Ive been at it for hours and cant get this thing to balance correctly.
Also, it is sooooooo heavy, you couldnt work this for longer than a few minutes unless you had arms like popeye !!!

For the "heavy" part. Get the armbrace, its muuuch easyer with it. See here:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/stabilizers-steadicam-etc/129522-flycam-3000-pro-modified-test-canon-xh-a1.html

Denys: it was your video that made me buy this device :)
Ill have another look now and give it another try.

Dont give up. It took me some time to get used to it and Im still far from perfect.

P.S: Good idea to get FlyCam 5000. FlyCam 3000 is just too small and it was not easy to make it longer the way it is now.

I played around with it last night and although I dont think it has the weight to balance out the XH-A1 camcorder, I do feel by using your free hand you can make it very stable.
Also, the unit becomes extremely heavy with the weights added using free-hand so a vest is possibly the better option.

Jayson,

Any update on your progress with the Flycam 5000 balancing? I just got one along with the vest and arm for Christmas and I am going to begin trying to balance it with my Sony V1. I am looking for advice from other Flycam 5000 owners.

I use a V1 with the Flycam 5000. It is almost impossible to get it perfectly balanced as the "precision manufacturing" is a joke. But, with a lot of trial and error I found a "good enough" balance that enables me to get decent footage as long as I keep the camera always straight ahead. The minute the camera sways it all fall to crap.

Ken,

Thanks for the info. I am waiting for my new Litepanels Micro light to come in and then I will attempt to balalnce by V1 with the litepanel and my Rode shotgun mic attached to the camera.

I am dreading it because it is going to be a long nerve wracking process. There are so many possible adjustments between the head plate moving forwards, backwards and left to right and then then increasing /decreasing of the weights at the bottom AND moving them left to right Arghhh!!!!

I have the comfort arm & vest to connect the flycam 5000 to. Are you using that or holding the flycam by the handle? After holding the flycam with the V1 attached I know I couldn't hold it for more than a couple of minutes in an actual shooting situation without the arm & vest to support it.

Sounds like you are adding weight, so you will have to elongate the main column on the sled.

I have the whole kit. There is no way to get good footage without the articulated arm. Also, the V1 doesn't have a wide wide angle, you may want to think about a wide angle adapter. I bought the RAYNOX HD-7062Pro from The Hague.

Another trick I found was to put just the sled part on a cheap lightstand connected by the handle. This way I can balance the sled much more easily. Once it is balanced this way I put it on the arm and only use the quick release plate to further fine tune it.

Good luck!

I have the Sony EX-1 and I could not get the darn thing to work with the 5000. I got the 6000 with Magic Arm and vest and after much time here on the forum and a lot of trial and error, I have it working pretty well. I can wear it for about an hour now without getting too fatigued. The center of gravity is something you have to really be aware of with that unit and also the side to side weight issues. I had to modify my 5000 with some side weights at the bottom to counter balance the EX1 be offset in its design. When I got the 9
6000 I decided to move the gimbal up and down until I could get the unit to drop in about 2.5 seconds. Once I found that mark, tuning the rest was pretty easy. It will work, but you will find it very frustrating until you do.

Phil Hanna

The longer the drop time the harder it will be to balance as the slightest shift in balance will throw it off.

But too short a drop time and it could mean your bottom heavy and end up swinging alot.