husslr187

I was on a 168 pilot and a little later 170 sabre with a 200 exit weight at 35jumps so it’s not too unheard of. I also started a canopy course the same day i earned my A license. I would recommend getting into a course as well as talking to instructors who are familiar with your progression. I myself went through a course again at 300ish jumps. most things taught I already knew from my first course but some things I understand better due to learning from a different instructor with a different perspective. always be willing to own up to your mistakes. learning from your own mistakes is easier as you have a first person perspective but try to learn from others mistakes first as it’s more comfortable for you. never stop learning

I jump my A6000 with a 20mm pancake lens with an ultrawide converter making it similar to a 16mm. i tried a 16 but felt I lost more quality around the edges than the above setup. (skydiving isn’t the only thing I shoot) ss 800-1000/th, ap3.2-4.2ish, iso 100. whatever camera you get there may be other settings to take into consideration but this will get you in the ballpark. learning about cameras in general would also be a great advantage to get the most out of it. I would say there’s more to learn about it than you could with skydiving, but learning the exposure triangle and how you camera reads different lighting conditions. can help you setup your camera for better pictures. for example a snow covered background would make your camera think the highlights are blown out and if left in auto mode, you would end up with pictures of grayish snow and dark faces. when you get your camera, keep it on the ground for a little while and really learn how it works in different conditions before you mount it to your helmet. focus areas, driver speeds, subjects in motion versus still, contrast focus vs phase focus, ect. with all that said I do enjoy using it on the ground as much as in the air. I haven’t done any work jumps, just mostly for my enjoyment.

after re-reading the original post I found that i misunderstood the situation. I read it as something went wrong on the jump whereas now I read it as you were ready to jump but your instructors weren’t confident that you could do it safely. (I was just getting to sleep when I first read the post) simple answer is more training is needed. it may cost you a little more but in the long run, the amount is small when you start considering gear cost, maintenance, jump tickets, ect. best bet is to talk to the instructors and find out what they want to see to move forward

I made a few mistakes during my first go at aff. at the time i was juggling work, dumping a lot of money into woodworking, and attempting to learn skydiving. at the time i decided that i wasn’t ready for it as I had a lot going on and i understood what i was doing as far as risk to myself and the instructors (they didn’t say anything negative about it) a year or two later I went back and breezed right through it. I guess in a way some of it had to do with my mentality at the time of me thinking negatively about my performance in the situation which in fact had an effect on my performance. I was one of those people that thought I was going to learn quickly and seeing that I wasn’t on video kinda crushed me a bit. it was always in the back of my mind, processing what I was doing wrong, why I did it wrong, the emotions I was feeling at the time, ect. for me, fear was holding me back. not so much of dying, but fear of doing things wrong and being too hard on myself because of it. I let the previous mistakes dwell in my mind and it hindered my performance on the next jump as well. that was when i decided to stop. I knew myself enough that I wasn’t as mentally prepared as i thought i was. a year or two later my woodworking slowed to a stop but my thoughts about skydiving never did. so I decided that for me to do this right I had to commit completely to it and remembering how things went before, get over it and move on. I also put all my free time towards reading forums, blogs, videos, books, ect. one thing I would suggest that helped for sure was the wind tunnel. learning how to fly well enough in there eased some of the mental burden during the jumps. most people only need 15ish minutes to excel well but the few times i went, they had a discounted price on a 10 minute deal. by the time i got my license i probably had about two hours in the tunnel. skydiving is more mental than physical. the movement is easy, it’s getting your brain to work the way you need it to in the moment that’s difficult at first. it’s sensory overload mixed with the uncertainty of your performance in the next few minutes that overwhelm you. add the small possibility of death or paralysis and your mind is moving faster than you can process. regulating your breathing a few minutes before and during the jump can help slow your mind back down to regain control and focus only on the jump plan. and shut out the unnecessary thought that only hinder you once you go out the door. Brian Germain has quite a few videos on youtube to where he talks about it and methods he uses to work through it. overall if you or your instructor says your not ready for it yet, it’s because you’re mind isn’t as prepared for it as you thought. skydiving is a very unnatural thing to do. you’re not supposed to be able to fall for a minute or more and live but because of science and technology, we can now with a pile of string and nylon fashioned into a backpack. hopefully I gave you a enough material to look into to help you out. Talk with your instructors more and see if what steps they would want to see when you go back. The sky will always be there when you’re ready

I started jumping mine this year and wasn’t 100% sure how it goes so I looked at the manual thinking it was important. maybe that someone needs to step back for a moment and think about what they’re doing when it comes to they’re own safety and knowing their own gear

there’s is as much that can be learned about your camera as there is about skydiving and probably a lot more. you can dive into it as deep as your willing to get better pictures. years ago when I started shootings bands performances I started in auto and quickly found out the camera doesn’t always pick the best settings leaving me with extra grainy pictures. getting a basic idea of how the shutter speed, aperture, and iso effects each other will help you get a better understanding of why things work the way the way they do. I did plenty of youtube and reading for a long time but a page on youtube that helped me understand more was this one https://youtube.com/c/TonyNorthrup although they are kinda dry which I believe it just ends up being like that to prevent any kind of PR bs, they do have a lot of great content to learn from i also learned a bit about my camera in general from this page https://youtube.com/c/AlphaCreativeSkill you can get camera specific explanations about different settings depending on what video you click on. both pages are well worth looking at but i would suggest checking out the beginners guide page on the first link first.

wider aperture or lower fstop allows light in faster and the focus plane would be narrower but much easier for the camera to snap to it. for example I have a F1.4 50mm Sigma prime lens on my a7iii for shooting bands in dark bars. if there’s enough light for the auto focus to work it snaps to it rather quickly where my kit lens that starts around F3.6 struggles to find a subject if at all. the lens I use for jumping is is a sony 20mm F2.8 prime lens for the same reason. I don’t go all the way down to 2.8 but I jump between 3.2-4.2 depending on clouds, time of day, season, type of jump ect. it’s not really a set and forget type thing when in manual mode which is why i take test shots on the way up. if i have a chance to sit next to the door while its open i will. either way I wanted the range to go up or down as well edit: generally prime lenses have less moving parts than zoom lenses and usually a lower fstop which is faster overall for the camera. also when speed counts getting a lens the same brand as the camera also helps it as sony camera work more efficiently with sony lenses

yes my shutter will release, even out of focus. sometimes I get one shot out of focus on exit but I have a faster lens and a smaller focus zone. might just have to be that you have to keep playing with your settings until you get something that works for you, the camera, and that lens. one thing that would be really helpful if you’re not familiar with cameras besides a gopro is use it on the ground after hours. play with it take pics of plants, people drinking, sunsets, naked women, sports activities, ect. learning how it acts on the ground might change how you act in the sky

i run a duel plate with this on the left https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1422086-REG/2082_Cage_with_Wooden_Handgrip_for_Sony and this on the right https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1297724-REG/Genus_Cage_for_GoPro_HERO7_HERO6_and as said above I’ll have a for you in a few days

I had a few thoughts in no particular order I posted below. I would suggest trying these on a non paid jump if possible with the shutter speed at 800 likely the only thing changing much is the iso with an F4 lens. what you could try is setting it to manual 1000s, f4 ap, and iso auto. i suggested the shutter to be a little faster that way the camera can adjust the iso up if the photo is too dark. aperture at f4 is as open as it gets and you could tweak that a little if you want. the difference from being setup outside the door and freefall isn’t much. if you do shooting of the tandem inside the plane you could keep your shutter priority settings the same then switch to manual before exit. if you do this I strongly suggest you keep the shutter at 800 or higher in case you forget to switch. is your shutter switch on single or continuous? if continuous is the drive speed high, med, or low? if high or medium maybe bump the speed down to give the camera a little more time to work. as far as focus zone if you can spare having the camera focus in a smaller area it would help but I understand the need to have it wide. about the only thing i can think of is setting up a flexible point and widening the zone in the area you’re most likely to shoot but I can’t remember at the moment if flexible point is a setting on my A7iii only or if my 6000 could do the same

If you can wait a few days I’ll get a pic. My mom just had knee surgery so i’m helping her out for the next few days and won’t be home for a little while

try to set the camera to do the as little “thinking” as possible that way it’s only job is to focus on what you point it at. are you shooting in manual mode? I usually start around 800/thshutter, 3.2ish aperture and iso at 100. I’ll would take a few photos on the way up to check and adjust my settings. where is your focus zone? I usually set a small focus zone in the center to keep the camera from hunting for a subject through the entire photo. what lens are you using? kit lens was too slow for my liking. prime lenses seemed to focus faster for me I tried a few but ended up with using a sony 20mm pancake lens with an ultra wide converter on it. Edit: i have a 6000 but its not far off from the 6400 and can probably use similar settings

i’ve jumped for a year without the cage using only a bolt in the tripod mount hole to hold it to the flatlock. the flatlock does have a very thin layer of rubber on it which helps keeps things from twisting. just be very cautious when wearing for the first few times until you learn your new “height” and check the tightness before you get on the plane

as far as setting I use manual mode with shutter speed between 800-1000th, aperture around 4ish and iso at 100. where it’s set depends on cloudiness and how I want the pictures to look. take test shots on the way to altitude if possible. one other thing I do is set the center of the picture as the focus zone. by doing that the camera was able to focus faster. best guess is that it doesn’t have to search the entire scene and figure out what I want to focus on. downside is sometimes i wished it focused somewhere else. same thing with going to manual versus auto, doesn’t take time to process the scene and figure out what aperture, shutter speed, ect to use. bigger downside if the setting aren’t good, you could have dark pictures or blown out pictures that can’t be fixed with editing. upside to both of these is faster focus at the door and faster continuous shooting play around with the camera a good bit before you take it up. there’s just as much to learn about it as there is skydiving and every camera is different.

I bought a camera cage for my a6000 and mounted it to the flatlock. a lot more flexible with the amount of threaded holes on it and I was able to get the camera closer to centered with less overhang. did the same for the gopro as well. don’t know how well that’ll work with a canon though. one of the reasons I bought the a6000 was because the lens mounted on one side instead of centered like most cameras. I can make the setup more compact with the gopro in front of most of the camera except the lens. camera cage is still a good idea incase you bump the door on the way out though