JayhawkJumper

Usually the best way to find compositions is to go the middle of the room/yard/area you want to shoot in, and slowly spin around, looking at every possible composition. You could pose them with a few sitting on a couch others standing, one laying down. You could pose the father in a chair with everyone around him. You could pose the mom and dad on a couch with the kids around them. The possibilities are endless. You could also shoot candid portraits. Portraits inside require a bit more work because there is color temperature to worry about as well as more lighting issues. If your really serious about getting into professional photography, buy some books on lighting and photography and read them, also get some magazine subscriptions and read every issue cover to cover. To learn photography you need to build a good knowledge base of what your are dealing with in terms of technical aspects, then just shoot everything you can. The more experience you get, the better you will be, and the more technical knowledge you learn, the more free you will be to express yourself artistically.

for family portraits and pets, if you shoot them outside, a fill flash or huge reflector would do the trick. If you want to shoot them inside, a couple strobes wouldn't hurt. I would recommend taking them outside as its usually a little bit better background and it would be easier to light.

What kind of portrait or action photography do you mean? If you give me a better idea of what exactly you'd like to shoot, I might be able to suggest some decent strobe packages. I shoot senior portraits, weddings, high school and college sports, concerts, and other misc. photojounalistic assignments. For things like senior portraits which a great deal of are shot outside, you don't need much in the way of lighting. Use the sun, get a huge piece of foam core, or better yet, a bounce board. Shoot during early morning or afternoon to get the best, soft light. Never shoot at noon if it is possible to avoid. Bouncing light into shots is best, but using a fill flash is also ok. You basically just dial down the flash a few stops and it gives a nice fill in shadowy area of the face, but bouncing light is better. Another important thing for portraits is a VERY GOOD piece of glass in front of your camera. My favorite is a 70-200 f2.8 It allows me to be a decent distance from the subject and get that really nice narrow depth of field. Make sure you have or get a lense that opens up to at least 2.8. For weddings I use a couple strobes for the portraits, and sometimes set up a slaved strobe in the corner of the reception for extra fill. You can use a basic two strobe kit for this stuff. These cost around $600 in US dollars. For more complex studio portraits with purpose built sets, you'll probably need more strobes with different attachments, gels etc..., but it depends on what you want for your final product. For action photography, most of the time you don't get to use any additional lighting. This is also where you need a long, fast lense. Sometimes I've gotten the chance to shoot with strobes mounted in the rafters at basketball games, but its rare. Most concerts won't allow flashes either. Most of the time you just have to deal with what you get. There's a lot of stuff that goes into action photography, getting the decisive moment, capturing intense moments of action. It's really something you learn by experience, the more you do it, the better you get. So get shooting. I hope I've answered some of your questions, if you know what you want to shoot specifically I might be able to suggest more specialized equipment. Also, exactly what equipment are you working with now? (don't get too concerned about equipment though, I know one Sports Illustrated swimsuit photographer who shoots with a point and shoot, no joke)

No they didn't give me interest. In fact, they said they would look for it or pay the $1200 insurance claim but that they get to take one year to do either. After 7 monthes they found it. I won't ever ship USPS again, its UPS or FED-EX all the way. Basically because they are a federal entity, they can do whatever they want and you can't do anything if they screw you over. You can file a lawsuit in federal court but that costs thousands to even try. At least its all back now though, and I even got my new canopy the same day, I had a perma-grin the whole day.

I am so happy!! After the postal service lost my camera helmet, protrack and jumpsuit and it spent 7 monthes in limbo, its BACK! I have been missing shooting video so much and now I can't wait for next weekend.

If you own either of these boxes could you answer a couple questions for me? If you have a new style bonehead box with the hinge on it, do you have to put in a tripod screw to keep the camera steady or do you just have to put it in the box and close the door. I think the more expensive molded boxes are like that so you don't have to put in a thumbscrew. Same question for cookie boxes, do they require use of a thumbscrew?

I did examine an Azimuth, I was actually able to visit the factory, talk to the designer, try on a helmet, talk about the tests they did on it etc... The Azimuth actually grew out of a project helmet they did for Arri. They built this incredible helmet with a custom built Arri 35 mm movie camera built into the helmet along with a ground to air video tap and some other goodies. I guess Arri wants to rent it out to movie productions, I don't know how well that will work, but it's an impressive setup. As far as design flaws I definately didn't see any. Could you be more specific? I liked what they had done with it. It has a little bit larger piece in the back which I thought was more comfy and a nice cutaway which was tested under very heavy loads. It's a 2 ring cutaway instead of the Schumacher hinge but it works just the same. The cover for the ratchet was also a little lower profile than the FTP I thought. edit: It retails for $585.00 which includes a custom paint job.

can you mount the cookie box on a flat top? The bottom of it looks curved like it might not fit very flush.

I've seen the mounts from Rim World video, I emailed about the price on them, do you happen to know how much they cost?

I have an Azimuth flat top on the way from 2k. I need to get a camera mount for my PC101. Just wondering what everyone thinks of the bonehead Dboxes and the Tom Sander roll cage. I saw that bonehead had hinged boxes as well as moulded ones, anyone have an opinion on one vs. the other. Anyone jump with the rim world video mounts?

Avid Express and Media Composer are also NLE's. Linear editing is basically VCR to VCR with a mixer and/or titling board in between. I doubt you'd find any DZ with a media composer, there may be some jumpers who use Express DV or Express Pro though. The video guys are our DZ use premiere, and it usually goes pretty quick, they have everything already layed out and just drop in the clips.

There are quite a few pro helmets out there. There is the 2k Azimuth, Bonehead FTP, Para-Gadget (huge mounting plate), Wes helmets, Blade helmets, Hanson Helmets, and you can even make your own if you have some spare time. Go to www.ground-rush.com and go through the section on gear and helmet manufacturers, they're pretty much all there.

Hey everyone. I'm actually also a 2k dealer in the US also and they do have a new chin cup. It's a ratchet chin cup like most out there and I've found mine to be very comfortable. They have also done a few things with the FF2. It is now a little narrower in the jaw area and the box has been made to be even more snag free. As for the Azimuth, I should have mine in a little while (I can't wait, especially since the USPS lost my FF2), and its not just a belly helmet. I'm going to take mine freeflying quite. If your interested in a flat top, I'd definately check it out.

Just to let everyone know, its a bad idea to ship any insured skydiving equipment through the US postal service, especially overseas. I was in Scotland for a study abroad program and I had my camera helmet, freefly suit, protrack, and logbook shipped over to me. I never got it and this was back in October. Once I got home in December I filed the insurance claim for $1200. I was told I would hear a response within 3 weeks. After 5 weeks I went in to get an update. When I called the regional office they said that in about 3 monthes I would get a letter telling me that they were looking for it. In another 3 monthes I would get a letter telling me if they had found it or if they were going to pay the claim. If they decide to pay the claim it would take another 3-6 monthes go get the check. End result: I am out of my camera helmet, freefly suit and protrack for 6 monthes to a year and I won't even know if I'll get a check or my package back. The only recourse would be to file a lawsuit in federal court but this is so expensive it would negate its purpose. Lesson learned: pay extra for fedex or UPS. ps I don't suppose the postmaster general is skydiver?

Sheep? At a frat part!?!? I can't believe you said that, I don't know what in God's name you are thinking, I mean if there were sheep at a frat party I mean come on......... what would the goat think? We couldn't do that to him...

I use a videonics for multi camera live editing right now and it works great for all kinda of effects and they are all in real time. I don't know which model or how much thoug, its just a small board with 4 camera inputs.

I live in a frat. I love most of our parties, they're a lot of fun, especially when there is a ton of people there. So no I don't hate frat parties.

They use a computer at Skydive Wichita, but used to have an editing board. In KC they use an editing board. Basically the editing board is A LOT faster because it only takes the length of the video itself to edit the whole thing, so if your videos are 8 minutes, it will take 8 minutes to edit. If you want to burn DVD's with this method you have to get one of those DVD burners that is like a VCR and can record in real time. If you want to use a computer, you can make the videos look more polished, it takes longer, and to burn a DVD from a computer takes quite a while. At Skydive Chicago they use an editing board with VCR or DVD output. The camera flyers I talked to said it works really well for them and they're videos looked awesome.

If you ask most professional photgraphers what 3 lenses they use and like the most they are usually the 17-35, 50mm fixed, and 70-200. Pro's will have 2.8 lenses which are great for low light, portraits, and really everything, but the are pricey. I would get a 50mm 1.8 fixed lense, which is a great all around lense for everything (and you can open up to 1.8). After that maybe get a 70-200 (2.8 if you can swing it)

The music industry really isn't that focused on the skydiving industry anyway as far as music rights. Even if they did see a video, most videos don't make that much money, unless its Good Stuff or something like that. I think the WFFC video even used to have copyrighted stuff before martini shot started making it. For small stuff like tandem vids I wouldn't worry about it, but if its a huge production like "Good Stuff", or "Crosswind" or WFFC video then it might be a good idea to cover youself and get the rights.

I can't wait, only 11 days left until spring break and I can get out of windy, cold Kansas and jump for 7 days straight.

You are correct. The FF2 has been redesigned and the FFX is no longer being offered. I actually visited the shop a while back and got to look at the new FF2 as well as the new Azimuth. The new FF2 looks awesome and they've made some very nice improvements. The box was redesigned slightly to make it more snag-proof and the lower jaw area was narrowed for a tighter fit. The Azimuth is also a really nice new helmet if your interested in a flat top.

I have a firefly 2 piece suit and I have two big stripes on the wings which look pretty cool. Firefly suits rock!

When I got premiere a while back (5.1), I just read the manual that came with it and it was very imformative and gave me a good start, the rest I figured out through usage. I just got AVID Xpro though, and I can tell I'm gonna have to read a few volumes to get this thing figured out.

I usually just recorded my footage back to my camera right off the timeline, but if you want to render a movie, it will probably have to be under 10 mintues if your using windows b/c you can't render a file bigger than 2gb. As far as making it watchable, check all your setting when you hit export-movie. There are a ton of different file settings and they will drastically affect how the video looks. If you need to file size down for DVD burning or something, look into a program like sorenson squeeze that can render video as Mpeg2 which will give you high quality video at a low file size. I think Adobe Encore might also have an option to compress video in Mpeg2 but I don't know for sure.