pcalandra

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Everything posted by pcalandra

  1. pcalandra
    Keith, whatever you do I recommend that you also have an easy way to quickly change your bite, blow or tongue switch. I've had enough failures that I keep a spare in my jumpsuit pocket. I made an intermediate cable and just tuck the excess behind my helmet liner. Here is a picture of mine if that helps and I've also given you the url's to what I used to make mine up. This place has a ton of cables and connectors at very reasonable prices. Lastly, if you really can't or don't want to solder find a friend and do a little horse trading Right angle 2.5mm 6" extension cable with pigtail http://shop.vetcosurplus.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=37_38_47_54&products_id=6952 Right angle plastic 2.5mm connector (really eazy to solder to above cable, even I could do it) http://shop.vetcosurplus.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=72_74_90&products_id=6828
  2. pcalandra
    Your welcome! I double checked and my energizers are 2500mAH.
  3. pcalandra
    It's a very expensive proposition around 5K+ to do it right, however you still need someone to point a ground antenna at you. I jumped one from http://www.premierwirelessinc.com/index.htm a sponsor rented for a demo once, it worked ok but was a rather bulky pain in the ass! There are other manufacturers that are popular and used in "FanCam's" for stadium use but their names escape me at the moment.
  4. pcalandra
    I've been really pleased with the Energizer battery charger & batteries. The charger came with both an ac adapter & 12 volt dc adpater, the AA's if I recall are 2300 ma. It was less than $30.00 w/4 AA's & can charge AAA's too.
  5. pcalandra
    I forgot to add that I had a cutaway from a spinning malfunction last year with my FTP and didn't have a problem. As I located my handles I kept my chin down as I choppped and didn't bother to look up and film it. I waited until I felt the main leave and then looked at the horizon :)
  6. pcalandra
    There is absolutely nothing wrong with the HC-42 in my opinion other than it doesn't have an external microphone input. I put about 100 jumps on mine this year and it performed flawlessly As a matter of fact in my humble opinion it's hard to see any real quality difference in good light between it and the more expensive HC-90.
  7. pcalandra
    Thankfuly, other than a riser slap on the side of the helmet or having my ring site kicked off by a foot in the face on exit I've never had any other problems in about a 1,000 camera jumps.
  8. pcalandra
    JVC = "JUNKY VIDEO COMPONENTS"
  9. pcalandra
    I cut off a small piece of the flap to accomodate the switch, it worked well for me and I could out the piece back if I needed to and it would stay put.
  10. pcalandra
    Thanks for posting those pictures, that lens looks exceptional and I especially like the lack of distortion that is SO evident with the Sigma 15. This lens is definitely going on my buy list! Pat
  11. pcalandra
    Any chance you could post a couple of examples from that lens?
  12. pcalandra
    I like the Sony unit, it's a combination DVD/VHS recorder, records all playsback DVD -R & +R & RW formats. Look for either the recently discontinued RDRVX500 or the new RDRVX515. I haven't had any compatability complaints with the DVD's I've been doing this season.
  13. pcalandra
    Here's a couple of pictures of my setup, sorry for the poor quality but I was in a hurry this morning and didn't take the time to do it right! Iwan, if you are shooting everything manually there wouldn't be any advantage for you in my opinion. I have my 550EX set E-TTL & flash compenstation of -1/2 or 2/3rds of an F stop less that than metered exposure to allow for "fill flash", I don't want to overpower or even match the daylight level with the flash. Pat
  14. pcalandra
    Sorry, my mistake your right it is the 580EX
  15. pcalandra
    If I were you I'd get the 560EX now, it should work better with the Digital Rebel. I'll post a pic later of my FTP showing how I've mounted my 550EX. I can't remember who it is but there's someone else that posts here that has his video & still camera mounted on top and the flash mounted on the front on the still camera mount. Pat
  16. pcalandra
    I also recomend a .5, I don't like the distortion of the .3.
  17. pcalandra
    That's still not normal you should have to "f" with it every time you put a tape in it.
  18. pcalandra
    I know you don't want to hear it, but your camera has a serious problem.........
  19. pcalandra
    The JVC cleaning tape or any cleaning tape probably isn't going to solve the problem, it sounds like your playback head is shot, send it in to a repair shop or throw it out and buy a new one.
  20. pcalandra
    Those are great! Here's a tandem exit using 2nd curtain that fired at F16 and 1/200 of a second. I kind of like the effect. Aside from the exit you really can't see any difference on the rest of them, apparently there's not enough motion difference to notice. Pat
  21. pcalandra
    The HC-42 is a good camera for the money. The docking station isn't really a problem once you get used to it, it's just one more thing to carry around, The nice thing is that for firewire it's passive meaning you don't need to connect the AC adapter to it. The only real negative in my opinion is the lack of an external mic input. Pat
  22. pcalandra
    I've been doing th exact smae thig with pretty good results. I keep meaning to try and play around with the 2nd shutter curtain syncronization but haven't got around to it. I don't mean to "thread jack" but has anyone tried reading this tried that?
  23. pcalandra
    I've used the pop-up flash on my Digital Rebel for fill flash prior to getting the 550, It really isn't powerfull enough to do much good. Save your money and get a good external flash, you won't regret it especially for Tandems, Pat
  24. pcalandra
    The camera behaves quite well in the air and on the ground. I have not been able to repeat this on the ground at all. I've been using these settings for freefall photography for over a year and they have workrd fine. As mentioned above this doesn't happen all the time, which is the real problem. When it happned 3 times in one weekend it's caused me some concern. I'm wondering if there isn't an intermitent metering problem or if the lens has a focus problem that leads to exposure confusion? For now it's mystery
  25. pcalandra
    Just wanted to send this to the top in case someone knowledgeable missed it. I was thinking it was time to break down and buy that Sigma 15mm EX lens anyhow unless somone has a better suggestion.