BMFin

I think his question was perhaps more striking than he could have guessed. The reason why I say this is because, I also fly the XF2 109 with similar wingload. (around 1.8) I have come into the conclusion that with this canopy there is no need at all to plane out with rears. It planes out it self in such a recovery arc, that it makes it useless. IMO no plane out is needed, unless you are low. The way I see it with this canopy is that if you hit your recovery well, you only need to flare once you come out of your turn and have already plained out. Sure one may flare the first half of his swoop with rears efficiently but this is another question, than plaining out. However I admit, I often (on purpose) put my self a little bit low in order to have some marginal to adjust. Its so hard to hit the perfect recovery everytime, which is right at the very end of the marginal.

Here is a Finnish music video with some skydive scenes on it. Shot with 5DmarkII. http://www.miskoiho.com/music-videos/cmx-linnunrata/?ref=nf

There´s also one pretty aggressive rear riser stall on this video @ 0:47 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKPlsxq9NPc

My own style (in photography/videography) is: -Inside footage, keep it as it is. -Outside footage, rotate 180 degrees. There are ofcourse exceptions to this "rule" and I always assess each photo/footage individually. In your footage the parts where you take grips clearly classifies the footage as inside footage and not rotating it makes it more explicit.

You should be able to acces what ever is inside the SD card when you hook up your camera to your compter. If your on windows machine, when you hook up the camera, dont open any of the canon programs. Go to Computer -> click on canon EOS -> and you should be able to explore the files inside the SD card. I guess the problem here is that there is no index file on the camera so the camera doesnt know there are photos on the card. But I concur what was already said about SD card reader. It makes life so much easier. You can get one propably with 5 bucks somewhere.

This is one option.

wow. nice job pulling that off. According to my experiences most airlines only allow one carry on bag with maximum weight of around less than 20 pounds. Some times I have been in trouble with the weight of my rig alone.

I carry my camera gear on a camera bag pack designed by kata. http://www.kata-bags.com/productFRM2HS.asp?p_Id=438&Version=Photo Its ideal for travelling (with light DSLR setup)because this particular has compartments for other items also. For airtravel this is not the best solution, unless you want to take it as carry on. Personally, on a skydive trip, I much rather loose my camera gear than my rig. Therefore I always carry my rig and therefore a hard case is a good idea for camera gear. Solution merely for the air travel: just pack your camera gear on a normal hard suitcase with some padding. For any other travel: get a DLSR backpack.

Actually, they are not L glass. They seem to have chosen the Canon 10-22 in front of the RED. For the 5dmarkII they have chosen the 15mm fisheye. I guess they have the 2/3 RED cameras instead of the 35mm which explains the 10-22´s. Interesting that they choose the smaller sensor, since the 35mm + a 16-35 f/2.8 might perform better in low light. (assuming they are shooting in low light..) Also choosing the 5Dm2 which has a slow fps is a weird choise for this kind of a shoot.. (edit: also assuming the 5Dm2 is for shooting stills) Wonder if they even know what they are doing ?

http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3803125#3803125

Nice work ! Website works well also. I would like to ask you something regarding your PP. I notice it is your style to bring down the saturation quite a bit. (although there are exeptions to this rule also) Also it seems there is a hint of noise added on a lot of photos, am I right ? Do you have your own Photoshop action you apply to most of your photos and start processing from there ? Did you develop this action (and/or way of PP:ing) as a sport journalist photographer ? Hope Im not being too intrusive asking these questions. I like your work and your style. Hoping to see you shooting in air soon also ! No.20 in the BASE gallery is my favourite.

Just get a compact camera. Modern compact cameras offer good performance in a small package. In a nutshell if you shoot a decent compact side by side with a DSLR on full auto settings, there wont be much difference. You are just carrying a lot of weight you dont need. The advantage of having a DSLR is the potential of using manual settings, changing optics, using outside flashes etc.. These possibilities are accessible only after you know what F-stop mean. (plus much more)

No one said it changes shape, but since the bag is wider on the bottom than it is from the top, the split design helps to fill the bag properly on the bottom. I have one and I think its great. The only people I have hear complaining about it, are those who are packing it the first time and get confused. Once you learn how to pack it, you will realize how good it is.

Im referring to premature reserve deployments such as the west point incident less than a year ago. (if you read this thread more carefully you will find a link to the description of this particular incident) AAD is a good backup. Just like reserve is. No one should count on AAD only, just like no one should count on reserve only. However, it doesnt mean that you shouldnt have one just in case. Yes. No system is perfect. This is ofcourse possible. However, IMO the soft + AAD will exclude the most likely problems, and only leave us only with the least likely. I was never suggesting that one should merely count on RSL or AAD. Priority still is to use the soft handle. Bill Booth offers both pillow and D-ring reserve handles for his rigs. A while back someone asked his opinion here on DZ.com about the matter. He didnt want to choose one over the other. Basically he said this choise is a tradeoff. However, he did tell us how he had tested if the average jumper can pull harder on the D-ring than the pillow. The result was that there is no difference.

I would like to see some data on this before making such assumptions. Personally I have seen a lot of incidents with the D-ring. (none of them fatal) And only one incident with the soft pillow. (fatal) To me it looks like the occurances are more rare with the pillow. And like I said earlier: AAD or RSL will pretty much eliminate the potential problem with the soft pillow. The only remedy for the snag problems with the D-ring is to the the soft pillow. Conclusion = get a soft pillow with an AAD (or RSL)

Im not saying you are wrong, but when looking at statistics we shouldnt just look at fatalities, since D-rings cause a lot of injuries, but soft pillows dont.

As we know, both handles have pros and cons. D-ring may be easier to locate in a hurry, but it is more likely to cause a premature opening. Then again the soft is less likely to cause a premature, but maybe harder to locate in a hurry. Both designs have caused fatalities and prevented fatalities. Nearly all (if not 100%) of the no pull fatalities caused by the soft pillow could have been prevented with either an AAD or an RSL. For the fatalities and injuries caused by the D-ring the only remedy IMO could have been the soft handle. Therefore: I would go for the soft + AAD combo. This way I think I could have the best of both worlds. No system is fool proof, but I think with this combo both premature- and no pull- scenarios are much less likely. However, I dont think there is one solution that fits all. Everyone should adjust their gear according to their use. If I was building a swoop rig for my self, I would most likely get soft loops for both cut away and reserve. Sadly Im not able to use the soft pillow on my reserve, since it is banned in Finland after an incident in 2003. Finland is the only country in the world where soft pillows arent allowed.

So where exactly do you get paid for a professional product ? The most I have seen is around 30-40 bucks for the stills, which is just about enough for a passport photo if you buy it from a professional. Anyways, if minimum weight is the objective, why not get a Canon G10 compact or similar ?

After dropping my camera I did some more testing with the 8mm samyang. It seems that some (perhaps less humid) days it works well. Out of the 3 last jumps it has fogged once just before deployment altitude, which is just have to learn to live with for now at least.. test picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23307727@N08/4835893868/

nice!

The sigma and peleng are circular fisheyes originally designed for the fullframe camera. Its good to remember that you cannot compare them straight to the samyang 8mm which is an aspherical fisheye. The sigma may be an exellent circular fisheye, but its not gonna be able to fully replace an aspherical fisheye because they have a different kind of projection image.

Oh, yeah. I forgot that there is the zoom fisheye by tokina. But like you said yourself, you cant utilize the full FOV with this lens either when you use a filter. You just cant get 180 degrees field of view without curvature on the front element.

UDPATE: Today I did a funjump at a foreign DZ from 1000ft. I was jumping as a second camera man for a tandem just to test this lens. It was a nice warm and dry summer day. Lens seemed to work very nice this time. (see sample picture IMG_2049 taken with the 8mm) While there was some sunshine, earlier on the day, I kept the lens in a hot car without the lens caps so the lens would be totally dry. Im not sure if this had a real impact on anything, but at least this time the lens didnt fog. However after I threw my PC, I had a really nasty case of line twists. As soon as I notice Im in trouble, at the same time I also notice how risers have opened the locking tab on my chincup and my helmet drops off my head. As a reflex I catch the helmet on my lap with both hands as Im already spiraling on my back parallel with the canopy towards the ground. With the camera helmet now on my hands Im strugling with the idea of weather to loose my helmet and cut away or spend a few more seconds to try to save my helmet. I decided to spend a few more seconds and I was thinking of holdint the helmet on my other hand and cutting away with the other. Somehow I felt it is too difficult to open the reserve with the right hand so I opted to wear the helmet back in my head again. I didnt manage to properly fasten my chin cup before I decided I better cut away before its too late. I cut away and my helmet flies off my head. (it could even be the risers crabbed it, who knows) I threw on my belly and open my reserve. The only thing going on my mind. "*uck where is the helmet, where is the helmet" and at the same time I see my helmet spinning towards the earth. I see the helmet hitting a pine tree in the woods and as I crab my toggles and prepare to flare I try to memorize where exactly it landed. After 30 minutes I find the helmet on the woods pretty much undamaged. The still camera was twisted to the side and theres some pine needles,grass and dirt around the camera. At the time there also seemd to be a dent on the front glass of the lens, but when I got home it turned out it was only pine resin which I managed to wash away totally. The lens actually looks so new, I could sell it in mint condition right now if I wanted. All in all everything seems to work perfect on my camera setup. I remember a while back there was this incident reported in the news : http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/12/15/canon-rebel-xt-survives-3000-foot-drop/ I guess im not the first one, but I do consider my self pretty lucky. I wasnt as lucky with the freebag and the handles though, but I guess this is part of the sport. 1st jump at this particular DZ, 1st reserve ride, 1st dropped camera helmet ... etc.. BEER !! For the sake of less weight on my head I didnt wear a video camera on my head which is a shame. It would have made one hell of a video to see me holding the helmet and filming my self as Im trying to figure out my next move.

Its good to know you had the same problem with this.. On the other hand this could mean that the samyang is pretty much useless in freefall and I need to sell this lens. I guess I will try a few more jumps and see how it goes. I would love to be able to shoot with this, since I prefer the samyang projection image to the peleng. However if the next few jumps are the same, I will just trade it to a peleng. At least the peleng has been proven to work in freefall. (though it sure wont be trouble free either) I wonder if anyone has jumped the Sigma 8mm ? Thanks for the help so far everyone.

Yeah, I was also thinking the same thing. I will try and see how it works.