Zlew

If you are looking at bare minimum, i5 with decent ram should work for you. The i5 should out perform you crore2. In a very stripped down way- For video render speed the things you want are processor power (and/or #cores), enough ram (might consider 64 bit OS to get you beyond the 4gig limit), and enough drive space to read/write.

Hey there- I didn't say anything was bogus about it. I think it is a technique that many of us use (or try to get as close to as we can). It looks like you like to teach and help. That can be a great thing! I just thought it was humorous; as this situation to me was similar to - Q "Why does my 2013 honda civic seem harder to turn than my 2009 model?" A- "If you want to win in F1, these are the 10 things Ayrton Senna does to maximize his performance through a hairpin..." I just found it amusing. :) Glad to have you back in the air.

I'm sure several of you got the same B&H newsletter today...but looks like there might be a few cool new sony's. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/indepth/sony/news/unveiled-new-sony-handycam-camcorders-and-4k-prosumer-camcorder?cm_mmc=EML-_-Holiday-ArticleRoundup-_-140107-_-Body_Indepth_Sony-Handycam New BOSS model http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1022665-REG/sony_hdrpj810_b_32gb_hdr_pj810_full_hd.html DSE, had a chance to get hands on with any of these yet?

also, you can get the epm1 now for ~250 with the kit lens...

There are a few threads in here in the last year or so about the 4/3rds cameras. I shot an Olympus EPM1 last year and had great results. I upgraded the lens and shot a mix of fixed and auto focus. IMO, it isn't the best choice for video unless using fixed focus, but worked well in auto/manual for stills. Trunk makes switches for most of the models. The only problem I had was finding a 90 degree plug. The straight plug takes some special rigging with gaffers tape to secure it, but not a huge deal. On the Olympus the good news- 35 zone and fast auto focus, 7 FPS, shoots raw, can shoot AV/TV/Manual, auto. No shutter delay, and weighs under a pound. The bad- video auto focus is stuid slow, bottom feed for card/battery, hard to find 90 degree plugs (still haven't' found one). By far, the biggest downside to 4/3rds... is now it looks like the trend is moving to APSC mirrorless for cameras in that same price/function range. I'm looking at getting a Sony NEX 3N soon for a treck next month...and surly will strap it to my head for jumping also. 350 bucks... APCS sensor... charges via USB. Worth a shot. The adapter is expensive right now (~100) but hopefully that will come down. Not just specific to 4/3rds...but for Mirrorless and DSLR, the gap in capability and potential is very quickly dissolving. Hell, you can get a full frame mirrorless camera now....

I love the internet. Guy with 300 jumps wants to know why riser pressure changed inconsistently between 2 downsizes....just wants to do double fronts for a little speed. His reply- Cliff's notes canopy course on how to do big turn swoops in the style of Jay and Nick.

everything else being equal, one will likely have higher skill, and the other higher wisdom. No doubt doing something more and more often will tend to increase profiecincy/skill. However, there is a value in time in the sport. Seeing people come and go from the sport. Seeing people make mistakes, bad choices, along with the benefits of making more wise decisions over time leads to a wisdom/understanding that you cant get just by being on every load. Things become more real and not just DZ beer light stories when you see these things first hand (over...and over....good and bad).

For those who stay around for more than a few seasons, I think you will find that the people piece will be near the top of the list of why they still jump. The friends/family will spill out of the dropzone and into your daily life. For me some of my jumping friends I truly do consider family. Some new....and some who I am still close to who haven't set foot on a dz in 10 years. Lots of reasons to jump, but the connections and relationships many of us find at the DZ are different than those easily found out in whuffo land.

don't get discouraged. In the grand scheme of things 18 jumps is almost nothing. Relax. Focus. Don't sweat it.

I'd agree that it is a huge part, but the performance of said JVX is more holistic. To riggerlee's point, the other design factors are what make the JVX landable/controllable at wingloadings over double what Navigators are designed for. That is, the cross bracing, nose design, more narrow draft of the wing (etc) allow the wing to still be usable at wingloadings that a lower performance wing design would struggle or fail. This is why you don't see Navigator 59's rocking the swoop course. like building a race car, you have to have more than a big engine to get "high performance".

The Stiletto is a great wing. The fact that they are still making them new says something. I have ~1200 jumps on Stielttos, and I loved it for what it was. However, if you are wanting to learn to swoop, there are better tools for the job. The Stiletto came out at a time when swooping technique was very different than today. The flat glide/shallow recovery characteristics of that wing are not ideal for what you looking to do and can get you in trouble. Depending on why you are wanting another canopy, a downsize on the same wing (sabre 2) or eventually looking at something like a Katana might be a better path. If you aren't looking to learn the modern swooping style and want something that is extremely responsive and fun to just tool around in...it's a great wing.

I think it depends on exactly what you are wanting to do with the camera. Overall I think they are both great cameras but each have their own pro/cons. CX- Hypeye control and indicator is huge for paid jumps/competitions. Native image quality seems better (changes if you start talking about adding wide angle lens...esp fish eye). Stability control when you don't want super wide field of view in plane play back/framing is easy with the LCD. a lot more features/customization can be done still overall a very light package with long battery life for the size.. can zoom, auto focus, change lens...lots of options configurations you can play with CX200 series now costs around or under 200 bucks... Gopro- Set and forget. Nice add ons like the LCD back or batter back For super wide angle, amazing picture quality remote helps you know if it is on..but still not an indicator in your field of view like the hypeye. Frame rates!!!! Good stills mounting options makes being creative easy The super wide field of view is great for when you are really close to people, but people quickly become small dots in the frame with a little distance. I've done some testing with my gopro on Medium field of view, and it is just a hair wider than my cx150 with a .55 and active stabilization. The key is going to see if the more narrow field of view and lack of stability control will make the footage too shaky. If not, I may use it as my secondary camera for this year. With the trend to more quality, features, faster frame rates and bigger resolutions.....it will be really exciting what the next generation gopros will be capable of.

Bill (from airspeed last year) jumped a dual CX setup on a G3 with a ring sight on the lens. I'm not sure if he is on here, but you might reach out to him. Recent pics I've seen make it look like Justin (airspeed this year) might be jumping something similar. His Dad posts on here often... not sure if he is in this forum though. Those guys will do close to 1000 jumps per year...if anyone had any tips or tricks, they would probably good ones to ask.

Hey there- Hope this info helps. Gear wise- Sounds like you should be fine. If they are going to compete, having 2 cameras is a really good ideas. I've seen some really sad situations where teams got crushed because of camera failures. I usually only wear 2 video cams for comp, and a single for training. Fall rate- Our build is similar, and I also use the smaller wings. For fallrate, the teams at my dropzone have a moderate range from my team being on the slow side (around 115) to our sister team and a few others cooking along around 125-128. I never wear weights (but some of the other guys have....) and I've never had to have more wing. Wings for me are mostly for exit and allow me to make aggressive rate changes (and stops) without fucking up my tripod (the rest of my body). I don't use them to fall slow enough to stay with them and I dont "hang" on my wings like I used to with Tandems in order to get low and pitch up for the good shot of the students face. So don't worry about fallrate, but understand your body position will be different. Other stuff- As you move up with you team, you will learn it is all about exits. This is where most new camera guys struggle the most. Learn as much as you can on this front...take notes... watch your vids... watch other camera guy's vids. Position- It is all about the judges. You have to get steep enough over the team to be able to see all of the grips. You also have to be close enough that they aren't all dots... (gopro on wide is risky here). A lot of new camera guys fly too far back and shoot the team closer to a 45 degree angle than a 90. It takes some getting used to to fly that close to the burble, but next to exits, this is typically key point numero dos. Learn about 4 way! The more you understand about what they are doing... .the more you understand about how it is judged, the better your video will be. My team uses mind maps, and I have notes for every single random and block for both freefall and for exit. What is my job on each one...what is noteworthy...what do I need to watch out for. Fly like a judge. For tandems, I flew focusing on making sure to get those good smile pics of the student, for 4 way I fly thinking like a judge. In the air and on the ground constantly be looking/thinking like a judge. How is the angle? Can I see the grips... too close? too far? Understand if you are doing your job right, you will be flying very actively. You don't just park it and wait for 4.5. Evaluate every second of the jump and make the adjustments to make sure your footage is clean and judgable. If it is that... it will also be great for de-brief.

No magic bullet, but 3 basic things make up exposure- film/chip sensitivity (ISO), shutter speed and aperture. Different people on here shoot in different modes on different occasions, but that can have a big impact on your pics. Shooting AV at f8 will give you awesome depth of field on a wide lens on a sunny day, for example...but will kill your exposure at sunset. Shooting TV at 1/1000th may give you super crisp frozen action with good depth of field at noon, but be too fast for full exposure if the clouds roll in. 10-22 is a great lens, but it isn't very fast (F 3.5-4.5). ISO- Different cameras respond differently with noise at higher ISO. Play with your camera to find out when your images start to get too grainy and try to stay below that line. Some of the newer cameras handle high ISO extremely well...other look like shit above ISO 800 Aperture or AV priority- lower light you will want it as open as you can get it (smallest number). Faster lens can help here tremendously. But be careful shooting AV priority in low light, as your shutter speeds can slow down to the point of full blur. IMO- if an image is a little dark, I might be able to save something...but if it is a blur it is pretty much lost. Shutter and TV- Shutter speed will impact your motion blur significantly. In general, faster shutter speeds keep not only action, but the vibrations of free fall and your head in check. I shoot TV pretty often with ~ 1/500th when light is good (usually defaults to a healthy aperture for good DOF). I've gone down to 1/200th a few times in low light...and lower once or twice, but you start getting diecy with my setup going much slower. I also shoot in RAW which seems to give me more latitude to bump he exposure in post processing than jpg. Don't be afraid to test. I'll often go out before loading and take test pics with the settings I think will work, and know I'll probably lose 1-3 stops of light by the time we get to altitude. If I test on TV 320, for example, and my camera is metering at F6, I know I have plenty of room and should be ok. If it meters at 1.8.....I'm fucked (unless we are talking dawn, not dusk) and will need to figure something else out to increase my exposure. The more automatic settings like the magical green box, and P(program) are very risky, as they many times will default to very low shutter speeds, even in moderate light. Sports mode on most cameras usually shoots for reasonable shutter speeds. I shoot TV most often (~1/500th with good sun, hoping for F>6, and 1/320th in lower light). I shoot AV once in a while if I really want to insure the DOF I want and have adequate light to not have to worry about shutter speed slowing too much. Hope this helps Z

With the standard "it depends". But in general ~30mph is when I call it. the older I get, the more that creeps down a few mph... but in general 30 is the number. Most of the people I jump with are in the mid 20's...so it's rare that I see 30 anymore.

300 in 3 months or so is pretty aggressive. If that was my goal over the winter, I'd show up at Eloy with a pocket full of money, two rigs, make friends with a packer and get ready to have a good time. Eloy gets something crazy like 330 jumpable days a year, will be flying, and have world class coaching available (consider it if you want to really work on you canopy skills....). Any of the major FL DZ's might be an option too.

Looks like a super king air. King Airs are pretty common drop zone aircraft. Lots of Florida people on here may know where to find one. I know Titusville (skydive space center) used to have a few, but they told us at the time they were only interested in tandem customers. If you are in Florida, there might be some other aircraft that he would enjoy as much or more (skyvans and such).

and man... I hope canon follows them on this one.

So...put their 20mm prime on there, and you are running full frame at 1.5Lbs.... 5Diii body alone is 1.8lbs. I love where all of this is going!

seems like it might be good for military too. just a private jet flying over your airspace...nothing to see here.... no reason to worry about guys with guns dropping in to ruin your day :)

There was a thread a few months ago that had some good footage. I think Bruno B is shooting a 700 series and had some good info. Might search for BOSS I have my eye on a CX430 (with the same BOSS stabilization) and based on the footage I have seen, the idea of shooting with something like that next season would be awesome.

I don't have any info on the 4, but for almost anything technology related- if you have 4-6 months before you need it, it is almost always a better idea to wait. What is cutting edge today will not be cutting edge in 6 months, and prices often fall over that time.

It is a shitty place to be for sure. If I was in that situation, I still would have stayed put. In theory, with one engine running that plane should have been able to fly even if the other one was on fire. Even if it loses both engines you have a big high lift wing, and my thought process would be- worst case we are crash landing, wings level off the DZ, and should be much more survivable than trying to bail at 50 to 150 feet (per the NTSB report). I don't think it would be reasonable to assume that the plane would stall and nose dive in the configuration it was in....and thus not reasonable to get out super dirty low. With one engine, and the plane structurally in tact...I just cant honestly see making the conclusion that the plane is going to end up in an uncontrolled nose dive and I need to try to save my own life by exiting. I don't think it would have been clear that the plane was going down uncontrolled until it was too late. I read the report, and it just sucks.... It sucks that the engine died...it sucks that not everyone had a seatbelt on, and it sucks that some of the ones who did have a belt on didn't seem to get much protection from them (makes me re-think how much I like hose single point belts...). It just sucks all around. Again, I am very very sorry that you lost friends in this accident. the report http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/reports/2008/AAR0803.pdf