Tips for BASE video cam

[Stefan]

I'm in the evaluation for a video cam for BASE.
What features are a must? What objective can you recommend? Is there a reference model?
Tips and suggestions are highly appreciated.

Stefan

[guest]

Hey Stefan,

I am currently adapting my skydiving camera to be used for BASE. Mainly, I am going from a sidemount setup to a topmount. The main reason for me (and this is just my .02) is that I occasionally get riser strikes on the sidemount, and I figure my BASE risers are closer together (also because I keep the chest strap tighter) and therefore would probably get riser strikes more often. My "theory" is that a riser strike could lead to an offheading opening. DISCLAIMER I know of several jumpers who jump side mounts (da bomb 3) and LOVE them, and I've never seen or heard of a side mount causing an off heading. BUT this is a personal decision and I am more comfortable with a top mount. Aside from that the main disadvantage for me is now I have to remove the slider completely for slider down jumps so as to not interfere with the slider while it is tied down.

I jump a Sony PC series miniDV camera (pc-110) and I KNOW it has the best pic quality hands down. There are plenty of models out there and as soon as you finish reading this, there will be another model with more features than the previous. You definately need to get a wide angle lens, probably a .45 or .42.

Hope this helps some, REMEMBER, I am just a beginner also, and these are my ideas, I encourage you to solicit info. from other sources, and ultimately, get what you want, that way YOU will be happy.
c-ya,Blair

[Tom B]

I've done a few camera jumps and found the following rules/preferences to apply:

- don't jump side mounted cameras - although many people are happy with them, there is greater chance of line entanglement and riser slap. This is especialy true if you get a little unstable on shorter delays.
- don't jump full face helmets. They tend to affect peripheral vision and range of movement of your neck. Some also diminish the capacity of other senses. I love to hear / feel airspeed build up (it gives me another avenue of height or freefall time awareness). I have also seen several full face helmets with ratchet locking clips come off. Very expensive (and dangerous).
- make sure that you don't have items that can snag lines all over your camera (yeah I know - just do as I say and not as I do ;) )
- try to keep the centre of gravity of you cameras as low as possible. Especially if you are planning to do some longer slider down delays. If you have a weak neck, you will feel it.
- make sure you have done a few hundred BASE jumps before you start doing camera jumps - you should also jump the site without a camera first so that you know what you can get away with.
- learn some basic aerobatic manouvres. Doing camera can do funky things with your body position. Its good to be able to get stable very quickly if need be.
- DO NOT rely on other people for height awareness or indication. Too many people (some were good jumpers) have ended up dead.
- Make saving your life your number one priority.
- Make saving the persons whom you are filming your number 1b priority.
- Don't try to get the money shot at all costs. I have found that if you focus on safety, your filming will get better with time anyway.
- I use really wide angle lenses for this reason. I can watch the object I've jumped from, the ground, and the jumper, and still keep everything reasonably in frame even if I move my head a little. Catch is, you have to stay real close if you use extreme wide angles.
- For shorter delays, I try to freefall a few feet to the left and a few feet above the person I am filming. That way, if that person freaks and throws their p/c prematurely, I can freefall past and deploy reasonably safely. If you are directly above, get ready to eat p/c.
- Plan your dive and dive your plan. All jumpers involved should know what equipment they are using, how it is configured, what delays they are doing, etc. Most inexperienced people will depoy early, so you need to allow for that. In most situations, it is the camerapersons responsibility to be the safety person. The reason is that the subject is generally too engrossed in what they are doing and have less opportunity to observe the camera jumper whereas the cameraman watches the other jumpers all the time.
- As far as types of cameras. You need to ask yourself what the end use is going to be. If you want to just get footage for yourself and friends, most 1CCD Mini DV cameras are fine. If you want to shoot for commercial reasons, you need to get a better quality camera (3CCC, film, etc). I am a fan of Sony and Panasonic cameras.

Tom Begic
Director of Safety - Australian BASE Association
Producer/Editor/Princ. Videographer of "Beyond Extreme"

http://www.blincmagazine.com/store/m...ry_Code=videos

[Tom B]

As far as features are concerned:

I have an editing suite so I never use special affects that exist on most modern cameras.

I think you need manual controls (focus, shutter speed, iris, exposure, etc), a descent optical zoom for ground based filming (>15 times is good with a x2 converter), wide angle lens (at least 0.5 - I use 0.35 to 0.50), DV input and output (IEEE1394), etc.

Beyond that you have mpeg, jpeg, memory cards, etc, etc.

[squirrel]

I'll add my .02

Bonehead makes a very minimalistic video helmet. not full face, not bulky, keeps the camera low on your head, top mount, and their D-boxes keep things very snag-proof. I've been very satisfied with mine. With a slight modification, I can now spin the camera 180 deg. in less than 2 minutes.

http://users.erols.com/squirrel/BD2000/BD2000-10.jpg

[guest]

feral,

or should I say, FERIAL, the soft pink (unt.

:-)

[guest]

With the Sony mini-dv cameras you need to be aware that on the PC-100/110 the image stabilization is mechanical while on the PC-1/5/9 the image stabalization is digital. Why do you care about this? That means that on almost every opening the 100/110 will blur for a second or two while the 1/5/9 will not, at least that what I've seen.

I'm not sure what the deal is with the TRVs.

[feral]

Take it easy or i will have to call you jay jay....

bsbd feral:-(

[Steve]

i will always jump a side mounted camera.

Here in Belgium there is somebody making side mounted helmets and there is not ONE chance for something etanglent on it!!!

have a look at www.sky-designs.be

it's a publicity, it's just for the safety of us all...

[guest]

If you're gonna top mount a PC110 you may want to mount a can of beer on the back side of the helmet to counter balance it.
But, the best advice of all. Give the camera to one of your pals so they get video of you.

[feral]

Stefan what ever one you get you must paint it pink as pink is a tuff (unts colour...


bsbd feral:7