Zlew

From what I have seen, I think we are doing ok. Perfect? No. What we do is risky, and we attract people who like taking risks and pushing the limits. I don't think we will ever be able to regulate that out of our sport. When it comes down to it, it has to be on a DZ by DZ basis, and by a case by case basis. USPA and BSR's are voluntary... they are not law. There are many non uspa DZ's out there, and many "uspa" dz's that don't follow the SIM. I think we have helped keep the FAA from further regulating us (I LOVE that we don't have many laws that regulate our sport), but when it really gets down to it we could write 90 new BSR's and recs in the SIM from everything about wing suits, wing loading, swooping, etc. etc., and if the DZ's don't enforce it, and the community doesn't support it... it won't matter. The jumper community, IMO, is still the keystone.

Perfect point, and this is what I advocate. Your parents were like mine, and used their experiance and understanding to guide me (even if i thought i knew betteR). In skydiving, I think that is the role of the DZ/Community/etc. And just like I think it would be a little crazy for you to have to stand in line at the DMV to get approval to drive to your friends party across town one night, I think it would be just as silly to have to get approval from a governing body to go from a wingloading of 1.3 to 1.6. or go from to an elliptical from a square. Let me make that decision on my own and with the help of the dz community, just the way we did when we were driving and figuring out with our folks how much slack to let out on the leash.

Again, it comes down to the idea of how much regulation do you want. I don't think anyone wants it to be lawless, and I am not saying we should have one license, and let everyone do whatever they want. I am fine with the BSR's saying different licenses have different pull altitudes and reasonable guidelines. I am fine with light and reasonable regulation, but I don't want heavy regulation that puts a governing body or bureaucracy in the way of every decisions I want to make. Let the jumpers, DZ's and community of jumpers do their part there.

And therein lies one the problems. A license doesn't automatically instill common sense, logic or an understanding of risks whereas some people seem to think it does. That "foundation" does not include any measure of understanding anything nor does it have any basis in common sense and logic. He's no expert, but has a foundation compared to "Stan" who has no time in the sport. Classroom training, days spent at the DZ and a few dozen jumps at least give some foundation to make decisions based on some level of understanding compared to the guy who wants to buy a rig on ebay and jump out of his friends 152. Largely I agree with you. And from a DZ standpoint I think that is fine (again with the point that the DZ has the right to make/enforce any rule they want as the business owners and those with the liability). But I don't want too much of that from the USPA or FAA. I think instead of them, it should be common sense, community/mentors/JM's/DZs/experianded jumpers/guidelines etc. to help guide the way. IMO, it's that way for most things in life from Scuba, heavy machinery, etc . The driving example before is a good one I think. It is complex, high risk, and you can easily hurt/kill yourself and others in a car. It can take years and tons of experience to really get good/understand it (I swear I know people driving 20 years that don't know what way to turn the wheel if they start into a spin).At 16 y ears old with a fresh license you cant know everything and are skilled enough to take on all challenges and conditions and you might end up as one of the 10's of thousands who become "incidents" there too. But do you really want the state or gvt. to be the one who says "you have to have X miles driving experience and X years on the road before you can drive after 10PM...or drive in the rain?" or anything similar? I didn't and still don't. Let me use my brain, friends, family etc. to help guide those decisions and then be responsible for the decisions made. Nothing can promise that we instill common sense/logic/understanding. I think we all know people in this sport and others that prove that "experience" and skill and understanding don't always go hand in hand. I think if we are reasonable with our rules and regs and have a good community to help folks out...we are on good ground. I don't like the idea of making rules/laws etc. that are based on the fringe/crazy/stupid.

It all comes down to regulation and how much do you want in the sport. For me, once you have your license you at least have the foundation to help you understand the risks and make some decisions. Hopefully those will be backed up and watched over by those around you and the rest of our community. I like a reasonable to small level of regulation in skydiving and many other things in life. A drivers license is fine as a requirement to drive, but I don't want them to define when I can drive a more powerful car, drive in the rain/ice, when I can pull a small trailer, if I can drive at night etc. I have my license, let me make my decisions (hopefully good ones with good advice, resources etc.) and be responsible for those decisions. As a community we have to watch out for each other and our new jumpers. We have to be reasonable, helpful, and teach them with our own experience. I am ok with the FAA and USPA having reasonable guidelines and regulations, but I don't want to be in a sport that is over regulated. From a dropzone standpoint... I think they should be free to have as many rules as they want. It is their business, and they are at risk when things go wrong. If the market will accept their rules, they will do just fine. If not, people will go to other DZ's. I guess that is the beauty of a free market.

I think my point may have been lost. I don't always do the best job of being clear when I write on here. It wasn't about the skill of the camera jumper vs the pixles/formats. Up until now there hasn't been a way for anyone to get a setup for under 300 bucks, or a setup that is so insignificant from a hardware standpoint. Even the protec and hi 8 cameras cost quite a bit more (even 15 years ago) and were still heavy, bulky, with bigger snag/emergency issues. It was a camera rig, not a sport helmet with a zit on it that could record video. You couldn't really use that head bucket for anything else. It was cheap, 200 plus the camera, or so as I remember, but it was still a camera helmet and you would still need another helmet or hat of some sort for general jumps ($$$). All I saw back then still had ring sights, and recording lights (light sensor taped over the "red light" attached to a double A bat and an LED). IMO, the gopro changed all of that since you can take a 300 dollar camera, drill a hole in an existing helmet, and be shooting HD video with something that weighs a fraction of a lb. and is smaller than our old high 8, digital 8 and mini DV camera batteries. The hoops and costs to get any video (good, bad, HD, SD, hi-8 or otherwise) is amazingly low now compared to what it used to be. And to be clear, I agree 100% that you should still have experience and training before jumping a gopro or any other camera.

I got one jump in this weekend with the spot focus at around 4-5 feet, and it looked really good. Thanks for the help. Now I have a new list of things I need to brush up on and learn about. :)

you might rotate your audible to see if spinning it around places the speaker in a better location for your ear.

Just tried that at about 3 feet or so, and it seems to be about where I want it. Slllowwwwly getting this thing dialed in!

Bought the camera, Hypeye, and centry .55x. I am testing with it now and getting mixed results. I used to use manual focus, and set it to the mtn/infinity setting. With this combo of camera/lens that doesn't seem to work at all (bad blurr). The .1M setting seems to be the most sharp, but leaves a lot to be desired. Whaver setting it uses on auto focus seems good (huge depth of field) but I don't think I can bring myself to shoot in auto focus. I HATE skydive footage where the camera seeks from freefall to the ground and back. Any tips?

The sticky is full of distraction type of issues. People getting hurt or almost getting hurt because they were not paying attention to the right things. The same issues they would have if the dropped 1500 bucks on a "pro" camera helmet setup, and similar issues that low times have battled for years with other distractions. So the GoPro is a low cost, easy to set up distraction. Oddly, most of them that I saw this weekend were on pretty experienced jumpers just shooting it POV. I'm sure there were a few low experienced folks, but I didn't notice them.

For sure. My point was the image quality, not the skill of the video flier to make a "great product". My point is that for a very low cost and effort to get setup (compared to traditional camera guys set ups) you can get HD quality video footage. Without all of the hoops, steps, training, experience that used to be more common to be required before you could capture any type of image in the sky. That seems to be the source of frustration/anger as opposed to something wrong with the camera itself.

I really haven't made up my mind on this, and I am interested to hear what you guys think. I am getting back in the sport after having a few years off, and this weekend at a boogie I saw the GoPros all over the place. I have read so many threads on here over the past few weeks with people with all sorts of anger and issues towards the little camera (from t-shirts that they kill, to we need to not sell them to low timers, snag hazards etc. etc.). I was on a jump with a guy who had one on his Z-1 and was very surprised and impressed with the video quality. What I want to know is what is the real issue? Is there a real issue above the common problems we have had forever in this sport (low timers doing things before they are ready or understand the risks from canopy type, shape, size, landing style, camera, freefly (in the old days) wing suits etc. etc. etc)? I get that we need to protect our own and help make sure they are aware and prepared for the risks of our sport (and this photog forum is famous for maybe over protecting with the "you are going to kill yourself!" threads). But is this camera really so bad? Is it just that it is so cheap, small, and easy to mount that there isn't a barrier of entry and now we are worried that more folks who aren't ready will be drilling holes in their z-1's and flying these things? Or is it that for years and years, we "camera guys" have been somewhat elite... had to spend a lot of money on expensive cameras, expensive helmets, expensive controllers, switches, ring sights and such, camera suits. We have had to be able to rig up our own, do our own soldering and wiring. We have had to risk jumping cameras that made our helmets heavy, buy canopies around the idea of not breaking our necks on opening, and unhook our RSL's because, after all, we were flying camera.... Because of all of that, we could get video and photos that nobody else could get. It is a source of pride. Now anybody with a drill and 200 bucks can get pretty damn good footage. People can afford to buy a GoPro before they even own their own rig (or altimeter for that matter). What I saw this weekend wasn't as good as the new sony gear, but is 3 times better than the top of the line Sony stuff I was jumping 6 years ago. I wouldn't want to jump one for paid jumps, or competition jumps etc., but for what they are...they take really good video. Is this the issue? Or are there things I am missing that really make these things "killers" and something to be hated. Have there been Incidents (a photo of a jumpsuit snagging on exit doesn't count as an incident in my book)? What are your thoughts? As we go forward I think this will be the trend. Cameras will get smaller, cheaper and better and there won't be the huge cost barriers to get footage. Are we ready for this, or are we going to keep fighting tooth and nail?

%100 not safe for work, or for anyone who is still michael jackson sensitive... but funny as hell. The explanation as to why i have the poof and body wash and white wine... fwd. to 1:30 or so. http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=3573494

I have a poof for the same reason that I have white wine in my fridge. I dont like or use either of them...but the girls do! Kat Williams had a great bit on this concept...but I can't find it on youtube :(

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kL-ghG7qXro&playnext_from=TL&videos=D9EI_bQUwEU&feature=grec_index A good video of some of the risks of Mr. Bill jumps

If you are going to stay in the sport keep it. It is real hard to get back in if you have to start over from scratch and cost you a lot more than you will get from selling your gear. I got out of the sport for a few years, and had two rigs. I sold one, and kept the other... and I am so happy I did. I wouldn't be able to afford to be jumping right now if I had to start back over at square 1 (hehe, no pun intended).

The advice I got from my skydiving idol when I was coming up in the sport: "Remember to always cock your pilot chute, but never, under any circumstances, shoot your pilots cock."

Did it come with a micro usp to USB cable? If so when you connected it did anything happen (computer recognize the device as a camera or as a hard drive in "my computer"")?

I think I have enough room in the liner... We'll see. Amazon had 150's on sale tonight for about 40 bucks less than they were, so I put my order in. When I get it set up, I'll post pics.

Bob was just being funny. For the past 10 years, countless posts in this forum have gone something like this: - anybody have any tips or advice on how to do with their camera/video setup? Then the thread becomes a 100 replies more along these lines: you don't have enough jumps to jump camera, you are going to die, you need more experience. It's good to see people looking out for people on here, but it is kinda funny to watch how many threads start with simple questions and end up being debates about how many jumps you need before you strap a camera to your head.

Just from looking at the Sony Site, it looks like the 100 has a USB port. That would be my recommendation to get those videos of the Golden Retriever from the camera to your PC.

In the next few weeks I am going to be upgrading my camera gear with new vid (stills to follow). I have a Half Rack that currently has a PC series camera side mounted in a D Box. My plan right now is to get a Cookie box/CX150 and Hypeye. From poking around on here and on youtube, I'm having trouble figuring out if I need to add a mounting plate (like a flatlock) to give the Hypeye room to plug in, or if flush mounting the box to the side of the Half Rack will work. Do any of you guys have a similar set up? Any suggestions? *edit- added a missing N :)

I do mine twice: 1. stow the brakes, un-collapse the slider, cock the PC before starting to pack. 2. after laying down the flaked canopy, I get the bag ready, and cock check the PC again. I don't like doing it after it is bagged, because I don't want the kill like to tug/pull/burn the nylon as it moves from in the bag with the canopy.

Hehe... if you are getting hit in the back by the relative wind, you are in deep shit. Negative airspeed and wings usually dont do well together. Get small, reduce the drag from the forward airspeed. You get the benefit from being upwind by spending as much time as you can in it (keep your brakes stowed, bump a little rear riser etc. to slow your decent rate). IMO, anyone who is telling you to get big so you get pushed from behind doesn't understand aerodynamics of flight. Sometimes I use the idea of a river to help folks understand how things move/respond in the moving airstream. If you toss 2 rafts in a river, one streamlined with the direction of the river flow, and the othe at 90 degrees, very quickly they will both be going about the same speed as the river is. The river can't push the broad side raft faster than the river itself is going, and both rafts will quickly equalize to that speed. Same is true for us in the air mass.