Nikon D7000 & Sony SLT-A55/SLT-A33

[soulbabel 0]

Both of these cameras are coming out next month, and I was wondering if anyone had thoughts on how well they could be used for skydiving. It seems they both support wired remotes that can be adapted to a tongue/blow/bite switch. I'm still relatively new to cameras, but I've been trying to get up to speed. I know most skydivers jump Canons, but these cameras look worth considering.

The Sony Alphas seem very appealing to me, because of the fast phase detection auto-focus and the very small and lightweight size compare to other cameras. There's a lot of other features that I find interesting on these, but they are mostly ground photography related. Battery life isn't too good, but overall, the Alpha has a very good price point for what you are getting out of these cameras.

The Nikon seems like a really spectacular camera as well. I'm wondering if the weather sealing aspect of this camera really adds to it's durability in skydiving. Also, would it's "39 area (9 cross type) TTL phase detection with AF fine tuning" be beneficial for our purposes?

I'm sure I left out a ton of pros and cons about these cameras, so please feel free to talk about other aspects.

[dragon2 0]

For skydiving, on the whole you want to avoid anything with non-electronical image stabilisation in it. The Sony alpha cameras all have sensor stabilisation, for me a very big reason never to buy one.

I wouldn't worry about AF, even the oldest Canon/Nikon DSLRs were fine with AF. I'd worry more about a good lens. If you buy the Nikon, you're stuck jumping the kitlens (not quite wide enough for most skydivers, quality not as good as a fixes lens, lens not as fast as a fixed lens) or if you want a good lens like the nikon 16mm, nikon 10.5mm, sigma 15mm you need to jump it MF (quite doable with these wide-angle lenses). This AF/MF thing is the biggest selling point of the cheaper Canon cameras, plus the ease of getting a remote for them. For the more expensive cameras (Nikon D90, Nikon D300, Canon D60 etc) this doesn't make a difference so then you base your choice of camera brand on other things, like which lenses you already have or want, flash system, etc. If you do not already own lenses you want to keep, for the cheapest cameras for skydiving, Canon is the best (easiest) choice. You might also want to look into the lens first, if you can buy a cheap good skydiving lens (usually a fixed f/2.8 15 or 16mm) with either a canon or nikon mount, base your camera choice on that.

ciel bleu,
Saskia

[mnskydiver688 0]

The D7000 has an internal focus motor so you can use older lenses and still have AF. Also, check the frame rate of the D7000, 6FPS. If I didn't already have a D90 I would go for the D7000. A great lens to go along with it is the Tokina 11-16mm f2.8. A little heavy but excellent low light performance and wide enough for pretty much everything. I currently use the nikon 18-55mm lens for most photos and the performance is very good.

If you are looking to use the camera for a lot of things outside of skydiving I would go with Nikon. If you are using is mainly for jumping then go Canon.

Sky Canyon Wingsuiters