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The calyxes are a good way to quickly tell from a distance, but other than that, I've always used a pocket microscope to view the trichomes up close to see whether their heads are clear (typically immature), foggy (allegedly in early maturity, supposed to equal more of a heady high), or amber (supposed to correlate with late maturity, and to equal a more down, indica-leaning high relative to the genetics of the plant); but I've seen some scattered foggy, as well as scattered amber here and there at practically all stages of flowering once past the first 2 or 3 weeks. So, YMMV.
IME its good to wait for at least 6% amber trichs. Hes right they dont all change at once often its a slow process all over, but once the amber starts the clear should be gone and for potency youd rather have less clear than the rest. Early harvest has a shitty high to it, there's barely a fuzzy feeling to it, lots of paranoia, many report headaches, makes me grind my teeth and get crankey lol.