PharmerPhil

I'm not really sure, but I would think one clue may be whether or not the camera was recording time code during these blanks. That is, if it was recording time code but no image, then I would guess it wasn't a tape to head humidity problem but would instead be something inside, and unique to, this camera. I would have guessed that if it was tape/head humidity, then the camera would shut down rather than spooling blank tape??? FWIW I've jumped in major condensing humidity conditions with mulitple MiniDV cams (including an HC-5) and never had the camera refuse to record something.

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Why do some people fire a test shot on stills under canopy? Its not going to bring the lost free fall shots back if you did have a camera mal.

I was kinda wondering that...

Is it only during (or in the middle of) bursts of shots? Or does this ever happen when you shoot one at a time with a fair amount of time in between?

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..only the stem that holds the ring sight needs to be pointed down.

Neither of my helmets have the stem pointing down. Don't see why that would ever be necessary.

It sounds like your buffer is full, and it can't process any more pictures until it has written the ones it has already taken to the card. The 10D, while ground breaking for it's time, had a miniscule buffer and slow CF write speed by today's standards.

I don't own a CX7, but I did put a couple hundred jumps on a TRV-900 that had OIS. It never broke (wasn't the best video though).

I can't imagine a service center would know something had suffered too much "shaking" unless someone was foolish enough to tell them they used it for skydiving...

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so its gotta be user friendly

I find an etch-a-sketch is user friendly. Doesn't work well in freefall, but after the jump you can draw your recollection of the skydive.

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Are there any switches that anyone knows of that comes with three wires for this configuration?

Just to be clear, you do know that you don't NEED a 3-wire switch right? The Canons and Nikons have three wires too, but there is usually a configuration (like you found?) where two wires are hard-wired together, and the last wire is connected to them (via a 2-wire switch) to complete the circuit. i.e., two wires go to one pole of the switch, and the third wire goes to the other pole.

Dumb luck? I really don't know. But the cheaper film cameras are more mechanical devices than electronic (i.e. they don't "time out" the way digital cameras do). I can't imagine how they could possibly turn off in freefall unless either something hit the switch or the battery went dead.

Do you mean the 35mm film camera? If so, it works great. One of our videots uses it daily. Then again, most film camera SLRs work well if they have a remote release (which the T2 does).

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One question for those of you who wear 2-piece camera suits. I believe there are attachment points between jacket and pants, so your jacket doesn't ride up over your handles. Correct? Do you always use them? And if you chose to wear shorts instead, how do you secure your jacket? :^(

I wear a Tony Suits 2-piece, and yes, I have snaps and I always secure the pants to the jacket. But I have both ff pants, and swoop pants that I wear anytime the weather is warm or I'm jumping with heavyweights (both made by Tony, so it's really a 3-piece suit...), so I can always attach either. BTW, I believe most of these snaps are located on the side. Never made sense to me, as the harness is covering the top on the sides, and it is the front that will get blown up over your handles. I specifically requested mine be moved more forward on my set-up. The snaps are about 6-7 inches apart in front.

Interesting comment about stashing the swoop cords. Once when I undid mine, they got tied in a knot together (effectively hand-cuffing me). Took me a little while to get them undone, and I'm glad nothing else important was happening at the time. Since then I am careful to take them off one at a time, but once they're off they disappear into my sleeves. I can actually fly my canopy with swoop cords and wings still attached, but it is more comfortable to undo them.

For Tandems?

Quick canopy check.
Thumbs up to camera while congratulating tandem student.
Look up at canopy (white canopy for cross-fade to tandem passenger still) while I,...
Stow Slider, disconnect wings, release swoop cords (that order).
Release brakes, do up to a 360 until I am turned to the DZ. Look down from canopy to DZ just as it comes into view.
Turn Camera off.

Go find my buddy Keith at around 2k and fly around each other tight while videoing until we scare ourselves or one of us gets burbled bad.

At 500 feet, look at canopy while turning on camera (to avoid jump cut).
Video my landing.

Take off helmet, unstow slider, stow brakes, change to auto focus, (sometimes change AE comp too), and (if time), change film in the camera.

For big-ways?
Find everyone who may be around me. Thumbs up to camera, turn camera off, stow slider, release wings and swoop cords, release brakes. Go see if I can tag someone under canopy for stills.

??? I dunno, I didn't see much difference. IMHO both had objectionable shimmy/shudder/shake. Reminds me of my old TRV-900.

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i have an rsl 'unfortunately'(im not really a big fan ...

Don't get me wrong. I really do believe in RSLs in general - just not for camera flyers. You need to give yourself time to get rid of the helmet if necessary. This is also a good reason to pull higher than normal when flying camera...

As for jump experience, check previous posts, top sticky, etc., Lots to learn...

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I dont know, has the hard drive design changed? Does the arm no longer floats on the platter?

I don't know if the design has changed, but ONE of the problems in the past has been that hard drives just aren't rated for high elevations (ditto for micro-drive based CF cards). Many HDs say right on the case that they shouldn't be used above 10k feet. Maybe that ain't a problem for roller-coasters, but...

I had a similar problem years ago on a TRV-900. The firewire port either wouldn't work at all, or if would freeze my application (FCP3) until I unplugged the cable. It was an intermittent problem, and wiggling the firewire cable helped sometimes. Ended up getting it repaired and it was a bad lead or ground on the board that held the FW and AV ports.

Did you try another camera with the same computer? With the same docking station?

I have used the motion filter on FCS (though not for skydiving). It was very processor intensive and time-consuming (it has to evaluate the entire clip you are working on before starting to apply the filter, then it has to rewrite the entire clip). It worked great on one clip that was a far away shot with a not so stable tripod in the wind. It worked not so great (but definitely an improvement) on some hand-held shots where I had to walk around the subject while shooting.

My feeling is it is a great tool if you have a problem footage that you can't re-shoot, but I wouldn't count on it for a regular part of your workflow. Particularly to overcome a problem that you had a chance to anticipate and fix in the first place...

The problem with this procedure is that you assume the entanglement will occur, or will be noticeable, before you cutaway your main. A malfunctioning main may hang up on your helmet AFTER cutting away, or the entanglement may come free of your helmet after cutting away.

I also don't know what you mean by "clear lines (sweep)," but if you are suggesting somehow feeling for lines above your head I don't don't think that would be very informative, and may cause a bad body position.

My procedure is to cutaway the main, and then look for anything hanging up on my helmet. I'll admit this has never happened to me, but I imagine that I would feel it, or see it. Then, and only then, I would cutaway my helmet and go for the reserve.

Also, (you didn't mention this) I recommend not using an RSL so that after you cutaway your main, you have time to jettison the camera helmet b4 sending your reserve into the mess.

BTW, it is good to think of these things before jumping a camera, but IMHO you should not be jumping one until you get more jumping experience.

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Why is it that you get this problem with flash media and not so much with tape? Thanks for your help.

WRONG! It doesn't have anything to do with flash media versus tape. It is solely a problem with the optical image stabilizer they are using in this particular camera. Tape based cameras with OIS had/have the same problem. Unfortunately, it looks like EIS (used in the HC-5) is going away.

HC1 is showing a flat rate of $511.

I do not have a cutaway system on my helmet. But my EPs do include releasing the helmet using the regular opening mechanism in case of entanglement though (which I practice). I think of it as the difference between Capewells and a three-ring release. If I got a new helmet I would consider a more sophisticated cutaway if it wasn't too kluged.

I do think they are a good idea though. I think it is like many emergency procedures. What I do is not necessarily what I teach students. i.e., I do not use an RSL but recommend them to non-camera flyers. I use a one-handed cutaway procedure (one hand per handle) but I teach two-handed cutaway.

On a related note, I think jettisoning the helmet is just one part of your planning (a last resort). What I think it more important, and frequently ignored, is making the helmet as snag-proof as possible to start with. I am amazed at side boxes, lenses and ring sights that protrude far to the outside, and unnecessarily have places for lines to get caught.

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Sony will fix it for about $250-300.

You know, I keep hearing this quote, but I can never seem to find this info online. When I looked into it for my camera, all I could find were similar $550-$600 options. Do you have a specific link that shows this option?

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Yup, but with my type of box, that's not a smart idea

Sounds like the box is not a smart idea...

I had the LANC port on one of my cameras fail this year. Downloaded the exploded service diagrams and got scared. The way mine was put together (HVR-A1U) you basically had to disassemble the entire camera to get at the port (with lots of fragile, flexible ribbon-type circuit boards). I brought it to a highly recommended local shop and their estimate was $500-$600 for repair. I passed on having the repair done. Everything else on the camera works fine. Hopefully your camera is better (cheaper) for repair, but I can't imagine any shop doing a repair like this for less than a couple hundred.

BTW, on my helmet, I have a small length of cable going from the LANC port to another jack that my Hypeye plugs into. When I disconnect the Hypeye (which I do everytime I edit) I am putting wear on a cheap piece of cable rather than my camera. I would love to get a similar short cable for my A/V port.

Simple. Get a sight, and sight in your helmet.

Guerilla net marketing 101. Yes it is rude, but smart companies buy their own misspelled domains. I used to work for Boston Acoustics, and it seemed nobody knew how to spell acoustics,... so we bought a lot of domains. My guess is that Cookie could challenge the ownership of that particular domain, but I don't know how much that would cost....