Best settings to make a Ronin feel more organic

[HockeyFan12]

I remember when the Red camera came out (yes, I'm old) and I was so excited to get my hands on one...

The original Mysterium sensor was not good, the ergonomics were worse, and the Red Cine software at the time was terrible. Really an immature product at launch. But the experience of looking through that viewfinder was magic. I saw it and thought, "this is magic–the future of cinema."

Within a few years, I'd been proven right! And the Red look was soon associated with all the cheap independent films made by producers who couldn't afford 35mm and who agreed with me!

A victim of its own success. (And a good justification for why Red went up-market, successfully, I might add.)

I also remember the hype behind the Movi and how excited I was to get my hands on it...

It's also been a victim of its own success. Ronin footage looks like every Vimeo clip now. At first it looked like magic.   Red was smart to push up-market; their camera isn't much better than a C300 or GH5 unless you have the resources to push its potential far, but it also costs a lot more and is harder to use, so that guarantees more dedicated, disciplined users... but bless DJI they kept it cheap...

I still love the Ronin.

I just don't like the played out "look" it produces. Or the associations we have with that look. 

If anything, I want my motion to be a little less smooth and less robotic. More steadicam than Ronin. I'm a terrible steadicam op, and I hate balancing, so I love the Ronin still, but it feels almost too digital to me!

Any advice? One thing I do prefer about steadicams is you don't need an iOS app.

[jonpais]

I'm no expert on gimbals - Josh here could probably give some good advice - but I've been following Brandon Li's channel and he seems to get great looking movements from less expensive single handed gimbals like the Crane and the Moza, so maybe you could watch some of his videos for tips?

[fuzzynormal]

I think the tools are fine.  It's more a question of what one can craft using them. 

[zerocool22]

yeah I own the glidecam Devin Graham signature series and the ronin. Both different animals. You also have to stabilize the ronin(and on the devin graham seriers) you can take notes Cam/lens. And easily balance it back, if you balanced it once. Yeah the glidecam footage is far more organic and does not need batterys or external monitor. But the ronin still has its use if I have to shoot outside of a cartrunk or something similar. And yeah it is beeing overused right now as was timelapse in the beginning, then sliders, then drones, now gymbals. Even with IBIS people are just running around with a dslr in hand and are getting pretty stable footage and I am getting bored by it pretty quick. 

Sorry for the text, as I do not have any good settings on the ronin :D

[John Brawley]

Gimbals and Drones are a bit faddish at the moment.

I mean once you've had a drone shot in your sequence then you still have to do the basic story telling.  It's a shot..or two maybe....or maybe it's the intersticial tone shots in between scenes at most.

Gimbals require more time and people to do well than a Steadicam does and offer very few advantages, and come at the cost of dramatic feel. Everytime I bring this up with a pro gimbal human, they say hey you can go low to high in-shot or go through a window and hand off.

And yes, you can.  But I rarely see this being designed in shots.  Now I just see shots that should be done hand held or on a steadicam being done to an inferior standard and for impinged dramatic feel using a gimbal because that's the tool of the moment.

Don't be seduced by the tool and use them to do what can do well.

JB

 

 

[jonpais]

Soy Cuba (1964), ten years before the invention of the Steadicam.  

[Dave Maze]

Sell your ronin immediately and buy a used MoVI M5. Ronin is total crap and has a robotic look to it that can't be dialed out. I have been a FreeFly MoVI user since the beginning and every time I talk to people who use Ronins and I mention MoVI they say "oh its expensive blah blah". Then I ask if they have ever tried a MoVI and they always say no. Once you try a MoVI you never go back. At NAB FreeFly mentioned they are working on a handheld gimbal like a zyhun crane for next NAB...so we will see. FreeFly has patents on this tech that is truly special and its really the best. Rent one and see for yourself. But seriously...throw that Ronin in the garbage. Its crap

[HockeyFan12]

Wow... a lot of varied replies.

@DaveAltizer I can't justify buying a Movi for my an already ridiculously expensive hobby, but I'm starting to think it might offer some real advantages in professional work.... (Though I have seen good pro Ronin work, too, if pretty much exclusively in Joseph Kahn's videos.) I agree the handheld form factor (like the Osmo) is better. A Movi like that would be cool. 

On 12/27/2017 at 1:07 AM, John Brawley said:

Gimbals and Drones are a bit faddish at the moment.

I mean once you've had a drone shot in your sequence then you still have to do the basic story telling.  It's a shot..or two maybe....or maybe it's the intersticial tone shots in between scenes at most.

Gimbals require more time and people to do well than a Steadicam does and offer very few advantages, and come at the cost of dramatic feel. Everytime I bring this up with a pro gimbal human, they say hey you can go low to high in-shot or go through a window and hand off.

And yes, you can.  But I rarely see this being designed in shots.  Now I just see shots that should be done hand held or on a steadicam being done to an inferior standard and for impinged dramatic feel using a gimbal because that's the tool of the moment.

Don't be seduced by the tool and use them to do what can do well.

JB

 

 

This I agree with. It's this kind of thinking that made me decide to sell my drone. Tech moves so fast that the shelf life on aesthetics is also decreasing. The Red became associated with cheap Indies within a few years (and Red was smart to move up market). Anamorphic lenses are everywhere now. A7S low light? Over-done. (Not well. There's room to innovate.) Hyperlapse? Over-saturated. (Watchtower of Turkey remains stunning, I don't think it will be surpassed soon.) The drone/gimbal phase has gotten faddish, too, and novel use cases increasingly rare....

That's not a criticism of the tech; it's testament to its success...

This is a problem with Vimeo, too, because it's difficult to sustain a brand based on the same stylistic flourish that got you a staff pick, whereas narrative content (Netflix) and personality content (YouTube; Twitch) has a longer-lasting "hook." 

That said, I hear the opposite from operators. Every operator I meet is in the "steadicam is 100x better" camp, but gimbals do one thing extremely well that steadicams don't do well at all, and that's holding the horizon. Even pro steadicam work sways in a way gimbals don't.

You're still tempting me to sell my gimbal, too. Maybe @fuzzynormal is right, the key is not pushing the hardware too far. This looks interesting, too: