostly the top of the head of the student. You can "hang" on your wings and get below the tandem, and fly head high/feet low and not backslide out or sink out. I will see if I can find a pic to demonstrate. A lot of guys get this effect flying in a sit as well, but for me it is a great and easy way to get that shot (which is what the customer is paying for).

I think this is one of those questions that might turn into a really interesting reply. There are lots of misconceptions, buzz words, and general "fuzzyness" about the "HD Lens" concept. Forget that we are talking about video, and just think in terms of cameras. If you buy the top of the line pro camera that has the biggest, highest resolution sensor out there it will take amazing pictures IF you do your part and IF the lens you put on it is capable of letting all of those beautiful dots of color be recorded sharply and accurately. Take that wiz bang camera, and put a piece of $hit lens on it that isn't capable of being as sharp as the camera can record...and you get poor photos. The camera is trying to record whatever you project onto the sensor, but if the weak link is the lens, it can only record as sharp as the lens is. For Video, if you put a lens on that is not capable of letting the camera record in it's full HD glory (can be a resolution issue, a vignette issue, a lens designed for a 4:3 camera instead of widescreen etc, you will get video that is sub par compared to what it could be or what you paid for with your HD camera. IMO, there is no "HD Lens". there are just lenses that allow you to get more out of your HD camera than others. HD Lens seems to be the buzzword (just like HD laser eye surgery) I can tell you that when I put the sony conversion lens on my cx150 when I first got it, it looked like shit. It was a .6x conversion lens designed for my old PC5 (mini dv, 4:3). It wasn't sharp, big time vignette and in general looked bad. The "HD" lens I have on it looks amazing.

Pretty much all of my camera jumps have been on Stiletto's and I have been very happy with them.

This is pretty good stuff from PD. I think they are still putting out videos from the series, but so far they have 4 or 5 videos with John L going over the different line types and the pro/cons of each http://www.youtube.com/user/PDBlog I relined my 107 with vectran because I didn't like how the microline behaved when it was getting out of trim (wicked openings). I have prob. 4-500 jumps on this line set, and it flies just like it did when it was new.

You have to remember the time line. 10-15 years ago people were not all jumping elliptical and high wingloaded canopies. Back then, a line twist was almost never a chop. Then the Stiletto comes out, becomes popular, people start bumping up the wing loadings over time, and now it gets the rep of being the "spinetto". I have over 1000 Stiletto jumps and only had to chop one. It was line twist before it was out of the bag and I traded it in for a white canopy on that jump. I can't remember the last time I had line twist, and have never had them spin up after being out of the bag. IMO, most highly loaded wings, esp. if they are tapered or elliptical, will be more prone to turning/spinning if there is any input that is not symmetrical that is now locked in due to the twist. Play around on youtube and you can find countless line twist chops for all sorts of canopies. They all will do it in those conditions, it was just the Stiletto that first made it "cool" (hehe uncool?).

Kolla!!!!!

It was a few years ago...so maybe things have changed, but PD sent me a demo Sabre 2 to try out ,and warned me of the recovery difference between it and my Stiletto. To be honest, I didn't notice much of a difference. I put 20-30 jumps on it and was doing the same approach (90 and 180 carving front riser) at the same altitude as my Spinetto. Can you swoop a Stiletto? Sure. Is it the swooping machine that the current cross braced, super long diving canopies out there today are... Nope. It is a good wing, but an old design that pre-dates most of the current swooping styles and skill sets. From what i have seen and read, the Katana has a lot of the same benefits as the Spinetto (eliptical flight characteristics, fast turn rate/responsive, nice openings when they dont spin up..hehe), with a more modern setup for high performance canopy flight with a steeper trim and longer dive recovery.

one of these days i want to jump a Dactyl-of-Death just so I can say I did. :) ok... maybe not http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbTQr7KcHwE&feature=player_embedded#!

my guess is this one http://www.dropzone.com/videos/Miscellaneous/my_jump_on_Delta_-_triangle_parachute_intentional_cutaway_1880.html

These "GoPros" do you think they could be mounted to a helmet and jumped for skydiving footage? If so, the next thing you know they will be alllll over dropzones and provide hours of HD skydive footage for the world to enjoy! hehe

Also, if you are getting a SATA3 board, might look at one of the SATA3 SSD's. The read speeds these things are getting are insane. So far I have been really happy with mine.

*16 GB? maybe? not sure you can do much with 16 megabits of ram these days. :) I have a wacom for photoshop and love it. Not sure what the video application would be or how that would impact speed...but it's a great product for what TI use it for.

I have had similar success here. I've asked about 10 local musicians around town if I can use their music, and so far they have all said yes. I give them credit (with a photo as well) at the end of the videos. Many times the smaller musicians own their own music (not a production company) so you don't have to go through all the red tape to get access. Most of them are happy to get the exposure. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-oxPBkfjhU For youtube only stuff, you can try to search the song you are looking for on youtube, and see if they have an agreement with them. If they do, you will find the song with the link/ad to buy the music. If you use the song, it will just add the same advertisement/buy me link to your song. The risk is, if the agreement between the production companies and youtube goes bad...they can later zap your sound. From what I have read, that happened a few years ago with Warner and youtube and resulted in millions of videos with no sound. My best friend is a 2pac fanatic (don't ask me why...i don't get it) but I added one of his songs to his tandem vid...and so far so good with the ad (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdYTTpdtCN0

This would be one of the few times that Gaffers tape would not be a good choice for freefall video/still applications :)

There are lots of good ways to get pics in freefall, and if that works for him, more power to him. Where I was going was more along the lines of the fact that for most people, you will do just as well with an Rebel XS with the kit lens (for 500 bucks) as you would with a T2i with a 10-22mm on it for 1500. Getting good photos is more about you knowing what you are doing, being able to be where you want to be in the sky, having the camera setup properly, than it is about buying the latest and greatest wiz bang setup. My advice is usually (for skydiving or photography in general) to get something basic to start with and learn on, and then start upgrading your glass, and eventually upgrade your camera body as you learn about what you want/need. The T2i is a nice camera, and the 10-22 is a great lens...and if you have the budget for it...go for it! But you would proabably be just as happy for a long time with the 500 dollar setup (and it weighs less). *edit- sorry nosplatt, thought your note was from the OP.

Pull higher, check your spot, play with your canopy, don't be afraid to land out etc. are all true and good advice. But I think it is also important to learn as much as you can about getting every ounce of performance out of your canopy to help you get where you need to go safely. Looks like good advice was given by a very good source (Ian). IMO, the more tools you have to work with, and the more you know about your wing and how to fly it...the more options you have to make the right decisions.

you may have just cost me 200 bucks.

More info might be a little helpful as well. What are you wanting to use this for? Paid tandems/AFF, "general" use, shooting teams etc? Are you just wanting good stuff for facebook or to sell to a tandem student, or are you shooting for a Parachutist cover? What is your budget? Have you shot much camera before, or is this your first setup? Canon has always been the gold standard for skydiving still cameras, but that doesn't mean another brand might not work fine for what you are wanting to do. I see a lot of people that over-buy their camera gear (esp. on a first setup). You can get really good pictures with a pretty low cost setup if you know (or learn) what you are doing. There can be big advantages to the lower cost and lower weight of some of the base SLR's and Kit Lens cameras for a lot of applications.

For the SSD's the biggest improvement I have seen is how quickly you are ready to be up and running. Windows 7 boots faster (but probably not worth buying the ssd just for a few second boot difference). The impressive thing to me is from the time I click on PhotoshopCS5 or Vegas Movie Studio, to the time it is loaded and ready to go is like 1 second. From the research I have done so far, the biggest issue for speeding up your render times is processor horsepower. I am piecing together a system now for this purpose, and should have more info in a few weeks.

Having people go out and make such video's probably won't really take off, but I do think there is a good opportunity to use video we already have to help out. Example: the exit article that is up on this forum now. If You had video of what a "by the book" well executed 2 way, 3 way, 4 way exit looks like, it would be very beneficial. It can be difficult to visualize some of what is written, esp. if you have never seen or done it before. Something as simple as a link to a youtube clip would be very helpful, and not cost any real production time/cost.

is that a laser?