Zlew

Haven't been impressed with Drift so far. Will be interesting to see how this one turns out.

I"ve had good luck with Exit Equipment's switches. Takes a while to get in the US (2 weeks?) but my last one lasted me ~500 jumps. Good price, single piece construction, 90 degree plug...

Most of the time I shoot shutter priority (ap. priority if on a longer lens). I can check, but it's not uncommon for cameras to lock out some features on the more automatic modes like green box/P/sports.

Just a guess...but I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't a KA2...more so a Sabre 3. The sabre class market is much larger than the Katana. I would think it would be smart to have a canopy that fits in that market with the SA2, but has some of the advantages of a better wing shape/design. It wouldn't need to be all around higher performance. Maybe more bottom end...less drag... better fwd speed. There would be tons of folks interested in that who may not want the extra baggage that comes along with long recovery and super high performance wings. I'll be interested to see what it is. I don't think we will have to wait too long.

The 20mm prime has a hood that comes with it that offers great protection and doesn't cost you any image quality. Small and low profile. I know some people want a 100% fov match from video to stills...but I don't think its that critical. For me the 20mm gives a great full field of view shot of a tandem from about 3-4 feet out. If the ulta wide gets the picture you are looking for, then you are doing the right thing!

The iso button is easy to bump. I tape minde dowin on the 5100. Lost some pics by accidentally setting isolated to like 3200. I shoot shutter priorit, auto isolated, aND shutter at 1/500 when shooting the 20mm for tandems.

Cx430 for my main and a hero4 silver for backup. I saw a 16mm with the wide adapter recently in dallas.... seems like it would be really really wide for tandems.

The A5100 is a good choice. I hear it is getting hard to find now though (long back orders). Light weight, amazing autofocus, APS-C sensor size, 6 frames a second and a side card load.... it's tough not to like it. The lens selection isn't as strong as the canons, but esp for a first setup it is more than adequate. The kit lens really isn't bad at all. I knew a few people who use it for tandems (I like the 20mm prime myself). I use it now and then. Its a little slow at 3.5, but not bad. One thing to remember is that it's fly by wire, so you have to set the zoom each time it turns on or wakes up. It won't remember that you had it zoomed to a specific setting and goes back to 16mm. 50mm is a pretty good zoom on a crop camera, but it isn't a "reach out and touch someone" telephoto. The good news is you can buy other lenses if you decide you have other specialty needs.

The idea of BOSS in an action cam is pretty incredible. GoPro better come out with something pretty sweet for the hero5.

they got big again when skysurfing was popular also

I use Vegas and it doesn't have any issues mixing the two.

My understanding is that it isn't the adapter/plug. It is the actual interface that Sony has changed. Since the 430 or so, the Hypeyes don't work. Per another thread on facebook- Trunk cracked the new code/interface long ago, but the issue is that it doesn't allow for the same info/communication- "we've cracked it a long time ago, but there is no feedback so it becomes fairly worthless. You can tell the camera to record, but you don't know if the camera is ready to record. Also, if i remember correctly it just acks that it got the command, not that the command actually works. The market is also so so small now with GoPros. Used to be fun jumpers jumped cx's with HYPEYE's. Now its only a few dropzones that don't allow GoPros and people that want BOSS that jump these new cameras."

My guess is your friend was confused or you misunderstood. My guess is they were trying to recommend the NEX 3N. The 3N was pretty common, and you could get an off the shelf switch for it.

The only thing I like about my canons more than my Sonys is the selection of lenses I have for it. If you compare a consumer level Canon to a Sony 5100- The pros of the A5100 (and 6k) Size- Less than a pound, and physically closer to the size of my phone than my canons Sensor- APS size, same as the non full frame canons (most of what you see in skydiving) Auto focus- On sensor auto focus, almost 200 auto focus points (most low end canons you see are more like 9). SUPER fast auto focus for moving targets. Auto focus over basically the full screen Fast- 6 or 10 FPS for the 5100 or 6000 Most lower end canons are more like 4fps Price- Same as the lower end canons Card door is on the side for the 5100 For studio and ground stuff, I love my canons. For the majority of free fall work, it is hard to beat the A5100 with a prime lens on it