Clarkey

I used to have similar experiences on an older Sabre 170 - tried the usual rolling nose/tail etc and the results were fairly variable... most the time it was still a 'firm' opening, with the occasional slammer! The most consistent method I found to slow things down a little whilst PRO packing was after flaking and arranging the canopy, rather than quartering the slider, I would pull it all the way through towards me and then smooth it around the pack job. Then make double sure that the slider is all the way up the lines at all four corners before sorting out the tail. Worked for me anyway (most the time), but it still like to remind me it was a Sabre 1 every now and then!! If this doesn't help, it might also be worth asking a rigger to check your lines are at the correct lengths whilst he's putting that Slider Pocket on that Talonsky suggests!

Hi Marcin, More on lenses… I use my 330 with both the Blue Eye (0.45) and the Red Eye (0.3) lenses from WayCool with great results (despite being very inexperienced!) – these lenses are tiny! Not having used any other lenses, I don’t have a lot of comparison apart from with other people’s footage, but the image is very sharp on a large screen, and there is absolutely no visible distortion around the edges or corners, and no visible degradation in the image. The method of getting the best set up is slightly different as the lenses are single element and the infinity focus does not work. For best results, turn of all AE modes then put on the lens and let the auto-focus adjust to a suitable distance before switching it to manual focus – you can of course still tweak the focus manually if you want too. You can then use any AE mode as normal once the focus is locked. I find I can also zoom in up to about half way without any problems if required (I have jumped with the Red Eye zoomed in to almost the Blue Eye level when I didn’t have time to swap them on a short call). The Blue Eye is great for outside stuff, and the Red Eye is great for inside stuff, and I’m very interested in seeing what the Black Eye will give here too. WayCool have just modified their lens mount slightly on the Red/Blue/Black to accept a newly developed UV filter so check that you are getting the latest ones when you place your order (I think they are designated with an 'X'). Though I believe they have also created a UV filter that will fit securely over all existing lenses in the field.

Hi Marcin, The progressive scan record mode only becomes useful if you are recording for the purpose of capturing frame grabs. As I understand it, under ‘normal’ record mode each frame contains only half the image (every other line), but when you use progressive scan it only records every other frame but with each frame containing the whole image (all lines are used). This is why it looks jumpy when you play it back normally because it has effectively recorded at half frame rate. What you are not noticing when playing it back is that each frame is full quality - try capturing a frame grab on your computer and you should see the difference in quality compared to a frame grab from a ‘normal’ recording. Clarkey