ernokaikkonen

I thought riser-inserts work pretty well for that?

The lense? The actual lense on the camera, or a wide-angle conversion lense? Screw-on or a clip-on lense?

You'll get bored with it in a few days. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about.

Get Opera. It has a built in pop-up stopper. So does Mozilla.

Right. I went ahead and bought it. I wrote this review to help other people decide if they want to go with a Sony or save a couple hundred dollars. I will be comparing the DS-60 to the Sony TRV-19 from time to time, as these two are the cameras that I ultimately chose between, and as they are the comparable low-end top-mount cameras in the Panasonic and Sony ranges of compact digital cameras. I'll also compare it to some of the older Sony models that were available for testing at the DZ at the time I was writing this. On the DS-60, slow-motion during playback "jumps" when returning to normal speed; the footage freezes for approximately 0.5 seconds, and then resumes playback at a point 0.5 seconds after the freeze-frame. This is quite noticeable, and seriously limits the usability of the slow-motion feature. For comparison, a Sony TRV-18 does the exact same thing, but the "jump" is only about 0.2-0.3 seconds. There is no "safety-catch" on the mode selector(VCR/OFF/CAM). This may cause the camera to be accidentally switched off CAMERA mode if the camera is bumped. Of course if the camera is mounted inside a D-box of some sort this shouldn't be a problem. The DS-60 has quite a few digital effects, including some that the TRV-19 doesn't have, including "wipe", "mix"("overlap" on Sony) and "strobe". The TRV-19 has a rather limited selection of digital effects; to get the same effects as the DS-60, a Sony user would have to go for the TRV-22. I have no experience with the tape inserting mechanism of the latest Sonys, but the older ones at least take quite a while to insert or eject the tape, as you have to wait for the mechanism to work. Compared to them, the tape loading mechanism of the DS-60 is very fast; the tape in a DS-60 can be ejected and a new tape inserted in the time it takes for a PC-9 to just eject the tape. Additionally, the DS-60 tape loads from the side, whereas the TRV-18 ejects the tape from the bottom of the camera, meaning that the camera must be removed from the helmet to insert or remove the tape. I found that some of the function buttons on the side of the DS-60 were rather easy to push accidentally, but this was probably due to my general lack of experience in handling small videocameras; a couple of days later I wasn't pushing the buttons when I didn't want to. The DS-60 is very small for such an inexpensive camera; to get a Sony as small(440g), you'd have to go for the MicroMV IP-series! In fact I think the DS-60 could be mounted on the side of a helmet without any problems; the DS-60 is actually 2mm narrower than a PC-9. To protect the lense from riser-slap, I would consider an unconventional right-hand side mount if I was planning on a side-mount; I'm going to be using a top-mount for now. See pictures sidemount_left.jpg, sidemount_right.jpg and pc9_ds60.jpg. These pictures were taken in bad lighting, using the still-picture function of the DS-60. Even in good light the quality of the stills isn't too good. Another small detail in the DS-60 is its built-in light; Not that it would have many uses in skydiving(filming night-jumps from inside the formation?), but it's there if you happen to need extra light. Finding wide-angle lenses for a Panasonic may be sligtly more difficult due to the 27mm filter thread, but I assume most 37mm lenses should work with an adapter ring. There is an OEM wide angle conversion lense from Panasonic, but the catalogue didn't specify how wide an angle the lense would give. I ended up ordering a Blue-eye .45 lense from Waycool Industries Not very cheap, but the lense is very small. This lense and the .3 Red-eye seem to be available in all the popular thread sizes. The first two jumps with the camera went fine. The camera seems to function quite well in freefall, at least at belly-flying speeds and mounted on the top. Using the camera in actual skydiving environment brought to my attention one of the major drawbacks the DS-60 has when compared to Sonys: The camera has no external REC-indicator. No red light to confirm that the camera is recording, and no way of attaching a Cam-Eye. These two faults combined make the DS-60, in my opinion, somewhat unsuitable for professional use, as the only way of knowing whether the camera is recording or not is to look in the viewfinder or the lcd-screen. Finally, a table comparing some of the features of the cameras I chose between: |DS-60 |DS-65 |TRV-19 |TRV-22 RRP AUD 1) |$1099 |$1319 |$1249 |$1499 memory stick | no | yes | no | yes "Mix"-effect 2) | yes | yes | no | yes # of effects 3) | 12 | ? 4) | 10 | 19 weight(grams) 5)| 440 | 440 | 520 | 530 USB streaming | no | yes | yes | yes viewfinder | b&W | b&W | b&W | color 1) Recommended Retail Price in Aussie dollars 2) Crossfade, called "Overlap" on Sonys 3) including recording and playback effects. 4) Coudn't find the info, but assuming at least as many as the DS60 5) Weight excluding battery and tape

As cool as Loics video is, I still think that "The fastest motherfucker in the valley" is better. It can be found on ftp://ftp.skydivingmovies.com.

As you can see, I'm going forwards from HAL. Then you can go backwards from IBM if you like. Thanks for trying to correct a perceived mistake I supposedly made 11 months ago, though. Where the hell did you dig up this thread??

Then again, I too wear SkyEyes goggles, and contacts kept popping out of my eyes. After the 3rd time I decided it wasn't worth the trouble, and I've only worn my specs after that. Incidentally, the SkyEyes gogs are the only ones I've found that fit over my glasses. My current pair of goggles are in terrible shape, and I can't seem to find SkyEyes goggles anywhere in Australia. So, as a solution, I've made a pair of goggles myself. I'll probably be trying them out next weekend.

Yeah, I've been to both of them. Ted's was way more expensive. The guy who I talked to didn't really seem to want to make the sale. He just read the prices for all the gear I wanted from the catalogues, with no attempt to make a packge deal of any kind. I've been to quite a few pawn shops, looking for cameras in the Canon EOS series. For some reason the prices of used cameras are almost as high as the prices of new ones. In some cases an EOS model from a few years back has been much more expensive than a brand new camera! Thanks for the help, I guess I wont find any better deals than I've found so far.

If any of the Aussies out there know a cheap place for buying an SLR in Sydney, please let me know?

So what would happen if the outside air was as hot and steamy as the inside of the kernel? Like if you made your popcorn in an industrial pressure cooker or something?

Wouldn't be that bad. You'd just have to cheat miss Right and go with miss Left. Variety keeps things interesting.

I can say with confidence that this is complete BS. I've never seen or heard it mentioned in anything regarding the Finland-Soviet war. I've heard the legend before, but not the 'painting rocks' bit. If it has been done, it probably wasn't a very widespread(or long lasting) practice.

I have a Techno128 dom 6/2002. I haven't noticed any stickyness. I suppose it would have been manufactured after the sticky ones?

The only goggles that I have found that fit over my glasses are the SkyEyes goggles by the makers of the TubeStoes. It seems that they are slightly wider than other goggles, and that makes a big difference.

Emphasis mine. I believe that the opening of a parachute is governed by the "chaos theory", or "sensitive dependence on initial conditions". Meaning that no matter how carefully the parachute is packed, there is always an apparently random element involved. This "random" element may be triggered by something as small as the creases in the parachute fabric, or having the lines in just a couple millimeters in the wrong place; in short, I believe that bad openings may result from packjob variations so small that it is not practical to control them. I don't think anyone is going to iron their parahute to improve openings. I agree. I'm sure there are ways to improve to current methods, but it is my belief that it is impossible to completely remove the "random black death"-factor from a packjob, just as it is impossible to make an accurate weather forecast for a date one year from now. What I said here was basicly posted already by others, but I didn't see anyone mentioning the chaos theory, which in my opinion plays a large part in parachute openings.

>Any other specific fields in the profiles you'd like to search on? Well, the HomeDZ one is one I use quite a lot. The thing is, the searchword has to be written exactly the right way to get the right results. And, especially with the homeDZ field, there are usually several variations of writing down the name of a DZ. So, any chance of wildcard searches or something? ...Or a 'really advanced search' where you could write an SQL-search to get exactly the results you want?

Ah, this thread seems like the perfect place to bitch about people who don't separate their post from their sig. It can be really confusing sometimes. It's easy, see:

>Some are dangerous for others, too, (drinking and driving), Yeah that's why I chose drinking and driving. The combined risk of getting oneself AND others killed/maimed makes that more risky in my book.

>But i do.. what if the main canopy somhow mess up whith the boaed, >it would then be nice to be abel to cut it away.... Yes, that risk exists. But AFAIK that's the way it's done in most places; IE without a cut-away system(still talking about a novice board). Don't throw your PC between your legs... >It also is a nice thing to be abel to run/walk as you land(ie >drop the board just before landing) You don't need a cutaway system for that, you can just undo the bindings on the board under canopy.

I thought novice boards aren't supposed to have a cutaway system? Are we talking about the really small ones that you stand sideways on? If yes, I don't really see a need for a cutaway system as you can just go on your belly if you go unstable.

Well, yeah, flying a parachute as a kite is dangerous, but most likely you'll suffer minor line burns and/or some "ground rash" as a result... This is a 200 sqft Maverick with a bit longer lines than a standard one. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=235569#235569 Try it, it's fun. And don't come crying to me if you get hurt...

I'm not considering buying one, as I'm quite happy with my current canopy. I was just curious about the concept. Thanks to everyone who replied.

I remember hearing a quote that the handles on a(6-handle) tandem rig can be pulled in 720 different orders, and that only just over 100 of those combinations are survivable. I started thinking about this and it didn't really make sense to me, so I looked in to it. I generated a list of the possible (120)combinations on a 5-handle(Strong) rig, and(not going through them all 1 by 1, just guestimating), it seems to me that about 1/3 of the combinations will result in a clean deployment, 1/3 may cause an entanglement, and 1/3 will likely cause an entanglement. This assuming that all handles are pulled no matter what. Including the combinations where not all handles are pulled makes things even more complicated of course. So the point of my post is; Does adding a sixth handle to the system dramatically decrease your chances of survival if you pull the wrong handles, or is the "100 survivable combinations" quote wrong?

Any suggestions?