Fpv Skydive Settings
Karlotta Neifert
It's spring time, which means skydivers all around the Northern Hemisphere are gearing up for the new season. With this, many are getting rid of their old, heavy SLR, and moving to a mirrorless solution.
We've bought into the Sony platform a few years ago and recently started shooting with the Sony a6000. The results have been amazing! Thus far Parachutist & Blue Skies Mag have published: 2 centerfolds, 1 full page, a calendar shot, and more than a dozen photos all shot by us with this tiny little camera! [A ton more and a cover since this was written]
I'm still learning the platform, but often get the question, "what are the best settings for skydiving?" Today, while testing out the Hypeye Alpha prototypes, I took a step back and wrote up this guide. It's the culmination of a lot of missed shots, other photographer's insights, my observations, and some research. Take this as a starting guideline and not necessary rules. Your conditions and settings may vary. Feel free to give us feedback and recommendations via email or Hypoxic's Facebook Page.
In Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority modes we would get inconsistent results. By manually setting our values, and letting the ISO automatically adjust, we get workable photos in most conditions no matter our orientation to the sun.
For sunset, sunrise, and overcast I'll take some practice shots on the wings during the ride to altitude. I the look at the histogram to ensure the setting spans the whole color line.
(Press DISP multiple times to access the histogram)
ISO on a CMOS sensor is a gain setting. The higher the ISO, the noisier an image becomes. A lower ISO will reduce noise but at the cost of losing some information in the shadows. I like AUTO since it prevents completely lost photos due to exposure issues from the settings. It's recommended to set this limit from 100 to 800 for skydiving.
We've had a recommendation to increase the exposure compensation 1 to 2 increments when ISO is set to Auto. This should brighten up the faces and jumpsuits that are often dark in front of a blue sky. To achieve this, press down on the menu wheel and selecting +0.3 to +0.6. (+0.5 increments is also an option in the settings)
Thx Kaspars Sprogis for the suggestion.
In a 24 Megapixel JPEG there is a ton of color information. We've found there is no need for sunny outdoor shots to record in RAW if you are going straight to customer. The resulting JPEGs have so much color information that post processing can still be done effectively especially. This is especially true if shot in a neutral or standard mode.
Camera's now days are fairly good at WB calculations. The auto setting seems to work fairly well for most conditions. Best part of leaving it to auto is I don't forget about it the next day after a night of party photos. With that said, we can always tweak the white balance in post if necessary.
Multiple people have recommended setting the WB to cloudy to make the images seem warmer throughout the day. This will compensate for too much "blue" in the image. Just remember to change it back when the lighting changes. We'll give this a shot.
I heard this quote a number of years ago and I think it totally defines my life. I am absolutely a goal-setter and go-getter... It's one of the reasons I started running races and trying different fitness events over the years, and a big reason why I took that first leap out of the plane skydiving! Someone once asked me if there was anything I wouldn't do... My response? "There's plenty I won't do, but not a lot I won't try."
Now, there are a lot of people who think just setting a goal or two, or even a New Year's Resolution, is enough; however, I know plenty of people who are stuck in their comfort zone and could use a good, solid push to the uncomfort zone every once in awhile. That's where a big goal, the one that scares you even just a little bit, can come in handy!
Why would you want to set goals that scare you? It's raising the bar in your life a little bit. It's putting this little nugget of awesomeness out there that forces you to make a plan and actually go for it. It's taking your expectation of your life and throwing a curve ball, if for no other reason than to see what happens. I teach a group fitness class a few times a week and I recently pitched this to my clients...What's the worst that can happen if you set a goal that's a little "out there?" You fail? Guess what... Failing is the best thing that can happen to you. I learn so much more about myself and about life through failure. The key is to pick yourself up from said failure and find a new way to succeed.
Now, I'm not telling you to go out there and shoot for a goal that's completely unattainable. But I am saying to start thinking outside of the box. New Years' is right around the corner (I'm sorry, it is... there's no avoiding it!), so what if instead of taking the same old need to lose X number of pounds route and did something a little crazy instead. What if you stopped living by the number on your scale and started living LIFE? What if, instead of focusing on a weight loss goal, you focused on a life gained goal?? What if you turned your bucket list into a to-do list instead??
3 - Put it in writing. This makes your goal real and tangible. There's permanence in putting pen to paper and there's power behind that. Use statements such as "I will" versus "I would like to..." It gives you more passion in your goal, and more motivation to achieve this statement!
4 - Make an action plan. How are you going to accomplish your goal? What steps are you going to take to hold yourself accountable, and stay on track? Are there milestones along the way that can be "mini-goals" to measure your success?
5 - Stick with it! Goals never end. They might evolve and progress, but much like our own health and fitness journey, there isn't a destination. Think of this as a stepping stone toward future goals that you will make, but let's not lose focus on the current goal. That's the one we are working on right now.
Amy was born and raised right outside of Duluth, Minnesota and recently relocated near Baltimore, Maryland. She has a Bachelor's degree in Sustainable Management from the University of Wisconsin-Superior. She started sharing her passion for health and wellness through Social Media platforms, namely Instagram and through her blog: RunningYogiMom. Her unique life perspective and "grab life by the horns" mentality makes her the ultimate go-getter. She has 17 years of fitness background including endurance training, distance running, has competed in two fitness competitions and holds a Hydrorider Aqua Spin certification. She is also on the brink of completing her RYT200 Yoga Certification and will have an additional 100-Hour certification in Meditation and Yoga Philosophy early next year. Amy has 650 skydives and is passionate about sharing how fear can be the ultimate motivator to living life and not just surviving it. She is unapologetically enthusiastic about life and hopes to inspire others to live hard and love even harder.
Amy and DZO, Jeanice Dolan, both love to skydive. Baltimore IFLY is a skydiving simulator located in Baltimore, MD. Amy and Jeanice's sons train at IFLY Baltimore both in pursuit of following their mothers' passion to skydive when they become old enough.
As the plane ascended to 15,000 feet elevation, I scanned the cabin to see fellow runners anxiously waiting for the drop and thought, What did I get myself into? I had never performed a skydive before. In fact, the idea of jumping from a plane terrified me. But when I heard about the SkyDive Ultra in Clewiston, Fla., the allure of attaching the feat to a race made the idea exciting.
Adrenaline rushed through my body as the initial free-fall sent us plummeting toward the ground at 120 miles per hour. When my instructor pulled the first section of the parachute, I started to feel like I was floating on air. At this point, I was able to take in the view and soak in the adventure.
By mile 18, I started to fade a bit due to the heat, and my leg cramped up at mile 21. I took salt tabs and forged ahead until I hit mile 26, where I got a second wind: I knew I only had 5 miles left.
The Houston resident recently was part of "Project 19," in which a group of women set a skydiving world record to commemorate the anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment, which in 1920 guaranteed American women the right to vote.
The 40-year-old Howe had neck surgery to repair a herniated disc only one year earlier. And the year before that, as she started to train for the record-breaking freefall, she was displaced from her home in another part of the world because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"One of the messages that organizers and the team as a whole was hoping to propagate is just that teamwork and focusing on goals does work and is effective and can get us to great achievements," Howe said. "So it was kind of a nice intersection of my personal story with the general story behind the event as a whole."
Howe used to serve as a skydiving instructor but has never considered herself to be a professional skydiver, despite having often made more than 100 jumps per year. She is a linguist and is currently working on a linguistic application for a speech recognition system, she said.
Howe had a relative lull in her skydiving frequency after being part of the record jump in 2016, she said. She had focused on the language of Madagascar for her doctoral dissertation, later got a grant to teach there and started living there full-time in 2018.
Howe traveled to Arizona for a skydiving training session in March 2020, around the same time as the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and said she was not allowed to go back to Madagascar for more than a year. She ended up leaving behind an apartment, some of her belongings and a significant other.
Stuck in the U.S., she was able to work remotely, settled in Houston and focused on getting back into skydiving and training for the record-setting jump. It was originally planned for 2020, the 100-year anniversary of the 19th Amendment, but got pushed back because of the pandemic.
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