HC7

[fabiana 0]

Hi,
This weekend i tried out my new HC7!
No problems !

[damonsteele 0]

Box or no box? What helmet was it on? What flying positions (head up, flat, head down)? Please provide some details.

(Glad to hear that it was working great. Give me hope for the new one that's coming)

[fabiana 0]

Hi!
My camera was in a box from Cookie.
and i used a 0,43 fisheye Kenko.
In the menü on wideangle.
The Helmet is a Bone Head with a liquid Flat Lock.

[vdschoor 0]

What kind of flying did you do though?

I personally saw a HC-7 act up pretty bad this weekend, the flutter that people were talking about.
And that camera was in a box as well.. it happened while sitflying

Iwan

[BlueSBDeath 2]

DUDE, your pictures make me crank my head around to look at them right, please fix before you post

Now I have to drink my beer sideways

BSBD...........Its all about Respect,

USPA#-7062, FB-2197, Outlaw 499

[champu 1]

Hey Iwan...

I also looked at the video from my HC5 on my TV at home, and confirmed what we saw on the screen on Sunday. There appears to be horizontal light and dark waves that kinda roll through the image during footage shot while sitflying. It's definitely irritating, but it seems fairly minor. The 4-way FS video I shot looks fine, and the head-down video looks fine as well.

My camera was completely bare, top mounted on an FF2, and attached with a cork-pad stroboframe that I'm not particularly happy with. I'd like to try again with the 300-VID plate (which I can modify to make it so I can get to the battery release latch and then attach very securely to the camera) and maybe a camera condom of some sort. Does anyone know if camera condoms for the HC5/7 are available anywhere yet?

I'm very impressed by the image quality of this camera. Very impressed. I'm not giving up on this without a fight

/edited to ask: How bad was Jason's footage while sitflying anyway? I didn't see it.

[DSE 3]

I'd like to see these lines, but your description sounds a lot like rolling shutter artifacts. With a CMOS cam, rolling shutter will appear at high shutterspeeds. This is perhaps why I don't see it on mine; I'm usually setting up to match 24p at some point, so shooting at 1/60 is a habit.

[damonsteele 0]

DSE,

Do you have your HC7 in an enclosure (Cookie HC5/7 box)?

[vdschoor 0]

Quote

/edited to ask: How bad was Jason's footage while sitflying anyway? I didn't see it.

It was bad enough that it is not acceptable really.. it wasnt a little bit.. it would give you headaches watching it.

So far what I am hearing is that I should be pretty freakin happy for switching to HD when I did (flying an HC-1)

[DSE 3]

Quote

DSE,

Do you have your HC7 in an enclosure (Cookie HC5/7 box)?

No. I have a Cookie box, but am not using it at this time. The cam is open to the elements, I only use gaffers tape on the screen to be sure it stays closed. I'm planning on cutting my Cookie box to make it more useful, at some point in time.

[WeakMindedFool 0]

Ryan & DSE,
Iwan is right, it was pretty bad. I did note that it occurred in sit flying and If I was head down and the camera got burbled. It wasn't nearly as bad if the box (home made) had the Lanc access taped over. I plan on taping the whole thing up to see if it corrects the problem. If you would like to see the video, reply back and I'll post some full res copies to Skydivingmovies.
PEACE!
Jason

Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves.
-Eric Hoffer -
Check out these Videos

[DSE 3]

I'd like to see what it looks like, yes.
Do you have a UV or other protection over your lens?

[WeakMindedFool 0]

I have a .3 Diamond.
Shutter speed set to 60
X.V. Color on
Steadyshot off
is microsoft DV Ok as far as the resolution goes or do you need it to be 1080i?

Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves.
-Eric Hoffer -
Check out these Videos

[WeakMindedFool 0]

Alright. Skydivingmovies has the video, I'll link it when it becomes available. it's 45 sec's and 170 megs
name is "Flutter.avi" and I put in Misc.
Peace!
Jason

Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves.
-Eric Hoffer -
Check out these Videos

[pilotdave 0]

http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=5571

Dave

[damonsteele 0]

To tell you the truth, that looks to be ok. I got a hell of a lot more flutter flying flat with mine mounted on an FTP with no box.

BTW, can you describe your helmet config as well.

[WeakMindedFool 0]

HC7 in a rip off of a bonehead box. Top mounted to a FF2 2kComposites. A long narrow hole was cut into the left side to allow LANC access. The first shot was with it taped over, the rest it was not. I'm gonna see if covering all openings with gaffers tape does the trick....if it does, I'll make a neoprene condom with a non permeable layer on the inside to encapsulate the camera.
It may not be that bad....but it's bad enough! Why switch to high def only to have worse quality? I hope it's fixable because otherwise the camera kicks ass...will keep all posted.
PEACE!
Jason

P.S. Thanks Dave!

Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves.
-Eric Hoffer -
Check out these Videos

[PhreeZone 15]

Please keep updating us on the status of this.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[DSE 3]

What you're seeing there is an MPEG skip, where there is enough difference between an I frame and a DCT frame. This is an anomoly of how MPEG works, and it does have moments where it can get weird. Now that I've seen it, it's very easy to identify, and in post, quite easy to deal with, but it's an irritation. I was expecting to see macroblocking, unusable frames, or more.
You're flying with "inexpensive HD" and not high end HDV. If this is a serious concern for you, then your options are limited. All MPEG format camcorders run the risk of blocked DCT frames. AVCHD, HDV, and even XDCAM *can* have this issue. When the camera is unstable combined with tremendous changes in the contrast and frame content, it can create issues, and sometimes does. You're in that "sometimes" group. Rolling shutter is a part of this problem, you've got it, but it's right on the verge. Next jump, set your shutter speed at 1/60 and see if that fixes your issue no matter what position you're in. I suspect it may. I wish my head down was worth a damn, but it's not, and I can't fly with others at this stage and feel like both of us are safe, or I'd be trying to replicate it.
Send me the .m2t that I'd initially requested, and I can track the frames quite easily. The rendered avi removes that ability, since the header is stripped from the file.

[damonsteele 0]

I don't mean to sound like I;m discounting what you're saying, believe me, I'm not! But are we sure that this just isn't a optical (HC7) vs. electronic (HC5) image stabilizer issue? I haven't seen anyone complain about the HC5's or HC3's.
If you could "stabilize" that picture, the camera is phenomenal!

BTW, awesome freeflyin'!

[WeakMindedFool 0]

Shutter speed was set to 1/60. You obviously know a hell of a lot more about this than I do. Hell, I'll send you the tape if you like...or...you can tell me how to get an .m2t off my camera. I'm using Canopus Edius Pro 3.5 and can extract what you want...I think. Is an m2t what extracts when I use the generic HDV cap?
Why does it ONLY happen in turbulent air? It only occurs in a sit or when I traveled over something? Do you think my plan of completely encapsulating the camera will have an effect?
As for recreating it...Tell me what you want to see, in what body position, with any setup you like. I'll go out tomorrow and get it. I'll send you the tape, just PM me with the address you want it at.

Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves.
-Eric Hoffer -
Check out these Videos

[WeakMindedFool 0]

Nope...problem is being reported on the HC5 as well...What do you think an HC1 goes for on ebay

Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves.
-Eric Hoffer -
Check out these Videos

[dragon2 0]

Quote

you can tell me how to get an .m2t off my camera.

Try the (free) program HDV Split.

ciel bleu,
Saskia

[WeakMindedFool 0]

Ok, here are the results:
HC7
Lens .3 Diamond
Shutter Speed 1/60
Steadyshot off
X.V. Color on

First I took the HC7, top mounted on a 2kComposites FF2. Covered the I/O area with gaffers tape, covered the tape door as well, in fact the whole front of the camera (not the lens though ;)). I flew this set up in every axis. The only time I saw mpeg skip was in a sit. This was 90% better then the clip I posted before. Head down and on my belly and back the video is perfect. In a sit there is intermittent skip but once again, not nearly as bad as it had been. One thing of note, the longer I was in a sit the worse it seemed to get.

Second, I took the tape off, placed the HC7 in a cookie box (the HC3 box) mounted on a Flat Top Pro, taped every opening but the seam where it clamshell closes. Flew HD, back, belly and in a sit. No problem till I went into a sit. This set up was by far the worst! The skip got so bad that the people looked like blobs.

The fact that getting the camcorder as airtight as possible seemed to reduce the problem gives me hope. I picture a tight condom (well they are all tight on me), maybe neoprene with a layer of latex inside. If anyone has any more ideas…let’s hear it!
PEACE!
Jason

Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves.
-Eric Hoffer -
Check out these Videos

[damonsteele 0]

Any more stories to tell from the weekend?