Wags

What the hell are you talking about? A lens doesn't take photos, the camera does. Exactly what camera models are you talking about? Do the cameras take photos with the 15mm on the ground, but not in freefall? We need much more information here. Wags Blue Skies, Wags

I've used it on a few tandems, and for now just have it as an extra photo camera to try it out. I kept forgetting to turn it on, just another thing to remember, but I did get it turned on while hanging from the strut, and once in freefall with no issues. I wanted to use the "one button on/off" feature, and for some reason that didn't work at all. The camera wouldn't turn on. So I switched back to normal, and it worked. Now I just have it set to start in the mode I want, and have to press both buttons to start recording, and it works fine. As far as bumping the button, I guess anything can happen, but it's a firm press, and right in the middle. Blue Skies, Wags

Agreed, she was sliding out, but just out of the plane they were not separated enough where he couldn’t have captured her. I think he could have gone on to his back, (her now in his burble) and pulled her up, capture her legs, and arch. It would have been some work, but I think it could have been done. Again, going on your back in a tandem seems like a bad position to be in, but it gives you an adavantage. Obviously the best thing would have been to have the harness tight to start with. I have had several students tell me that I have the rig uncomfortably tight just before the jump, but they later say that it didn’t feel tight in free-fall. Wags Blue Skies, Wags

Nobody could say for sure, but I wonder what would have happened if he would have done side spin recovery techniques? I never even saw him put his hands out to attempt an arch on exit. Maybe this was discussed earlier, sorry, I didn’t read the entire thread. I’ve had two tandems that started into side spins, and I went fetal (on our backs) to get control of the student, then pulled them into the arch, and we flipped nicely in to a stable face to earth position, and I deployed the drogue into clean air. Going on your back intentionally in a tandem is something that seems very unnatural, and counterproductive, but in a side spin, the worst thing to do is keep a hard arch as the student further separates from you. The hard arch from the instructor at this time will further add to the propeller effect, and the speed of the spin. This is what killed the people before side spins were studied and solutions were found. This TI dumped his drogue, and was lucky it didn’t snag on anything, that would have made a bad situation, even worse. I am not in any way saying I could have handled this better, but just want to know what others think. The key to good side spin recovery is to act fast, not sure if he could have gone fetal quick enough, but it does help to get control of your student. If you are able to capture their legs, you are golden! Here is a link to a video of one of my side spins. I am sure some will think I did the wrong thing, I am not posting here so I can be flogged, but for the added discussion on the topic. I am sure many out there have seen the side spin training videos, and I was following what they suggest to do. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET9jfZtcQsU Wags Blue Skies, Wags

I got one from this same person. He is not a skydiver, and the type of wording he uses is the same as many other scammers. I even asked him where he jumps, and he avoided the question, and responded with a stupid response about his client in the States paying me with a cashiers check. Here's the e-mail thread......... Blue Skies, Wags

The PIA web site has only 6 links for service bulletins, pretty sad The ausy one is great, I use it exclusively. Blue Skies, Wags

Bill, when you say "On mini-rings, flexing the webbing was never really necessary." Are you just referring to the webbing on the small ring? Do you suggest flexing the riser at the middle ring attachment? That's where the most "set" seems to be. Blue Skies, Wags

I don't think I would ever go to a paperless logbook, but I hate to say never. I have however made a spreadsheet to track when peoples rigs are due for repack. This works for me, as I am the only rigger in the area, and I use it so I can e-mail them when their rig is close to being due. It also gives me info on how many Cypres batteries I will need in the next few months, and when 4 & 8 year inspections are due without constantly checking each packing data card. The copy here is an old backup so most of the rigs are out of date. If anyone wants to use this, go for it. Just don't use it as a system for determining if anyone is legal to jump, because I don't make any clam that this is at all accurate. Blue Skies, Wags

I searched, and found a German ( I think ) site that has a couple of good pictures of a split slider. They are at the bottom of the page. Click on them to make them BIG. http://www.parachutecase.nl/theloft/weetjes.html Blue Skies, Wags

That's the one, I got a second one for my digital Rebel, and put the base of it on my tripod. Blue Skies, Wags

Damn, that sounds like a great unit. May I ask, how much you paid for it? Last time I looked at any deck with Mini DV in it, they cost a lot. I have also seen some full size DV systems out there, I can't remember how much video they could hold, maybe 2 hours? Blue Skies, Wags

When I worked at Ultimate Electronics, I made a skydiving DVD to play as a demo in the store. It was a JVC, I used the highest quality mode it had, and in my opinion, the quality sucked! This was about 2 years ago, but I used the one hour record mode, and I can't imagine the quality has improved much since then, the price, however, has dropped, as that one was about $2,000 at that time. I would suggest you make sure you can get a money back on the recorder if you buy one, and do some tests right a way. The best quality, and quickest way to archive your DV footage, is get your fiends DV cam, and firewire the good stuff to another tape. If you want them on an optical storage media, the only other way I would do it, is using a computer, and save the files to a DVD as avi files.(data disk) You will have full access, and the quality will be perfect! At 13.3GB per hour, you will need about 3 disks to record an hour of video. Right now, Best Buy has 50 DVD-R discs for $59.99. That's $3.60 per hour of recorded video, not bad. http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=cat01163&type=category Blue Skies, Wags

OK, my bad, I read your post wrong. Blue Skies, Wags

I don't want to change the direction of this post, but what do you have against fill-flash, and aperature priority? Some of the best videographers in the world use these. Blue Skies, Wags

Someone on a diferent thread said they had that when there memory card wasn't in all the way. Try that first. Some thought it was the sigma lenses they were using, but maybe your trouble disproves this. What was the weather like? here's a link to that thread. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=737704;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread Blue Skies, Wags

Like Prost said, 18 x 1.6 = 28.8mm You got the multiplication correct for your 14mm lense. I was noticing that he was trying to save a few bucks by buying from a cheep online retailer, so I figured he would want to save on the lense also. The 18-55mm lense does work quite well. I have had many comments on my pictures that have been blown up to as big as 20" X 30". Blue Skies, Wags

I see that same company has the Digital Rebel kit with the lense for $809.99 That's a great price, I paid almost $200 more But, I bought it from my old coworker/roommate, and I know I will be taken care of if I have any problems. Here is a link to the page with the kit. http://www.infinitycameras.com/viewitem.php?IndexID=3858 Blue Skies, Wags

Whatever you get, DON'T get a 28mm. That will be like a 45mm lense on your Digital Rebel. The size of the Rebel's sensor is smaller then 35mm film, giving you a percieved 1.6 x zoom. I use the 18-55mm lense that comes in the Rebel kit. It costs only $100 more, and the lense is great, light, and has been getting good reviews. At 18mm it is like a 29mm lense. As far as matching your camcorder lense, someone else will have to answer that question. Blue Skies, Wags

I've got two 20 X 30's from my Digital Rebel, and they look great!

I would think someone in the BASE world would be able to answer this, as they get to pack "neat" and jump them more then we do with reserves. Not to mention it's a more consistent environment. Blue Skies, Wags

No, they are not. They acutaly have a small hole with a filter to keep out dust. The reason I have heard that they are not sealed, is that they would have to make the case mutch stronger to maintain presure. Again, this is a cost issue. Maybe someday they will make some sealed micro drives for us extremests. Here is a picture of the air hole in my laptop hard drive. Blue Skies, Wags

Hard drives need "air" to work properly. I work at Hutchinson Technology, we make the suspensions that hold the read/write head in hard drives. Our suspensions hold the head less then 3,000th the thickness of a sheet of paper from the surface of the disk, and that head rides on a cushion of air. At high altitudes, there is little or no air for the head to ride on, and your disk will crash easily. Get up high enough, and the head will just drag across the surface of the disk. I would be curious to know if anyone with a digital camera has taken a microdrive to altitude. Here is a link to a page on my companies web site that explains in painful detail how the hard drive works, and how the head (slider) flies over the surface. http://www.htch.com/primer.asp Did you guys notice that Panasonic records at a max of 704x576, 6mb per second, 10min on a 512mb card. That proves they have a way to record high quality, now we just need some bigger cards. I can see it now, a large good quality lense with a slot for a memory card in the back. Blue Skies, Wags

According to dgskydive, some do. When their demo team was here ( Sioux Falls, SD ) this summer, they were all jumping Startracs. Blue Skies, Wags