Costyn

Well looking at my earlier posts, I did try the slower shutter speeds and just got a lot of motion blur, which I didn't like. I might try it again sometime. The water in the sample video's do look nicer at a slower shutterspeed. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

I have the 15-85 IS USM and I did jump once with it. It seems the optical image stabilization is enabled during video (which you can see on the ground) but it can't cope with the severe shaking during skydiving. It doesn't improve it although it doesn't seem to make it a lot worse either. So I've gone back to using my 10-22 which is about half the weight and does nicely for skydiving. Long story short: I think the kit lens would be fine, just turn off the IS during skydiving. I usually use the manual settings; set aperture to 7.1, shutter speed to 400 and ISO to auto. I'm not sure about the FPS yet, it does seem that you notice the frame rate at 25fps (or 30 for NTSC) full HD and video becomes jerky. 720p and 50fps (or 60 for NTSC) does seem to give smoother video. Hope this helps! Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

THIS ONE Well played... Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

You don't care about cars! I contend that neither (or either) wil make you smile. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Levels, membership fee... when is Tom Cruise joining? 'Cause this business model is straight from Scientology! Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Too many crazy people in the discipline. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Nearly all GPSes can give you a figure for their accuracy, the so called 'Dilution of Precision'. On my GPS I can ask it to log that too along with each trackpoint, which might've solved your problem by throwing away all trackpoints which weren't accurate. In the FlySight you could do something similar: only beep when you have a good fix and when you detect freefall. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Pics or it didn't happen! Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

The Ghost 2 and 3 are very different. Flying the ghost 3 felt more like a stealth: massive inflation and a challenging pull. It scared me a bit on the first couple jumps. I don't have any numbers or graphs but I'm sure the ghost 3 outperforms the 2 in all aspects. So I think you'll be screwed if you try to outfly your friend in your ghost 2. Sorry!

Hey James, My gpx2srt tool was never very robust nor very compatible with the somewhat different styles of GPX that do exist (even though it's one standard). But you mention you have Paralog... afaik (never tested it myself), Paralog can embed the same exact stats in your video, just like my tool (only easier as I understand it). Cheers Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

I posted this to wingsuitnews.com too. If you click the link to Science News in the summary (which is what it is), you get a longer article in Russian: http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http://nauka.izvestia.ru/news/article104553.html Unfortunately the article is light on details... but makes a fun read. 'Vingsyut' heh. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

+1 Agreed. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

We've also set up a Facebook page for the competition, for those of you who use Facebook a lot. I also created an event you can RSVP to. If you are interested in coming but do not have a team, let us know we can hook you up with other people in the same situation. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Very cool! Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Very cool! Can't make it in January, but maybe one of the events later in the year... Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Very awesome of you. Agreed, very cool that you post all the details of your hard work for everyone to poke at and play with. I hope many more good things come of this really cool project! Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Someone should call that number (anonymously)... see what kind of character is on the other end. Leading along Nigerian scammers is an art form, by the way. Some people actually are so good they get the Nigerians to send them money. Usually it's just pictures of some shmuck doing something silly. Check 419eater.com for hilarious email conversations and silly pictures of hopeful Nigerians. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Never mind, I like your spam Yea seriously... you're making something a lot of people appreciate, I don't think anybody minds being told of a new version with shiny new features! Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Thanks for all the praise guys! It was fun to film and fun to fly, albeit quite challenging at times as they sometimes dropped like a rock 100ft further down below me during maneuvers, and I had to keep up. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Nice "gangsta" pose there with your McDonalds take-out bag there... Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Michael, Two features I thought of that might be cool for future versions: - Navigation aid: By entering a waypoint (by computer or whatever) have the FlySight guide you back to it by making a sound from the direction you should be going (need stereo headphones - also front/back will be tricky, maybe different pitch?). This would be cool for people flying base on their back for navigation, or when there's limited ground visibility due to clouds (yea I know, you shouldn't be jumping, but it happens anyway). I watched an episode of the BBC science documentary 'Horizon' last night where they had a guy wear a belt embedded with little vibrating pads, the pads that were facing north would vibrate, giving the wearer an innate sense of direction; it was pretty cool, this extra sense. I thought it shouldn't be too complex to have FlySight do something similar. - Canopy mode: it would be cool if it gave you feedback while under canopy. When out on a long spot (sometimes you end up in the wrong place), it would be nice to find that optimum glide on your canopy so you have the best shot at making it back. Cheers, Costyn. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Hi Bill, Actually I have just discovered the existence and function of ND filters. I haven't played with one yet, but I am using a polarizer on my lens which I use for most skydives for making the image looking just that bit nicer (and a nice dark gradient in the sky). But I've tried the slower shutter speeds and they just result in motion blur which I don't like and apparently there is jello-ing with higher shutter speeds, but I've never actually noticed it. It's nowhere as bad as on some gopro footage that i've seen (where I do notice it). So yea good to have someone else that uses their T2i/550d for skydive footage. Cheers Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Also check out this thread on the T2i/550D for some more discussion on DSLR video shooting. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

So I have been jumping with the T2i/550D for quite a number of jumps now and I'm still very happy with the results it produces. My only problem with it is that you do need to do it all in manual. The automatic settings will set the camera to a shutterspeed of 50, an aperture of 30 (!) and then varies the ISO according to the available light. I for one do not like shooting with an aperture of 30, that's just silly. Most of my jumps have been wingsuit jumps (check some of the recent movies here for more examples) where it's been pretty easy to keep the camera from shaking too much. It gives wonderful pictures. I uploaded a freefly jump yesterday I did with the camera and the image is still usable, even if it's not using any stabilization. Check out the footage here. Something funny happens as we exit the clouds at 36 seconds though. I'm not sure what it could have been as the camera was on full manual, so it shouldn't have been adjusting any settings. Shooting at 50fps is nice too. The resulting slo-mo is easy to edit with and looks good. Also nice during debriefs when you want to slow the footage down. There are quite a few usability quirks with this camera in video mode. It is not very user friendly and really only for someone who is already used to shooting photo's with a DSLR and knows their way around aperture, shutter speed and ISO. That's about it for my mini-review of the camera up till now. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Nice! Love the sound of the flyby at the end. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News