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nigel99

Camera Safety

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faulknerwn

Check out this video - go pro's don't rip off easily.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsEI_6cErbM



If I have lines/bridle/ball o'nylon wrapped around a GoPro, there is no way in hell I want to stick my hand in the middle of that trash and try and break off the GoPro. Who knows how much of the entanglement will be now wrapped around my wrist and I am even more dirty low.B|

I did not mount a GoPro on my Mamba full face helmet until I came up with a cutaway that I can reach with either hand and the cable is at my chin. Far away from the camera.
50 donations so far. Give it a try.

You know you want to spank it
Jump an Infinity

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*38: Fatality. No mention of camera or snag at all in the actual incident thread. (wingsuit, chopped: hard landing under reserve) so the link to a camera is unclear.


When you solely depend on DZ.com / internet fatality lists and want to get some meaningful statistics out of them you should remember that no one is under any obligation to report anything there. This is especially true for the people that do the actual / official investigations. First there's all sorts of legal considerations when it comes to accident reporting and secondly their scope is more often national than international. This means for instance that the BPA reports to the BPA board and or BPA members, the French FFP do the same for France, the German DFV does the same for Germany etcetera. Sometimes an internet-volunteer translates- or sums up the official report/findings, and puts in on those website(s) the 'internet staticians' like you scan - but there is no guarantee that this happens or that the data found there are accurate.

In this case, where you apparently did scan the DZ.com 'incident forum' it indeed does not mention anything about a camera. However, the official 'Cone Lock' article about this incident as published in the Dutch 'Sportparachutist' magazine for sure mentioned the camera snag that was a prime contributor to the fatal outcome.

So beware of the source of your statistics. For these data contain more often than not "just what some guy on the ground with internet access found worthwhile to write down..." :S:$

"Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci
A thousand words...

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grue

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If the sticky tape is attached correctly you have zero change of removing it by hand in case of a snag. I've removed those tapes and I've always had to use tools and significant amount of force to get them off.



Maybe YOU have zero chance.

When I got my new helmet and was retiring my old one for all intents and purposes, I decided to see how much force it'd take to tear it off. I put the camera into the mount, put the helmet on my head, and reached up to tear it off. I'm not gonna say it was like opening a can of coke but it wasn't like trying to lift an SUV, either. If you try and pull straight off you might not succeed, but I went to the side and it wasn't really that big of a deal.



Just out of curiosity, how long had the mount been attached to the helmet?

The glue on the sticky tape takes a little while to set. A few days to reach maximum strength.

If you had only had it on a few hours, it can be fairly easy to remove.
Let it sit for a week and it will be a very different story.
"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

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I'm not gonna say it was like opening a can of coke but it wasn't like trying to lift an SUV, either. If you try and pull straight off you might not succeed, but I went to the side and it wasn't really that big of a deal.


Well, there's this video of this parapente pilot with a GOPRO on his belly and a GOPRO on top of his helmet. He does some maneuvring trying to gain enough speed to go over the top but fails and falls into his lines and one line snags on the helmet GOPRO (standard tape attachment)

He get's spun around for several revolutions with a very unhappy "strangulation" face (footage caught on the belly camera) and it takes ten seconds of 'full swing' before it breaks free.

Video has been published on this website, in basically the same discussion we have here, in the Photo and Video section.

YMMV - but with Mad Skilz and supernatural powers it will be a walk in the park at any altitude below 2000ft, I'm sure of that. B|

"Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci
A thousand words...

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Liemberg

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*38: Fatality. No mention of camera or snag at all in the actual incident thread. (wingsuit, chopped: hard landing under reserve) so the link to a camera is unclear.


When you solely depend on DZ.com / internet fatality lists ...



My comment was mostly on the relevance of the "camera incidents" thread linked to by a prior poster with respect to the issue that the OP raised here. For that particular entry in the "camera incidence" thread, it linked to the DZ.com thread in the incidents forum. So that was all I have to go on.

If you have a link to the report, it would be very useful to post it in that thread (and here too), as that particular incident thread has very little information about what exactly happened. Or if you could provide a summary if there is nothing on line, that would be helpful too.

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If you have a link to the report


I don't.

From the top of my head though: Questionable choise of main canopy (smallish, fast and a tendency to turn, don't remember the brand right now but not the docile main you would want on wingsuitjumps) Main canopy started to spin on opening, he chopped it, opened the reserve on his back, and one line of the reserve interfered with the side mounted camera. There's some speculation that it broke his neck there and then, paralysing him.

"so much younger than today" (Me, + 25 years ago)

"Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci
A thousand words...

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What I actually am trying to say is this: Don't go complicate your skydiving without the basic notion of the principle behind permutation.

This goes in a nutshell like: "for n objects there are n! possible combinations / ways to arrange the objects"

When n=1 then n!=1
When n=2 then n!=2 (1x2)
When n=3 then n!=6 (1x2x3)
When n=4 then n!=24 (1x2x3x4)
When n=5 then n!=120 (1x2x3x4x5)

Translated to a skydiving environment you get:

First jump with new canopy (1)
First jump with new canopy AND booties (2)
First jump with new canopy AND booties AND Gopro (6)
First jump with new canopy AND booties AND Gopro AND new DZ (24)
First jump with new canopy AND booties AND Gopro AND new DZ AND simple tracking dive with a new friend (120)

And, to be completely clear, in the incident discussed above there was a Main Canopy that had been jumped before on a wingsuitdive while wearing that camera-helmet...

"Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci
A thousand words...

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Good perspective on the permutations - and that's just an illustration without including all the variance each element adds (how many different ways can something significantly change the way you fly?).

I am very interested in this topic, being an aspiring camera flyer. I'm still very new, so not even to the 200 jump minimum to start considering it. I'm not sure I'll even have the requisite skills by the time I get to 200, and then what the progression is that I should work on. Obviously, I will be talking to camera flyers at my DZ, but I would like to start understanding all the different aspects of jumping the different camera types. Ultimately, I would like to run a DSLR and try to take photos of other people under canopy on flocking jumps, but my thought was that starting out with a much smaller action camera doing simpler stuff would be the way to go. It sounds like the safety precautions for both should be roughly the same. At the very least, even if not quite as necessary for the small camera, it would be good to get into the practice/training for the larger camera.

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I like your rant!

What is actually happening is what we call:

Cognitive Dissonance

Same thing about smoking, or living near an earthquake fault, stuff like that.

We choose to ignore the safety aspect of this issue because we are social beings and we "see" so many others engaging in this behavior. Our information comes from others, we give up thinking and it becomes "Normal." [I]
Kind of like all of the national Socialists thought themselves normal back in the 40s.:S

C

Plus we have more than a few Go-Pro sponsers pushing this. Their only interest is selling the things and they are well aware about the monkey see thing, but they don't care cause you don't care....(Not you Nigel, speaking about the masses of individuals that gave up thinking long ago...) And they do in fact maintain a presence here on this forum as well....

But what do I know, "I only have one tandem jump."

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Is anybody anywhere aware of a DZ Operator or Safety Officer who has stopped an appropriately qualified person from jumping a small video camera on basic equipment safety grounds?

For the sake of the argument, let's put aside questions about first camera jumps, low experience etc.

Let's assume the person is reasonably competent and is jumping with equally competent people.

Let's also assume the camera is a common brand and the mount is similar to what 'everybody else' wears.

Is there any example of somebody who has been 'brave' enough to buck the trend and stop the camera jump in question? Has anybody said 'there's too much of a snag risk'? Or 'those things are potential killers and I don't want them on my DZ'.

If so, what were the consequences?

It seems that small cameras are now such a common piece of equipment that it's going to be too hard to stop.
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ouch

Is anybody anywhere aware of a DZ Operator or Safety Officer who has stopped an appropriately qualified person from jumping a small video camera on basic equipment safety grounds?

For the sake of the argument, let's put aside questions about first camera jumps, low experience etc.

Let's assume the person is reasonably competent and is jumping with equally competent people.

Let's also assume the camera is a common brand and the mount is similar to what 'everybody else' wears.

Is there any example of somebody who has been 'brave' enough to buck the trend and stop the camera jump in question? Has anybody said 'there's too much of a snag risk'? Or 'those things are potential killers and I don't want them on my DZ'.

If so, what were the consequences?

It seems that small cameras are now such a common piece of equipment that it's going to be too hard to stop.

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Not just aware of one DZ, but rather aware of several DZ's, S&TA's, and SO's that have stopped/confiscated cameras both on the ground and in the air.
You assume a lot in your post, when the exact opposite is usually the case (low timers jumping with other low timers).
Hard to stop? Perhaps. But that doesn't mean one stops trying.

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Good to hear!

I was curious about the consequences. Did they just go elsewhere? Or did they pull their heads in and buy safer stuff?

I don't assume anything. I was trying to instigate conversation.

It's just a lot easier for a safety officer to say to a low experience person that they can't do something than it is to tell an experienced person that they've bought the wrong thing and it's unsafe to jump.

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It's just a lot easier for a safety officer to say to a low experience person that they can't do something than it is to tell an experienced person that they've bought the wrong thing and it's unsafe to jump



I don't see much difference from one to the other.
Here, we have well-posted rules. Staff know how to manage the conversations when they occur. Past that, it falls to inserting common sense. For example, at one DZ this summer, there was a young lady who met the requirements for jumping a small camera. Yet she can't land standing up, and on multiple occasions had landed on or very near the runway. She wanted to jump a camera. I expressed my concerns, the DZ's own S&TA supported the concerns and she was not allowed to wear a camera. I don't know if she went down the road or not. Like some others, she saw it as a sign of "people trying to keep her down" vs understanding that she simply wasn't ready to wear a camera yet, in spite of her jump #'s.

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unkulunkulu

What's wrong with these options?
http://www.chutingstar.com/skydive/square-one-gopro-top-mount
http://www.chutingstar.com/skydive/cookie-g3-gopro-roller-mount

Or have I missed the irony? :)
Maybe you mean that nothing is snag-*free*? Just lesser evil?



I think he was joking. There are options, even simple ones like a gopro uses a standard M5 screw, which you can buy for a few cents reducing at least one snag hazard and yet few people bother.

It's a fundamental shift in attitude that has happened, sometimes it is progress, other times we end up repeating history. There is a balance between being a grumpy old man who is stuck in their ways, and being a sheep who blindly follows the latest trend. I'm trying to figure out where I am on this issue.:D
Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

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Arvoitus

What law gives them the right to confiscate people's gear? I'd imagine that in as sue happy place as US people would be more careful with that kind of stuff.



Here's how it could go:

DZ: You can't jump that camera setup here.

MadSkillz: Why?

DZ: It's against our posted rules because [whatever the reason is].

MadSkillz: Fuck you I'm going to jump it anyway.

DZ: No, actually, you're not. You can either hand it over to me and jump something that meets our rules, or you can choose not to jump at all here.

MadSkillz: You can't confiscate my gear - it's my personal property!

DZ: Then, like I said, you're welcome not to jump at all. But you're not jumping here with that setup. Our DZ, our rules.

Where's the lawsuit, exactly? What law did the DZ break? The law keeping MadSkillz down?:D:D
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

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NWFlyer

***What law gives them the right to confiscate people's gear? I'd imagine that in as sue happy place as US people would be more careful with that kind of stuff.



Here's how it could go:

DZ: You can't jump that camera setup here.

MadSkillz: Why?

DZ: It's against our posted rules because [whatever the reason is].

MadSkillz: Fuck you I'm going to jump it anyway.

DZ: No, actually, you're not. You can either hand it over to me and jump something that meets our rules, or you can choose not to jump at all here.

MadSkillz: You can't confiscate my gear - it's my personal property!

DZ: Then, like I said, you're welcome not to jump at all. But you're not jumping here with that setup. Our DZ, our rules.

Where's the lawsuit, exactly? What law did the DZ break? The law keeping MadSkillz down?:D:D


And that's an almost verbatim accounting of what has happened on multiple occasions. In one case, the person was found with it on the plane, and it was given to the pilot, to be retrieved upon landing.

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DSE


And that's an almost verbatim accounting of what has happened on multiple occasions. In one case, the person was found with it on the plane, and it was given to the pilot, to be retrieved upon landing.



All good for me. If an authorized person says no cam, I'll hand mine over in a heartbeat.
But what do I know?

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So anybody have any words of wisdom regarding whether cost of GoPro helmet can effect cutaway decision? I'm getting a new helmet that I'll use as a GoPro once I'm at 200 jumps, Cookie fuel with the bells and whistles $400, plus a $350 audible in there, and attach a $300 go pro to the top maybe another $50 for the SD card. That's $1100 loss right there! I could see loosing altitude fast in a tangle thinking "maybe if I try a little longer to untangle I won't have to cutaway a cold hard grand of cash!"

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chemist

So anybody have any words of wisdom regarding whether cost of GoPro helmet can effect cutaway decision? I'm getting a new helmet that I'll use as a GoPro once I'm at 200 jumps, Cookie fuel with the bells and whistles $400, plus a $350 audible in there, and attach a $300 go pro to the top maybe another $50 for the SD card. That's $1100 loss right there! I could see loosing altitude fast in a tangle thinking "maybe if I try a little longer to untangle I won't have to cutaway a cold hard grand of cash!"



Words of wisdom: If you can't make the right decision in that case maybe you shouldn't be jumping a camera with that setup.

Or go with the Bolas special - a disposable film camera gaffers taped onto a Protec.
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

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