husslr187

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

that’s exactly what I thought when I chopped my sabre 170 and got on my pr176. Everything was the same except it sank a bit more while the sabre glided better. not much better with 1k jumps on it but noticeable. made everything very unstressful and people couldn’t tell that I chopped from my calm composure (aside from the few that saw it)

you can have a reserve hooked up as a main to see how it flys. I wouldn’t chop a good canopy just because my reserve was due though adding completely unnecessary risk. some dzs use a hanging harness on the ground. much less risk of falling to your death

most likely because they been running it on top of their helmet for years before the vmag and don’t want to change anything

I jumped from a 210 rental to a 170 sabre used gear but now mine around that jump number. my exit weight was around 200 and put my wing load around 1.1-1.2 which was ok for me but i was also 32 at the time. I have done a canopy course beforehand as well. if i was in your shoes, i would see about getting something used that fits 210-190 with the plan of maybe buying a new container in a year. After jumping for a year or so you’ll have a better idea of what you want and it’s better to beat up used gear. if you haven’t taken a canopy course yet i would prioritized that as well as it will help improve your landing.

one other thing I thought about is AFTER the TI chops his main you have a situation very similar to a horseshoe malfunction and you can treat it as such. only exception is you still have a main and reserve. two trys then deploy main. it would probably be easy to lose altitude awareness in this situation so this is likely your best bet