Camera suit

[Morav 0]

Are there any cons to wearing a camera suit while shooting video for tandems?

I was wondering if people can maybe list the pros and cons with flying a camera suit from their experience.


Thank you

[davelepka 4]

It's just a tool for adjusting the range of fall rates you can film. If you're a lightweight who works with heavy TIs, you may not need a camera suit. If you're a 'big boy', a camera suit is probably a good idea.

That said, the person in the suit makes a big difference. A lower time camera guy may want to have the suit on 'just in case', or to help erase mistakes in flying or judgement. A higher time camera guy might be able to 'fly smarter' and get away without a suit on a slow falling tandem or two.

The cons are simple, more stuff to deal with. Depending on the type of suit, youl'll have swoop cords and possible attachment of the lower portion of the wing to the suit/harness. A failure or any of those points, or of the flyer to hook up any of those points makes it tough to shoot a clean video. Of course, if you pitch your PC through the 'hole' in the bottom of the wing, or get your swoop cord stuck on your hand, these are other problems.

[bigorangemd 0]

Yep, nothing will make you work harder than a wing that's unattached while filming. That being said I'm a big boy weighing in at 235 pounds and film people 120 pounds and up without difficulty. With my camera suit I have measured fall rates from 114-154 mph. Also helps you sit your upper body upward to get below the tandem and film their face instead of the top of their head.

[theonlyski 3]

Quote

Yep, nothing will make you work harder than a wing that's unattached while filming. That being said I'm a big boy weighing in at 235 pounds and film people 120 pounds and up without difficulty. With my camera suit I have measured fall rates from 114-154 mph. Also helps you sit your upper body upward to get below the tandem and film their face instead of the top of their head.

Usually gives the TI something to laugh at though.

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[Zlew 0]

I'm not a heavy jumper, and for me the wings are not just about fallrate. IMO, good tandem footage really shows off the student, and to get good shots of their face, typically the camera needs to be below the student looking slightly up. If you shoot them on level, you just see the tops of their heads, not their faces. Anyway, one way to get that angle is to "hang" on your wings. You can set up close and a foot or two low and in a head high attitude. You can use the wings to allow you to not backslide, and maintain fallrate at that unusual angle of flight.

In some cases, sure, it is great to have them to slow you down when shooting a small tandem student and tandem instructor, but that's not the primary reason I fly with them.

For outside video, the other piece of flying with wings can also have to do with the body position you can fly in by allowing you to use the wings as your primary fall rate control instead of your arch (allowing you to keep a stable platform for the video, and fly in body positions that would otherwise make it difficult to match fall rate and shoot good footage). So it's not just about being able to go slower with wings... it's about giving you other ways to control your fall rate than you might be used to, and gives you range in different body positions/ flight attitudes.

[PharmerPhil 0]

+1

[dragon2 0]

For good or even halfway decent tandem video you need to be able to lie still and lie below the level of the tandem, looking up at the student's face.
Without wings that's awfully hard to do.

So get wings and learn to use them. Learn to use them on bellyflyers NOT on tandems. Of course you also do not learn to fly camera using tandems, so get wings and after a solo jump or two with them go film a lot of FS4 and FS2/coach type jumps (outside video of course).

ciel bleu,
Saskia

[skyjumpenfool 2]

Quote

I'm not a heavy jumper, and for me the wings are not just about fallrate. IMO, good tandem footage really shows off the student, and to get good shots of their face, typically the camera needs to be below the student looking slightly up. If you shoot them on level, you just see the tops of their heads, not their faces. Anyway, one way to get that angle is to "hang" on your wings. You can set up close and a foot or two low and in a head high attitude. You can use the wings to allow you to not backslide, and maintain fallrate at that unusual angle of flight.

In some cases, sure, it is great to have them to slow you down when shooting a small tandem student and tandem instructor, but that's not the primary reason I fly with them.

For outside video, the other piece of flying with wings can also have to do with the body position you can fly in by allowing you to use the wings as your primary fall rate control instead of your arch (allowing you to keep a stable platform for the video, and fly in body positions that would otherwise make it difficult to match fall rate and shoot good footage). So it's not just about being able to go slower with wings... it's about giving you other ways to control your fall rate than you might be used to, and gives you range in different body positions/ flight attitudes.

I know of a very experienced (10K+ tandem videos) camera flyer that also uses webbed gloves to help him achieve this.

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