DJI Ronin S

[Zak Forsman]

4 hours ago, ntblowz said:

Wonder how those handle C200/EVA1/FS5? With lowered back motor part you can push camera even further back

 

[buggz]

I will probably end up getting one.

I HOPE it will fly my anamorphic rig.

And it isn't all about the weight. 

Geometry plays a GREAT part, I found this out with a gimbal that could handle the weight, but not the length.

My anamorphic rig is long, Though, I am guessing no longer than all the other rigs out there.

Anyone fly their anamorphic rigs?

[Phil A]

12 hours ago, buggz said:

And it isn't all about the weight. 

Geometry plays a GREAT part, I found this out with a gimbal that could handle the weight, but not the length.

This is the real deal breaker with most setups.

If I put my GH5 into a cage and add a quick release plate, it's impossible to balance on the Crane v1. It's within the weight limits but it simply doesn't allow to adjust the arms far enough to balance it.

Therefore most "will it balance?" questions in the Facebook groups are not properly answered because people just only look at the weight of the setup, not how this weight distributes for the balance (front heavy, too high, etc).

[photographer-at-large]

double handle seen here:

 

[DBounce]

29 minutes ago, photographer-at-large said:

double handle seen here:

 

That does not look like the finished product to my eyes. The two handles are clearly battery bases from the Ronin S. So, this design would have three batteries... which seems ridiculous from a weight point of view.

[scotchtape]

That looks heavy.

[webrunner5]

7 hours ago, DBounce said:

That does not look like the finished product to my eyes. The two handles are clearly battery bases from the Ronin S. So, this design would have three batteries... which seems ridiculous from a weight point of view.

Who is to say you Have to put batteries in the handles? That way you don't have to buy new handles, and DJI doesn't have to engineer new ones.

[DBounce]

46 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

Who is to say you Have to put batteries in the handles? That way you don't have to buy new handles, and DJI doesn't have to engineer new ones.

Well with that design only one of the extra handles would be usable, assuming you still want to have access to the controls located on the middle handle. If that is the finished design, the guys I spoke to from DJI at NAB must have been replaced with monkeys.

[webrunner5]

To be honest the whole design  looks clunky, bulky, and heavy as hell to me. But if it can hold a C200, EVA1, FS5 well it will be a hit.

[ND64]

This is the result of having direct communication with your customers (Japanese should take note), yes its bulky, but in this case bulk is not necessarily a negative thing for me.

With this developments in stabilizer industry I bet camera makers will ditch IBIS eventually. Its costly complicated mechanical thing that also exacerbates the heat issues. 

[Phil A]

1 hour ago, Eric Calabros said:

This is the result of having direct communication with your customers (Japanese should take note), yes its bulky, but in this case bulk is not necessarily a negative thing for me.

With this developments in stabilizer industry I bet camera makers will ditch IBIS eventually. Its costly complicated mechanical thing that also exacerbates the heat issues. 

I absolutely disagree about this. Most of us here are shooting video with photo cameras. I would think 9 out of 10 people buy these cameras for pictures and want the IBIS for shooting handheld in low light (slower shutter speed, lower ISO), no one will buy a gimbal stabilizer to shoot photos. Even nearly all mobile phones implemented optical image stabilization by now.

People shooting video with DSLR/MILC are a minority and out of this group, also not everyone uses a gimbal. Enthusiast forums are never representative of the real world.

[Luke Mason]

3 hours ago, Eric Calabros said:

This is the result of having direct communication with your customers (Japanese should take note), yes its bulky, but in this case bulk is not necessarily a negative thing for me.

With this developments in stabilizer industry I bet camera makers will ditch IBIS eventually. Its costly complicated mechanical thing that also exacerbates the heat issues. 

IBIS helps with micro vibrations when using gimbal.

[Turboguard]

I’ve never owned or used a gimbal. Always shot handheld or stationed. This is kind of in my price point, and my bday is coming up, so should I put in an order? But I own some Sigma Art lenses and they’re heavy and long, so worried it might not work? What do you guys think, and what are your tips for someone interested in getting his first gimbal?

[Axel]

1 hour ago, Turboguard said:

I’ve never owned or used a gimbal. Always shot handheld or stationed. This is kind of in my price point, and my bday is coming up, so should I put in an order? But I own some Sigma Art lenses and they’re heavy and long, so worried it might not work? What do you guys think, and what are your tips for someone interested in getting his first gimbal?

Long and heavy lenses are notoriously harder to balance, no matter the gimbals' maximum payload. If you choose a one-hand-gimbal, you might want to keep it lighter, if possible.  Follow my (very personal, wedding videographer owning Ronin M and Zhiyun Crane) reasoning or find your own arguments:

1. The angled roll-motor of the Ronin S doesn't obstruct the cameras' display. Now it seems that this lets you forgo an additional external monitor. But does it? Depends on whether you just need to frame the image - and that's possible even with the considerably lighter Moza or Zhiyun with the motor in front of the screen - or, other story, if you need to focus manually. Because you have no or a poor autofocus. In this case, most camera displays won't be sufficient anyway. Probably. And you needed a free hand (one-hand-gimbal literally) or someone else to pull the focus (watch the promotion video). Heavy gimbal, heavy lens, field monitor, follow focus add up to a total weight not suitable for longer shots and longer shoots.

2. What is it that you expect from gimbal shots? Majestic crane moves or buttery smooth dolly shots through empty architecture? These are possible even with heavier setups (because they run just seconds), but they require more or less the same skills a steadicam operator must have, hashtag ninja walk. Also be aware that the Ronin S also stabilizes just three axis, and that there are more:

(these flexible arms can also be added to existing gimbals, see here).

3. But there is another purpose. You can follow a person. If you consider yourself a good handheld operator, you won't need to practice an awful lot with a good gimbal, set up well (see next point). There are roughly two scenarios for a wedding: shooting static telephoto images with very long lenses, from a tripod or handheld with IBIS and OIS, and do the rest (we are talking *hours*, therefore you will learn to hate every unnecessary ounce!) with the gimbal and 24-35 mm full frame equivalent focal lengths. 50% of all footage you see in films and TV shows fall into that latter category.

4. Well set up means the gimbal will ignore little shakes (I think that's called dead zone) and smooth out your big, intentional moves. As of now, there is a limit to the speed of pans and tilts, because if you move too fast, the gimbal will of course follow, but the movement will look robotic (because that's what it is). The Ronin S advertises a 'sports mode', and again, watch the official promo:

I think this feature is the most outstanding one of this gimbal. But one has to be aware how it should be used. Shooting a staged breakdance? Fine. Documentary style (like a wedding)? I'm afraid then it was too heavy.

 

[Turboguard]

@Axel Thanks for your reply! Going to give it a better read later today but last night when I was watching footage, the “robotic” feel did put me off a bit. But that might also be the result of someone not knowing how to use it correctly, no? I might have to test one out before purchase.

[scotchtape]

The robotic movement I think can be squarely blamed on the gimbal.

From what I can see, the 90% of basecam gimbals suck at smooth movement. Maybe it's from it's origins as a stabilizer system on drones, but the motion part is very artificial, but the stabilization works.

By smooth movement, I mean watch the beginning and end of pans, tilts, or other movement.  That's where it looks robotic when it "snaps" into place, or had weird ramping.

But you can try zhiyun stuff.  I started using zhiyun crane, still using crane v2. I think their custom solution does smooth motion a lot better, so for the average person it's easier to use.

But zhiyun lacks the other featueres for useage on vehicles or fast movement, you will notice it reacts to gforces by tilting. You can test by using even 50mm and running forward, you will see the frame tilt down.

Even though I'm leaning towards preordering (I just cancelled but thinking of ordering again), I'm dreading the poor robotic movements I'm assuming they haven't tweaked out.

In regards to the heavy lenses... It really depends on what camera and why you are using it.  I don't think there's much of a point in using the sigma's unless you camera supports AFC with them, otherwise you cant keep anything in focus with shallow dof.  If you aren't using it for shallow dof, then there's no point in using a heavy f1.8 lens!

You can YouTube videos of moza air and crane 2 showing them working with sigma 18-35mm.  I don't think the 50-100 will balance though.

I had a faulty tilta g2x and it did balance a7iii and Sony GM 70-200, but because the teles are so heavy you have to rebalance if you switch lenses which I won't do during run and gun.

I'm used to gh5 and the Trinity of 7-14, 12-35 and 35-100.  You just need to slide the plate back and forth and you're good to go (not perfectly rebalanced but good enough). Unfortunately there's nothing like that for full frame (in terms of similar lens size and easy lens change on gimbal), but hopefully Tamron will make something magical happen with a lightweight 2.8 zoom tele.

My suggestion is get a used crane or crane v2 and see if it's your thing, they are so cheap now... Like I'm sure you can find one for like 200. If you find it useful then you can go from there.

[Axel]

5 hours ago, Turboguard said:

... but last night when I was watching footage, the “robotic” feel did put me off a bit. But that might also be the result of someone not knowing how to use it correctly, no?

One part is to set up a natural behavior. This EOSHD member explains it for the Zhiyun (and why you would want to choose different settings):

The second factor is the speed of pans and tilts. Too fast, and they will stop too abruptly. Not sure how this is prevented with the Ronin S. Must be a very sophisticated algorithm, ease-in, ease-out, with powerful motors.

[jonpais]

Not Ronin S, but a BTS with a bunch of their other products. Fun stuff!

 

[kye]

On 5/31/2018 at 7:47 PM, Phil A said:

This is the real deal breaker with most setups.

If I put my GH5 into a cage and add a quick release plate, it's impossible to balance on the Crane v1. It's within the weight limits but it simply doesn't allow to adjust the arms far enough to balance it.

Therefore most "will it balance?" questions in the Facebook groups are not properly answered because people just only look at the weight of the setup, not how this weight distributes for the balance (front heavy, too high, etc).

If there's spare weight capacity (and you can carry it) you could try counter-weights to get it to balance.  The guys from Moment (who make add-on lenses for mobile phones) supply counter-weights for using their lenses on phone gimbals which aren't strong enough to 'hold' the imbalanced weight.

On 6/4/2018 at 4:06 PM, Eric Calabros said:

With this developments in stabilizer industry I bet camera makers will ditch IBIS eventually. 

Completely disagree.  Hand-held is so useful.  Your argument is also that lens manufacturers will stop making IS lenses because of gimbals - IBIS and OS are slightly different implementations of the same thing.

12 hours ago, Turboguard said:

@Axel Thanks for your reply! Going to give it a better read later today but last night when I was watching footage, the “robotic” feel did put me off a bit. But that might also be the result of someone not knowing how to use it correctly, no? I might have to test one out before purchase.

Aside from adjusting the gimbal to your taste (as previously mentioned) they require a lot of practice.  You will find that there is a 'response' - you rotate it by a certain amount and it responds by following you by a certain amount.  It's like learning to drive a car, and how each car will have different 'feel' on the brake and accelerator pedals, but after a while it becomes second nature and you don't think about it.

The advice I read was to practice using it around the house by practicing transition shots going from one item to another, following a person through the house, and then circling around an object trying to keep it in the middle of the frame.  It's a bit of work but once you get the feel of it you should be able to get the kind of results you want.

[Turboguard]

Gah, I have the money, so might just pick one up. I’ll have the whole summer to practice. And at NAB they showed it with the BMPCC4K so it should work right?