My subjects were falling backward from an airplane traveling 110 mph; I had just one chance. In the second my strobe lights would need to recover, the jumpers would fade to specks. Here, I caught Jari Kuosma of the BirdMan wingsuit company and two buddies leaping from a Skyvan I'd rented for the purpose.
After a brief rehearsal on the tarmac, we flew up over DeLand, Florida. I set the aperture of my 11-megapixel Canon EOS-1Ds to f/16 and the shutter speed to 1/125 to get a sharp image with a slight blur around the edges to suggest motion. To dampen the plane's engine vibration, I mounted the Canon to a gyro stabilizer. Meanwhile, I knew that if I fell out, camera around my neck, I didn't want to be dragging half my equipment with me. So instead of wiring the Canon to the strobes, I programmed a radio transmitter to trigger them remotely.
I put on a parachute, a standard precaution, but I'd never used one. "I don't have time to give you a skydiving lesson," the jumpmaster told me, "but if
you find yourself in free fall, pull this thing—hard." Kuosma counted down
"3... 2... 1... Smile!" As he and his companions jumped, I hit the shutter. Then they were gone.
Stay up to date on the latest news of the future of science and technology from your iPhone with full articles, images and offline viewing
Featuring every article from the magazine and website, plus links from around the Web. Also see our PopSci DIY feed
Share links with friends, comment on stories and more
Inside NASA's astronaut bootcamp and the grueling new training regimen for deep space. Plus, ten young geniuses shaking up science today, one writer's quest to analyze every man-made chemical in her body and more.
Check out the issue's full contents online here