Merlin in stock

Since technical problems like the one Michael reported don't seem to be widespread, I wonder if the overall problem is inconsistency in the manufacturing. If so, there's an element of luck in the purchase.
 
Do you have the caliper locking knobs tight? I had some slack in there till the knobs were cranked down.

re: the gimbal collar ..the threaded top of the gimbal that fits into the guide, it's down about 1/2 of it's total travel (the DVD and book basically refer to it as a bottom heaviness fine adjustment)

I spent awhile and got it trimmed dead on last night with the MC100 mic and big battery, I'm using 5 big weights, 1 start and 1 finish on the bottom, and a big and finish at the caliper hinge. the "drop" test is about 1 sec. it is amazing how little something will throw it off. simply closing the LCD door throws it all out of whack.

footage is great though, I was showing my wife and she was pretty amazed at it. we did a little informal "cooking" show before dinner and then chased the young'ins around the house :)
 
Drivinhard, how much total time would you say you put into adjustments, from initial assembly to last night?

Is there anything that should have been in the manual/DVD and wasn't, or that was misleading?
 
First time you use it, I'd block off a couple of hrs to spread everything out, watch the DVD, go through the manual, getting it all trimmed up, and start playing with it.

The manual and DVD pretty much go over everything, it's pretty detailed.
 
Just came back from Okinawa, so Ill be sure to add to my thread tomorrow. My only tip is make sure the G platz is in and positioned correctly. I didnt do this twice heh. Ah well. I can pretty much add remove things from my cam and re trim in about a minute. Or re trim for a shot in about 15 seconds. I will suggest that non specific shooting is not as hard as particular framing so I would suggest practicing to move fast slow forward backward with particular framing in mind. Out
 
mikkowilson said:
Just sell them and buy only DVXuser ones! :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)

- Mikko
Click to expand...

bought a dvxuser 2-pack the other week... guess those'll be my merlin power and the free 5400 pana battery will be non-merlin... and the stock pana battery (1600) will be... a paperweight?

i had the gimbal collar about 4 turns down, but wasn't sure if it was really 4 or maybe 3 or 5... just trying to go by the online cookbook's recommendations as a baseline, but wondering if anyone else's experiences ran counter to that...

re: powerdog, there is definitely hand assembly involved, so i imagine that probably accounts for some of the inconsistency... for example there are remnants of a few extraneous drips of glue/epoxy in one or two spots, etc... that said, my leica film cameras and lenses were all hand-assembled and you don't see that sort of stuff, though you do find inconsistencies in travel of the shutter release buttons, stiffness/resistance of the lens barrels and aperture rings, etc... i like the idea of hand assembly and machining though, as long as the little quirks inherent to each unit don't affect functionality... i like that the weights smell like machining oil...

i had the locking screws tight, which, let's say, affect the arc's vertical-axis travel, but the hinge-lock that i think is a bit wonky on my unit affects what i guess would be the lateral travel (i.e., folding the unit from flying mode to "collapsed") of the lower section of the arc...

@ncje, it was yr footage that tipped me over the edge and convinced me to run up to b&h and pick the thing up... saw on their site it was in stock, so checked here for comments and saw yr thread... next morning i was in mid-town with my credit card... looking forward to seeing more footage...
 
Speaking of Merlins and B&H, there's still stock as of 1pm Eastern. I think this is a first. 1.5 days and counting.

Maybe the market's getting saturated (after all, WE are probably most of the market), or Tiffen's just shipping more at a time.
 
Heh, I was refering to Micheal as he appears to have a Merlin too :)
But good stuff from you too ncje, I'll comment in the other thread.

- Mikko
 
I almost bought a Merlin (or signed up to wait to buy one) but, in the interim, bought a DV Rig Pro instead. I'm pretty happy with it. I'm not really able to run down the stairs with absolute fluidity, but I am able to run around and shoot without a tripod for long periods of time without much fatigue.

I wonder about the advantages of one over the other, realizing that these two devices would likely be used for different situations (but I can't afford both!)
 
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