Phil2360

@Horton "Cough Spit Choke". You're a Nikonian? Oh dear, reputation degradation . Personally I use a Canon 50D. I've got a couple of "L" lenses, but also use an 18-200 kit lens. Many people consider these "Kit Lenses" to be rubbish, but in reality the 18-200 covers a very versatile range & the image quality is quite good for a reasonably priced lens. Canon's 18-135mm is better in terms of image quality & a bit cheaper. Pretty sure any reasonable offering from the DSLR stables of Canon, & well, maybe Nikon would substantially out perform anything in the compact classes. Particularly in terms of speed for sports photography. Check out B & H Photo over there. Starting with an EOS 550D (Rebel T2i in the States). http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/680673-REG/Canon_4462B005_Canon_EOS_Rebel_T2i.html Looking at most of my photos I mostly use less than 135mm for slalom pics from the boat.

Think the of DBW vs Mechanically cabled is inherently more prone to this as the driver is more or less fully in control of throttle until the system kicks in. Mind you the system does do some throttle roll back & I particularly noticed this in one of the earlier versions where it was very difficult to make the boat accelerate hard as the system was tending to roll the throttle back more as the pedal was applied. (And yes my system runs off a foot throttle).

Slight tangent, I've always wondered how a rule about handle section length would work. As in skier's vertical reach plus handle section length equals, say 12 feet. You could test it with a pole that the handle section connected to & was stood vertical. Skier would have to be able to completely wrap his palm around the centre of the handle for the rope length to be correct. Would even the playing field as far as skiers height is concerned.

Both my boys got their skis when they were around 9 or 10. My eldest got a HO Revolt & is now 15. He's 45kg & still on it. My other boy has a HO Judge & he is now 11 & been on it 2 years & is about 30kg. Probably my main observation is that my younger boy seems to be more progressively advancing on the Judge that is a slightly wider & less aggressive ski. It's would have been interesting to be able to see the relative progress on similar skis, but I'm convinced that my youngest in not handicapped in any way by the more stable less performance orientated ski. Elders can run 6@34, but has been slowly getting there over the past 4 years, while my younger son is running half the course at 24.9 & constantly improving his style.

Great Buoy's Eh. Still got 1/2 dozen handing in my shed. Seemed everyone used them back then. They are Polyform A-1's to be precise http://www.savvyboater.com/store/p/244-Polyform-A-Series-Boat-Buoys-A-1.aspx & on the occasions you hit them it was like hitting a brick wall. Cheers

Boobera Lagoon near Goondiwindi, Sometime between 1976 & 78. Originals are only 4x6 prints so not that great in quality. Still for 30 years plus..... Mike Hazelwood. Cheers Philhttp://static.cl1.vanilladev.com/ballofspray.vanillaforums.com/uploads/FileUpload/78/5bef50f46eb8f7dc470adc6f070831.jpghttp://static.cl1.vanilladev.com/ballofspray.vanillaforums.com/uploads/FileUpload/f7/68bdfe23e07a2fc0f53eb600b2a8b2.jpghttp://static.cl1.vanilladev.com/ballofspray.vanillaforums.com/uploads/FileUpload/09/bc2dc38c04e3002ce1304822a53ff3.jpghttp://static.cl1.vanilladev.com/ballofspray.vanillaforums.com/uploads/FileUpload/5a/e0b617649683631233603c87729044.jpg

Interesting @auskier how's you work that out. http://maps.google.com.au/maps?q=gum+flat+NSW&hl=en&ll=-29.816556,150.920949&spn=0.011747,0.022681&gbv=2&hnear=Gum+Flat+New+South+Wales&gl=au&t=h&z=16&vpsrc=6 Where are you? Great shot, was one I took back in about '82 or 83. Negatives are a bit scratchy these days, but still scanned up OK. Wonder how an Arm Guard would work in this situation. Might provide some additional support. Phil

Phil, 48, From the great world down under. Been around boats & skiing since I was in nappies. Just wish my PB's had improved with age. Got 2 boys, 11 & about to turn 15. Both love skiing & currently little bro is starting to set his sights on his mentor brother. (Just realizing he's now a potential target). Have the privilege of being able to ski on a private dam on a mates property so have been really spoiled for the past 10 years. Get to have our own course installed there. Managed to get to a PB of 4 @ 28 off 5 or six years back before the drought made things hard for us. Trying to work my way back there again now. Biggest buzz in my skiing days was spent with my landlord & mate when I lived in Newcastle from 18 to my early 20's. He was a great skier & a top bloke to kick around with. http://www.sahof.org.au/hall-of-fame/member-profile/?memberID=44&memberType=athlete True ambassador to the sport & just an "A1" top bloke. Only stressed me out in one way, & that was being appointed as his trick release operator & having to drive slalom in the days before Perfect Pass when there was only a foot throttle. Cheers Phil

@mrpreuss "Very little" was in the early days before we had every thing setup properly. Considering we have an older non standard boat with considerably lower than usual baselines I completely expected to have to do a degree of tuning on the system. We now run times that are constantly withing .01 to .02 per segment.

Hi all, I contacted PP early in December to inquire about ordering an upgrade for my StarGazer for our season Down Under. Here's their response I received on December 1st:- Phil Not all of the product is ready to ship and not all the answers to your questions have been answered but I will get back with you once we are ready to ship Randy As far as surging issues are concerned, we've had very little of that behavior. I've spent a small amount of time fine tuning background settings & am very happy with our results. My main motivation for upgrading is that I'm confident that the upgrade will be a considerable improvement in all areas including Skier feel as well as ease of driveablilty. The main concern I raised in my question was related to our Baselines being considerably lower than the US boats. We run 3070rpm @ 36 rpm & 2890 rpm @ 34 mph. Our 1997 Built Aussie Custom, with a bit over 600 hours on the clock is still in great condition & serves it's purpose, (at the rate of 11.5 litres/hour. Other household renovation are taking precedent in our budget at present, so no plans for a new boat in the next 3 or 4 years. Looking forward to this upgrade. My 2c worth Cheers Phil.

Now that you've mentioned it.... Maybe a discussion category for Tubers would bring some additional members & their collective wisdom to the forum.

Ironically the few pics currently in one of my galleries aren't taken with the 70-200. Some are from my 100-400L & the others from an EF-S 18-200mm. Considering the 18-200 is a "Compromise Lens", Results are still pretty good (it's used for the 3 oldest shots). Also I'd buy the F4.0 in a flash if I had the spare cash, simply based on it's reduced weight. Gallery is here:- http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/2003734538/invite/1D1A673C812B428688DA156EEDC0FC4B

I've got the 70-200 f/2.8 IS Mark II. It's brilliant. I usually shoot around 5.6 to f8.0. I rarely shoot wide open as depth of field becomes too limited. Biggest advantage of the 2.8 in this case is brightness in the view finder & additional light available for the auto focus system. The extra light will help with focus accuracy & speed. Keeping IS on also has it's advantages too. Canon claim it will allow the servo focus system to track more accurately as it reduces the processing power required to discern subject movement from camera shake. The f/4 Canons equally brilliant in terms of build & sharpness, just a stop slower & a whole heap lighter. See:- http://www.dpreview.com/lensreviews/canon_70-200_2p8_is_usm_ii_c16/ Also a search in the Canon Lens forum on DpReview will unearth a heap of 2.8 vs 4.0 discussions.

Seems a lot of you have left out "Hang on a minute", (while I adjust the water level/temp). What about "Hi-ho Silver!". That would get some good looks!

Replaced mine a couple of years back. Was a bit appalled at how poorly the new one was greased. Was able to completely remove the inner & grease it properly though. You'd swear the grease they used was liquid gold the way it was randomly spotted here & there. Light wipe over with a bit of White Zinc Oxide grease & back in it went.

@horton It's interesting, my kids seem to pick up on some things in the DVD & steer away from others.

Dunno what's out there. I've got most I can find & the West Coast Slalom DVD is good for a bit of land training. Mike Suyderhoud gives some really good explanations of things. He's a bit rounder these days, but so am I, but he sure still can ski. Recommend it totally.

2nd the magnets! And you only need 2. Muggins ordered a hand timer with my StarGazer cause I didn't realize it came with a Smart Timer. So weeks later I ordered a couple of magnets from skier to slier for a total of $38.00. The hand timer cost $40.00 & now don't need it.

Couple of photos showing a bit more of his style. Around #1 I think. http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i320/AusPhil/Skiing/IMG_3790.jpg http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i320/AusPhil/Skiing/IMG_3791.jpg

Thanks for the advice. Now got a couple for 32mph runs up. Had a few rollers 3 to 5 buoys.

Grrr more, Anyone tell me why the two videos I've posted display differently? Hate it when things don't look as they should. Phil.

If you are trying to test it without a skier on you need to make sure you set the skier weigh to "No Skier", otherwise if will throttle in anticipation of the skiers pull. Also it will not lock to the exact set speed, but the Pregate speed. So if that's set to say 70, (which means 0.7km/h or .42mph), it will try & settle on 34.2 + 0.4 = 34.6mph until it sees the timer signal at the gates. Pregate setting is in the background settings, but you should make sure you are happy with the baselines before trying to change these settings. Phil

Couple of my eldest boys runs @30mph. Think he needs to work on getting his arms a bit lower & shoulders back a bit more. He complains about the pressure on his back. Any suggestions & comments welcome. Phil

Fixed! Since last time I tried to do it YouTube have added Tags to deal with aspect problems. yt:stretch=16:9 fixed this. See:- http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=146402 Phil PS. What worked this morning won't work again. The tag seems a bit hit & miss.

Why are my aspects ratios getting screwed up when I try to put stuff up on YouTube. Don't want to do anything fancy just post them. Currently taking clips into Win Movie Maker & publishing as 3.0MBit Wider screen. They play O.K. in Media player but once uploaded the get compressed into 4:3 format. Have also got Premier Elements on Other PC's, but that mean moving to a different room etc. Just want to do simple things while siting in the lounge room with the laptop Anyone got a simple solution. Original is from a Canon FS200, which is 16:9 Widescreen. Here's a sample.