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Camera House in Croydon Vic stock camera armor for most canon camera's, I was in there this morning and noticed it sitting in the window.

If your going Canon lenses then the IS ones are the Image Stabilized versions. I've used the 70-200 f2.8IS from a SkyFox Gazelle a number of times with no problems shooting ground objects (mainly schools) from between 1000 and 2000 feet. The 35-350 works well, I just up my iso if I can't get a fast enough shutter speed to stop motion blur.

If you want a mix of Base, skydiving and general crazy stuff then check out the dvd's by Douggs, I think Cookie Composites is selling them online now

Send DSE a PM, he knows Vegas inside out and upside down. I just did one of his VASST training seminars on Vegas 7 and I learnt more in 2 days than I had learnt in 2 years trying to teach myself.

On my Mum's first tandem the video guy wasn't on the plane due to some major reshuffling a few minutes prior to take off. The DZO met my Mum just after she landed and apologised no end and offered her a refund on the video or a free tandem with video. No need to say my Mum took the 2nd jump with video without even thinking about it. It was this sort of service that made me choose this dz to start my aff at, no cash, crappy weather and none skydiving related injuries have postponed my training but my Mum is all excited about doing another tandem whenever I head back to the dz

I have both the 70-200 2.8 IS and the 35-350 L. The 70-200 is my favourite lens, great in low light and you can get really creative with shots by blurring the background to varying degrees when shooting at f2.8 or f3.5. The 35-350 is a long lens, not as heavy as the 70-200 with IS but not much lighter than it, it's a good general purpose lens, max aperature of 3.5 at 35mm and 5.6 at anything over about 200mm, it is a slide zoom and takes a bit of time to get used to, if you don't remember to do up the lock ring then the lens zooms all by itself if you tilt it down to much. I haven't used either for skydiving but have taken about 4000 shots through each lens consisting of aerial photography from planes and helicopters, portrait shots, sports and landscapes (a lot handheld from a boat). The 70-200 is more than adequate for the majority of these shots if you are able to move around a bit to compose your shots, the 35-350 comes into it's own when you need the extra zoom range quickly without having to change lens. Both lens work well with the Canon 2x multiplier. I haven't used the 28-300 IS yet but would think it would be a bit more versatile than the 35-350 with it's slightly wider lens and the IS giving it some extra low light capabilities. This pic was taken with the 70-200 2.8 IS on a 10D at a body building event, ISO was 800 shot at 2.8 (can't remeber shutter speed off hand), crappy coloured lights on stage were bad for photography http://www.flickr.com/photos/extremescenes/35022497/ And this was taken with the 35-350 on a 10D at ISO 800 in a rainforest in the Whitsundays, was fully zoomed up to 350mm and was wishing for another 150mm or so to be able to fill the frame fully http://www.flickr.com/photos/extremescenes/37837995/

Whenever I have filters stuck I use a rubber band that fits snuggly around the ring and it normally provides enough extra grip that the stuck filter comes off easilt.