Any special skydiving equipment available?

[hackish 8]

I'm just getting involved in the sport. No way I'm going to be trying to video anything for a long time but I did wonder if anyone has made a specialised cam for skydivers? I've seen all sorts of boxes with palmcorders stuck inside but with modern technology I'm fairly certain I could engineer a good quality solid state unit with skydiving specific features that is a fraction of the size. I'm only curious if there is a need for such a device or if they already exist or if the fullsized camcorders moulded into helmets are just fine?

-Michael

[The111 0]

That would be great, although the cynic in me doubts the ability of one man to rival a microelectronic product made by Sony. I've always thought it would be cool to have all the electronics from a camera repackaged into a flat dome shaped housing which is integrated into the top of a helmet, with only the lens remaining as a bulky component, so the final product looks like a coal miner helmet. But this would be economically not feasible for any of those capable of doing it.

www.WingsuitPhotos.com

[jtval 0]

with any luck at all, by the time you're ready there will be a smaller more "usable" cam corder.

technology is crazy that way.

My photos

My Videos

[DSE 3]

Quote

I'm fairly certain I could engineer a good quality solid state unit with skydiving specific features that is a fraction of the size. I'm only curious if there is a need for such a device or if they already exist or if the fullsized camcorders moulded into helmets are just fine?

-Michael

"good" is subjective. Seriously, beating out an SI2K, RED, or other contender on the high end, or beating out AVCHD on the low end would be very difficult given the quantities that Sony, JVC, Panasonic, and Canon are producing, but heck...if you've got the time, we've got the beer. I'm happy to try whatever you come up with.

[hackish 8]

Quote

That would be great, although the cynic in me doubts the ability of one man to rival a microelectronic product made by Sony. I've always thought it would be cool to have all the electronics from a camera repackaged into a flat dome shaped housing which is integrated into the top of a helmet, with only the lens remaining as a bulky component, so the final product looks like a coal miner helmet. But this would be economically not feasible for any of those capable of doing it.

It's actually not that difficult to obtain the hardware as the high end manufacturers just buy and implement them from readily available components. I'm more curious than anything as I was thinking a cam with built-in activation and it's own altimeter would be cool. The downside is with such a limited market there is no way you'd ever beat the big guys on price.

-Michael

[DSE 3]

Quote

It's actually not that difficult to obtain the hardware as the high end manufacturers just buy and implement them from readily available components. I'm more curious than anything as I was thinking a cam with built-in activation and it's own altimeter would be cool. The downside is with such a limited market there is no way you'd ever beat the big guys on price.

-Michael

Your first comment isn't accurate. Sony for example, does not purchase ClearVid from anyone. They manufacture them. They don't sell them OEM yet either. One cannot buy these imagers.
Lenses found on Sony higher end/HDV, Panasonic AVCHD are designed specifically for the chips they are mated/matched with. Canon is the same, and while I'm not certain, I'd be comfortable in suggesting JVC is the same.
Next, why altimeter in camera? Why would you want your camera turning on/off without your input? Not to mention the delay/latency that it would most certainly have. Or do you mean an in-camera, burned in alti to match altitude with what is being seen in through the lens?

[PharmerPhil 0]

Quote

The downside is with such a limited market there is no way you'd ever beat the big guys on price.

Ya think?

[hackish 8]

Quote

Your first comment isn't accurate. Sony for example, does not purchase ClearVid from anyone. They manufacture them. They don't sell them OEM yet either. One cannot buy these imagers.
Lenses found on Sony higher end/HDV, Panasonic AVCHD are designed specifically for the chips they are mated/matched with. Canon is the same, and while I'm not certain, I'd be comfortable in suggesting JVC is the same.
Next, why altimeter in camera? Why would you want your camera turning on/off without your input? Not to mention the delay/latency that it would most certainly have. Or do you mean an in-camera, burned in alti to match altitude with what is being seen in through the lens?

There are obviously exceptions everywhere. Sony is probably one of them. I think the issue of having the lens specifically designed for their chip is a bit of marketing fuzz. A quality lens should project the image on the chip surface, nothing more. Not too many high end camera producers own their own chip fab plant just to make their imaging devices.

I did a little playing with UAV type technology just out of my own curiosity and found that I could produce very high quality video from off the shelf components. Years ago I was a still photographer so I still do have an eye for what is garbage and what is not.

As for altimeter control yes I was thinking that you could have that data embedded in the video stream to optionally display it. Maybe other DZ setups are far more advanced but I saw big fiberglass boxes moulded to the helmet sides with some foam and finger slits so the camera could be activated and such. It just struck me as a tad ghetto.

-Michael

[DSE 3]

Michael,
I'm a consultant to Sony and Canon. I'm very familiar with the lens designs that Peter Gloeggler and Jeff Cree created for the entire HD series of camcorders for Sony and Thomas Markham's designs for Canon.
Matching HD glass to 1/6 to 1/2 chips is essentially rocket science. Peter's white paper on the subject is more than 200 pages, available from NAB for $150.00 if you care to purchase/read it.
"A quality lens should project the image on the surface of the chip, nothing more" is very easy to say, but not easy to do. Especially in HD and forthcoming UXHD resolutions.
Chromatic abberation?
Barrel distortion?
Timing?
Surface polish?
Granular distortion?
Grading scale?
These are all major issues.
If manufacturing lenses alone were so easy, why are there only essentially three manufacturers in the entire world (referring to quality glass, not crap Tokina-type stuff)? Fuji, Konica/Minolta (now Sony) and Canon drive the market. There are small boutique companies such as Nikon (OEMs glass from other sources), Cooke (Uses Nikon in cheap lenses, and custom glass in higher grade) Angenieux (very high end, hand assembled, custom grade glass) and a few others. Again, if it were so easy, everyone would be doing it themselves.

Sony sells a huge percentage of imagers, but their OEM offerings don't account for what they put in their own camcorders.
Canon buys their HD CCD's from Sony, and their CMOS come from a couple different sources including themselves and Sony. JVC is allegedly buying from Agilent, Panasonic is very quiet about whose they use for larger imagers, but they are well known for their small imagsrs. I suspect based on tests, that Panasonic is relabelling Agilent sensors in their HD products. Canon owns their own chip plant for high end cams, so does JVC, but theirs are for their low-end cams. In other words, yes....the big companies do all make their own chips in various product lines. If not, then they OEM them from each other. Check out the Imaging Devices paviliion at NAB sometime; you'll see how incestuous that world really is.
Omnivision builds some very fun sensor test boards that allow you to work with various sensors and test their actual resolution and sensitivity without DSP, but the biggest they make is an SXGA, so haven't been able to tear into some of the newer models.
Needless to say...I've built several "decent" cameras, mostly of the Radio Shack quality level. What one person defines as good imagery vs another is entirely subjective, I guess. My cellphone takes amazing video for a 1/8 imager and plastic lens, delivering at small resolutions and high compressions.
I could probably build an SD camcorder equal in quality to crappy DV cams out there, and have pride of DIY in it...and it's a great story. But not a prayer could I build something of the quality of say a PC109, or any of the AVCHD or HDV offerings, not even by being within say....500% of the cost of one of these small cams.
And that's before storage. How are you going to store the content? Tape? HDD? Memstick? CF? SDHD? What codec? AVCHD (that's an expensive licence/SDK)? HDV (Has to be tape)? MPEG4 ('nother expensive license)? MJPEG (Cheap license, but monster file size/datarate)? J2K? ('Nother very expensive license and no decode support at this time)?
It's not just glass and imager. That's a very important set of components, but it's simply not that easy, and no major camcorder manufacturer is buying "off the shelf" anything.
Now...if you're happy with those video cameras you can buy at Walmart with Barbie on them...sure....you can build your own, and be very proud of that.
All that said, an Altimeter overlay is very cool idea in-camera, but that's also very easy to output from JumpTrack software if that's what you need. I used to do this for tandem vids. Still do for special vids. But having as an in-camera overlay would be sweet.
If it were that easy, everyone would be doing it.

Sorry for the long post. I tend to ramble when it comes to this particular subject.

[hackish 8]

Very informative. I've got some experience with Agilent. I know an older panasonic imager was pin for pin compatible with the agilent but it was marked on the underside as a panasonic part.

The reason I figure most of the lens stuff is marketing fuzz is that I've looked at stills taken from a series of different lenses and the quality differences were minute. For a still photographer it is obviously very important and you find only brand name canon lenses in my bag - no tamron or other off-brands. Played back at 30fps or whatever they standard is I couldn't see any difference between the different lenses.

My experience is very limited and what I've seen was that most people are just using small inexpensive camcorders inside gawdy looking tumours moulded on their helmets.

-Michael

[DSE 3]

Quote

For a still photographer it is obviously very important and you find only brand name canon lenses in my bag - no tamron or other off-brands. Played back at 30fps or whatever they standard is I couldn't see any difference between the different lenses.

That statement makes no sense. I'm probably reading it wrong.
BTW, Tamron isn't a bad lens at all once you get into the high end. Same with Sigma, once you're away from their bottom end lenses.

[hackish 8]

Quote

That statement makes no sense. I'm probably reading it wrong.
BTW, Tamron isn't a bad lens at all once you get into the high end. Same with Sigma, once you're away from their bottom end lenses.

Still photos are much higher resolution and you can stop and examine the frame for 10 minutes if you like. In video it flies by in about 1/30th of a second. I saw some video showing that offbrand lens X was just as good as the brand name sony/canon lens on a video camera. I couldn't see any difference in the video. Maybe there was a tiny bit of spherical aberation but I sure couldn't see it.

I'm not saying you can use junk, but what I am saying is that most of the stuff out there - chip/encoding modules bought and sold by OEMs are pretty good quality.

-Michael

[DSE 3]

Quote

Quote

Still photos are much higher resolution and you can stop and examine the frame for 10 minutes if you like. In video it flies by in about 1/30th of a second. I saw some video showing that offbrand lens X was just as good as the brand name sony/canon lens on a video camera. I couldn't see any difference in the video. Maybe there was a tiny bit of spherical aberation but I sure couldn't see it.

Really? I never would have known that. Thx for the info.
I'm curious as to why someone would make such a video. Only Canon has interchangeable lenses on their consumer/prosumer camera. No one builds cheap lenses for the 1/2 and 2/3 cams AFAIK. Where could I see a copy of this glass comparison video?

Quote

I'm not saying you can use junk, but what I am saying is that most of the stuff out there - chip/encoding modules bought and sold by OEMs are pretty good quality.

-Michael

OEM product ranges from "absolute shit" to "reasonably good." A guy like you or I can't get access to high end OEM.

[AFFI 0]

So are you knowledgeable enough to repair camcorders? You could stay quite busy around here...

Mykel AFF-I10
Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…