Axel

Imagine you just bought a new monitor (this would be my fourth, sold the others long ago), you bought the goddam cable, figured how best to attach it to the compact and lightweight Zhiyun and how to avoid cable spaghetti when the gimbal moves - and the next day Sony unapologetically announces a new firmware: • fixes an issue where the poor tiny display went dark if used in movie mode ... - wouldn't you grind your teeth? BTW: good setup. What is it? A smallHD?

Thanks, mercer, this is a very good trick for ETTR, better than using zebra. If it comes to skin tones, the best method for checking exposure would be false colors. One should check if a monitor has this feature.

Demo looks very good. Will try this. Thanks!

Congratulation. I have mine since 4 weeks now, and I had been among those who never considered buying a Sony again. The camera can be powered and the battery inside charged via USB (BTW: there is no battery charger included!) - which means you can completely power it with a smartphone charger, which are cheap and small - no need for a dummy. I don't think it will prevent the camera from overheating. You can override the protective shutdown in the menu, but if it records continuously for 30 minutes, I think I wouldn't like to touch the camera, and I'd seriously worry for the sensor. This is no camera for "longer recordings" - be aware of that! That said, if you're from Europe and have the 29 minutes limit, there is a free hack called open memory tweak (an app you install on the A6500), which allows to bypass this limitation and also stops the silly warning Recording in NTSC (for 24p and 30p). No risk there. I hope so. I also bought the Zhiyun Crane as a gimbal for this camera. Outside in bright daylight you really can see shit! I bought a special JJC sunhood, but it doesn't help, so I will need an external monitor. Afaik touch focus won't work with any HDMI monitor (well, it works on an iPhone over WiFi, with the Smart Remote app, but only in stills mode). However, the focus system of the A6500 is really, really good IF THERE IS ENOUGH CONTRAST - that means in daylight. You just need to spend some time to learn how to program it properly. And if you shoot handheld, you can also look through the viewfinder and use the wheel ("cursor") to point to the object in the frame that you want focussed. You can combine several focussing methods (i.e. AFC with focus tracking and face detection, with various combinations of sensitivity and focussing speeds), and that's all you probably need. In theory yes. In reality you will see no difference. I am not talking about H.264 and possible compression artifacts in general. I'm talking about XAVC in particular. Take this camera comparison (A6300 is 3'05"), view fullscreen and watch her neck. Note that most of the other cameras use Raw or ProRes natively. Compressed noise looks terrible, and more so with H.264. Avoid the noise floor, shoot ETTR with S-log, and the images will look clean enough and with almost as few artifacts as if shot with the big guys. Or: shoot in Cine2, dial down detail and ETTC - this makes your life easy with "just" round about 11 stops DR ...

My wish for an improvement was an HDMI connector besides the USB connector on the yaw motor. And a good and bright and light Zhiyun monitor. Tiny, but a little bigger than this: The Panasonic users probably wonder why ...

My guess, and perhaps I'm wrong, is that perfect balance is of bigger importance. The gimbal comes without camera, but with pre-defined spaces and motor forces. The firmware changelog says: If I don't misunderstand the whole thing, these settings appear in the app's Stabilizer Settings dialog in the Camera Control Interface as "weak", "medium" and "strong": ... but I wonder if there is a documentation what the manufacturers consider medium or strong. In theory, you can use payloads between 350g (obviously weak) and 1800g (strong). However, the form factor of an iPhone (too light anyway) will make it difficult to balance it properly. The gimbal doesn't register any gravity forces, turns crazy and the motors vibrate and probably could be damaged over time. The other extreme would be too oblong camera-lens-combos where the lens - no matter the total weight - will bump against the frame of the gimbal. The device is designed to work with mirrorless cameras and small DSLRs, and there are limits.

UPDATE 2: Bought the Sony Camera Control Cable (a normal micro-USB cable won't do, it opens the USB screen of the Sony) to trigger start/stop recording and to zoom. The process to enable this looks simple enough, but it has to be followed exactly: With the mobile app, the obstacle is the little swish-movement to exit the manufacturer's screen ("save" without that doesn't save the setting!). Also, to work you first have to restart the gimbal. With a Sony mirrorless camera one click on the Zhiyun's power button will take a still, a fast (!) double-click will start resp. stop recording (I wish it was the other way around). With a zoom lens attached, you will be able to zoom in or out with the golden zoom rocker, but the speed unfortunately is only "fast" ("zoom-transition", no Barry-Lyndon-zoom, only very fast Vertigos). If you have clear image zoom enabled and a prime on, the zoom speed is, er, medium, but there is no ease-in, ease-out like like with a better fuzzy logic zoom controller. But nonetheless you can change focal length without touching the camera, and to remotely start/stop recording makes it worth the money for me. EDIT: There is a special cable for Panasonic too.

It seems the Crane needs some weight to function optimally. Calculate the weight of your camera with lens(es). The specs say the minimum payload was 350g, but I doubt this could be done. Perhaps for the very small cameras the Zhiyun M is better. The aforementioned pancake works so-so, but I can't recommend it. Don't use combos below 600g.

*UPDATE* My Zhiyun now works with every lens, and it's like a magic wand. For all those who experience the same problems (like Alex Uzan), I have a slightly different description how to balance the Crane. The first step in many tutorials is adjusting the yaw/tilt axis with the thumbscrew. From the Zhiyun instruction PDF: Whereas this isn't exactly wrong, it was misleading for me. The second step (also in the above manual) is to move the camera forward or backward on the mounting plate: For light camera/lens combos (< 800g) proceed as follows: 1. Set the yaw/tilt axis to 10mm: 2. Mount the camera roughly in the middle of the mounting plate. Let go. The lens will face straight upwards (all descriptions say: let it first fall down). 3. Alternately push the camera forward ever so slightly and then shorten the yaw-axis step by step: 9mm, 8mm asf. - until the lens starts to point down a bit. 4. Fix the thumbscrew! With my total payload of ~ 600g this happens at 4mm. The camera is also some 4mm away from the edge of the mouting plate. 5. Push the camera backwards on the mounting plate very slightly & check if the lens points directly forward and turns back to this position through gravity. Fine-adust. 6. Tighten the camera screw. The rest of he balancing descriptions worked for me. You may laugh at me. If you try to let a very low payload face down first and start by loosening the tilt-thumbscrew, this axis is out of range immediately. It's better to start from the other end.

Instead of that I screwed an old Kaiser ballhead (110g) into the thread. Doesn't change. Won't fall in this direction! Obviously the weight has to be the lens itself. No drama though. 16mm look weird anyway - perspective changes too suddenly when you pan. Ordered the Sigma 19mm (wasn't in stock). And the 35mm works nicely.

That did the trick after proper calibration. Worked with the 18-105 (A6500 + SDXC-card + battery + lens =880g), and I used the middle slot instead of the left slot - as this guy does not with this camera. Now I can tilt 360°, so the unit isn't faulty, thank God. BUT I can't balance the camera properly with the 16mm pancake (67g - total weight 550g). Every tutorial shows that I first have to have the lens face down, but it won't, even if the camera is as far in the front as possible and even if I pushed the pitch lever completely down. The camera seems to stay horizontally just fine, but it won't stay tilted down. So I guess this combo not front-heavy enough. Will have to find a very heavy sunshade or sth. like this. The Sigma 19mm weighs 160g, I thought of buying it. Right now I'm leaving to test the Sony 35mm f1.8 OSS in the shop, which weighs about the same (155g). I hope that's enough. Thanks everybody. I also dialed in mojo43's settings, and they feel right, thanks!

Will do that. Of course. Monday is my day off. Stay tuned. Well, unfortunately, I think I have to. I probably de-calibrated it accidentally before I left for work today. I had too little time. Before I had placed the gimbal in all the positions depicted, ZGT had went through all steps and displayed the calibrated check-mark. Next time (Monday) I will take my time and learn the positions in advance from this video:

Yes. I have some experience, owning the Ronin M and before that quite a few steadicam-like stabilizers. I noticed in the videos that small cameras are sometimes mounted left and sometimes in the middle. Can't think of a reason why this should make a difference, but apparently it does. It took me under two minutes to balance the thing. I will re-watch all of them (downloaded them). I will also calibrate it with the software and be patient. That said - and for you to evaluate -; if this was an unsolvable issue, the Zhiyun was already useable for me as it is now, simply because I don't tilt to that degree. It seems all the positive reviews so far are fully justified. The behavior needs tweeking however (see mojo43's video), because ootb the pan following is too responsive. This of course depends on your own preferences.

Funny: at first, I mounted the camera on the middle slot of the mounting plate. A few minutes ago, I used the left slot and compensated with roll axis adjustments. Now the camera would stop tilting beneath ~ 80° but not fall back. Instead, tilt movements in pan and tilt following mode are jerky - which wasn't the case before. This lets me hope that it's a 'pilot error' and that I'll find a solution eventually. It's only a few hours after unboxing ...

So I've got the Zhiyun Crane for my new A6500. It seems to share Alex Uzans issue: (his video) With heavy 18-105 as well as with very light 16mm pancake. Wrote a message to him. Wouldn't like to send it back before I've even started practising Other than that, I'm more than pleased. The touch-focus of the Sony would be the ideal combination. Tried focus transitions with 50mm f1.8 (75mm FF equivalent), iris wide open, on the gimbal. Something I always dreamed about. The focus features of the A6500 are unbelievable. What I like most: no hunting. If it can't autofocus at once (too little contrast), it just stays oof for a second and then focusses very smoothly and naturally. This would be ideal, if the monitor didn't dim in video recording mode. It would be genius if it was a fully articulated monitor like that of the Panasonics ... I've tried the Smart Remote app with my iPhone. Unusable for video for two reasons: 1. There is no terrible lag, but as soon as I pan, the image on the smartphone freezes ... 2. No touch-focus in video mode (like in still mode). I've bought a JJC sunshade for the a6500's monitor, but I won't glue it on. Must find a way to temporarily attach it with rubber band.

Why not? But not necessary. In Premiere, you can conform all clips in one sweep in the project window. In FCP X, you can assign a keyboard shortcut for Automatic Speed to conform one or multiple selected clips. I have ctrl+cmd+r (because there already are retiming shortcuts). This is for 30-60 fps. Usually higher framerates are flagged as slomos anyway by the camera.

One could almost suspect Sony (and Pana, for that matter) are implementing these improvements to make us buy their lenses. It's as if ACME had invented the best can opener ever, but only for their own cans. The beans - or whatever - had to be ACME beans as well. Genius!

Of course. But because 30fps (rate conformed) in a 24p timeline are too subtle to be called slomo and because there can be reasons for intentionally shooting in the wrong framerate, I added the second reply to cover this.

Yes. Then he should better have shot at the project framerate in the first place. Or shouldn't he ??? Because 30p wouldn't spontaneously be perceived as slow motion, but as "movie-time". Gravity, importance. It's an editing tool also. If someone backswings to build up momentum for a strike, it's better to accentuate the movement (a tiny, not too obvious time ramp) or else the whole action may look lame and speeded-up (or is it sped-up?). Also, for smooth camera movements, pans, slider- or gimbal shots, 30p can be appropriate. Watch this: Thanks a lot. Framerate conforming works differently in FCP X (you select the clips in the timeline, then you apply Automatic Speed from the retiming dialog, FCP X adjusts the audio's pitch per default). To render all frame rate changes with optical flow on export, you have to edit (click the said boxes) and save the export module in Compressor. I didn't know.

The guy in your video knows nothing. Here is how you interpret 30p "as" 24p (or whatever your timeline is set to), and every frame will be played back without stuttering.

Marcotec has it: https://www.marcotec-shop.de/de/zhiyun-crane-handgefuhrter-gimbal-fur-spiegellose-kameras.html?gclid=CJr4yMuK2NECFVAo0wodLGsD7A I ordered it from there. They're reliable, it's not my first purchase. Apparently it's got the wrong firmware (1800g) for the A6500. Fortunately this community warned me, and I'm prepared to change it. Thanks jonpais (again)!

I am not a professional, but I just know the GH5 was the perfect camera for a wedding videographer - plus external mic(s). It's run&gun most of the time, but you have to make it look good. You have to rely on the camera. Of course, Kisahas Canon also was an option. But absolutely not the A6500!

Listen, bro! I actually owned the 7-14mm f4. Welding goggles. That's why I sold it after a few weeks and bought the Olympus 12mm f2 instead. For physical reasons, you're right, Basil. I never bothered about too deep depth of field with extreme wide angles, sDoF can look very wrong (three flowers on the window sill. Either the one in the middle is sharp or the two left and right). There is more than the theoretical 1 stop difference between an f4 on MFT and on APS-C. Look at these shots @ 24"ff. You think you can shoot this with a Pana 7-14 on the GH5? The lowlight shots we saw so far don't suggest it ... You proved that! I want to make one thing clear: I'm not a Sony fanboy. I became a temporary GH5 fanboy when the Neumann footage and the specs were published. No buyer will rue it. Everybody has his reasons to buy one or the other. It's not a lifetime decision, and I've been selling my equipment multiple times during the past decade. And I shrugged.

If that's the case, it's a misconception. Buying a speedbooster can be a rational decision. It allows you to buy better glass for less money. It allows you to capture comparatively more light without smaller DoF. Think about it. People reliably choose the image with shallower depth of field. Not necessarily because the bokeh is nice, but because the selective focus clearly signals that the shot has had an intention. If you follow this path, you never needed to care about set design, framing and all the other arts. Just buy a full frame camera and a 0.95 lens and blur everything!

He says it's MF (5'13"), and that though it's not Dual IS but just IBIS on there is no micro-juddering. I would have been excited too. Let's face it: grown-ups don't freak out about gadgetry. This lengthy video, unrehearsed, practically un-edited, off-the-cuff reality TV, better shows the capabilities of a camera than those thoroughly picked snippets we see elsewhere. My impression: nothing to write home about regarding image quality, but apparently a no-nonsense workhorse.