dynamite

Do it. Personally I would be delighted to hear that you did a tandem with me and now you're a qualified skydiver.

Don't forget the cutaway!

Westerly, If you believe this then I think that you are a little out of touch with reality! Professionals are not always right. We all need to embrace the future. Sadly I think that the short term future is small screen, portrait and handheld. Who knows what the long term future will bring.

http://www.sony.se/electronics/handycam-videokameror-andra-tillbehor/vmc-avm1

Yes, it will work - i use an original hypeye and CX410. But do note that you can get that adapter cheaper from Sony. Look up VMC-AVM1 on your home sony website.

Check your jack plug. I found that the jack plug had come out of the plug port once as I climbed out on exit causing the camera to lock up. I made a camera condom that encloses the camera and the plug and never had the same issue again. If you are having the issue on a change of orientation - say on climb out or transitioning from flat to head-down or head up on deployment, the change of airflow over the helmet might be pulling the plug out of the port.

Great idea Trunk.

I get this all the time. I'm hoping soon that trunk will produce a basic Hypeye that just turns the camera on, starts recording and stops recording. While everything else the hypeye does is good, ultimately I find it totally useless. I'd swap my current hypeye straight away if one of these came out.

Great idea. How can you see the Hypeye when the video is top mounted?

This is exactly how i've done it, Gus may have done something different. It's quite easy to modify the Ricoh remote switch (CA-1) and add a tongue switch. I find the battery in the switch will last each day no problem. I have rechargeables and switch them over each morning. I have never had one fail doing this but have a spare in my jump suit and test it on the climb just in case.

Just like this?

At the risk of not being very helpful I'm afraid it's not a camera that you can use with a generic setting. Even though it's a compact camera, for the best results set the camera to manual and so the settings will change with the conditions. It can be used in the fully automatic mode and also has a sports mode until you can try and learn something about the settings from the other camera flyers but you'll have quite a few pictures that are shaky. It can be set up in manual almost exactly the same as a DSLR so why not start off by copying the settings of the other camera flyers on the load. The Ricoh CX1 or CX2 are better options for the technically challenged camera flyer as they only have limited settings to change. The lens is a bit narrower at 28mm rather than 24mm so you have to fly a bit further away. I've been using the CX1 all season, even after the GX100 came back from repair.

I had bad fogging on the .3 and .5 Raynox. Pretty much every jump. I honestly couldn't see much difference with the .3 it didn't seem that much wider than the .5. The .5 though can be fitted with a filter though and ever since i have had no issues at all. I'd suggest go .5 if going raynox and add a filter.

It is curious how we're having the same issues Tom. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3580014;search_string=corrupt%20files;#3580014 CX6 and CX7, D port / Hypeye issues and corrupt files? It does seem a curious coincidence. However, I have never had this problem again after making sure the memory cards were 'genuine sony' and also I am now very anal about formatting the cards instead of just deleting the content. For what it's worth I am now having similar problems with the SD cards in my stills so have taken to formatting them instead of just deleting. Sorry you had to learn the hard way. I hope they weren't once in a lifetime jumps you lost. New cameras - new issues.

Received today. Thanks for your help and outstanding service. Lets hope it fixes it. Either way I appreciate your help trying to resolve this issue.

I have the same problem on mine Tom. I've noticed that the d plug is loose in the d port, causing the fault to appear intemittantly. I think that's the problem. Either connections on the port or on the plug are loose. Other hypeyes work fine on the camera and other cameras work fine with the hypeye so it's difficult to determine which needs replacing. That said, the error did show up when I tried the hypeye on a well used PC1000, which it's not supposed to work with so I don't know how applicable that is. I have about the same number of jumps on the unit too, perhaps a few more - 2-300. Any ideas trunk?

I have used it's predecessor the GX100 on about 2-300 tandems now. Only problems I have had with it are dust on the sensor - yes dust on the sensor of a compact(?) - and the usb port failed. I had a 3 year warranty with the camera so had both problems repaired at the same time. It was back in about 3 weeks. I suspect both issues could have been prevented.

I agree, I'll put the GX100 back on when it's back from repair as it gives me more flexibility. Nice shots, just goes to show that it doesn't really matter what camera you have, it's the person behind the camera who makes the pictures.

Very interesting. The ricoh switch takes a AAA battery so yes 1.5v. I just modified the unit and then use a rechargable AAA as it went through batteries pretty quickly. Samples attached. Difficult to give an idea of resolution when the images are compressed so i have included 50% and 100% crops. All images taken at 200 ISO which gives a shutter speed for between 500 and 2,000 on a sunny day. It did tend to over expose the exits as it looks like it fixes the f stop and shutter speed at the start of the burst. As you'll see the 28mm lens is just about wide enough for the student in the doro but leads to some cropping as I'm used to flying a bit closer. Worth noting you can't set the shutter or f stop at all on this camera. A ricoh CX1 / GX200 hybrid would be an ideal camera.

Sunset over, err, Peterlee

I broke the USB port on my GX100 so while that's being fixed I have been jumping the Ricoh CX1. I only have 4 jumps on it in perfect conditions but it is definitely fast at 4 frames a second and I am very impressed. Not only that but there is no buffer refresh time. You can shoot 4 frames a second for as long as you like, take your tongue of the trigger and then carry on taking pictures at the same speed. Downsides are that to acheive 4 frames a second, you have to have it in it's fully automatic continuous mode. While you can set the ISO and focus, you can't set the shutter speed or f stop. Of the four jumps I've used it on, it was absolutely impecable and I couldn't fault it. I normally use fully manual settings so going full auto was a bit nerve wracking for me. However, I am yet to use it in low light on a cloudy day or towards the end of the day when compacts are traditionally weak and the full auto could lead to the camera selecting a shutter speed that's too slow. You can overcome this by anticipating and bumping the ISO. As with all compacts, 400 ISO and above is grainy on ground test shoots. Only 9 mega pixels to achieve the fast frame rate but it produces images more than adequate for tandems or fun jumps that blow up to A4 size no problems. It weighs bugger all at 200grms too. Like the GX100/200 you can turn the display off to take pictures saving battery life. I haven't pushed this one but have never had a problem with battery life on the ricoh. Fully charged a battery will see you through up to 7 jumps. With the faster shutter speed on the CX1 battery life might be affected but certainly not after the three I did on Saturday. At 28mm it's narrower than the 24mm lens on the GX100/200 but that just means flying a little bit further away. The 28mm lens is much more similar to the raynox 0.5 on the Sony CX6 I use for video. On a bright sunny day this is an awesome camera.

Thanks for the help chaps, Sandisk's RescuePro was the first port of call but sadly no joy. We shoot the videos over the weekend and then they are editted and sent to the customer during the week. I suppose I am lucky that I didn't fill the card up (usually about 5 jumps) on Saturday. Thanks for the tip on formatting. I will do that instead of deleting the files in future but this is the first time i've seen this. All the other 3 cards I use are fine. Bugger. Anybody else seen anything similar with memory sticks and reasonably intensive video use? I have used this camera for about a season with no problems and am now incredibly nervous about relying on this for future tandems?

Help! After filming two tandems on Saturday, I was horrified to see after filming a 3rd on Sunday that the files for the first two tandems are corrupt. They won't play back on the camera and don't appear when the disk is in the laptop (tried on multiple computers). They had previously played back fine on Saturday when previewed to the customers. This is a Sony CX6e with sony 4gb memory card. Has anyone experienced this before or know how to recover the files? It is suspected that the card might be slightly damaged.

Why didn't you just use the Ricoh GX100/200 or the Canon G10? Both come with remote switches and are much less hassle. I have used the Ricoh (also 24mm) on about 200 tandem jumps now. I tend to prefer a much higher shutter speed, min 1/400 and find that it's grainy above 200iso so it's no good in low light. Great to see you have the LX3 working in freefall though. It's a good little compact.

I have been jumping a Ricoh GX100 all last season and through the winter. I have spoken about it before here http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3250233;search_string=gx100;#3250233. It has a 24mm (35mm equiv) lens so no need for a wide angle adapter, although you can add one to it and get much wider. It has a usb remote switch (CA-1) which can easily be adapted with a tongue switch. Much easier to modfiy a £15 switch than a £300 camera. Six months ago Ricoh brought out the GX200 which has more mega pixels and a bigger buffer. Like most compacts it is noisy at 200iso and above.