In 2017 we’ve tested a lot of gimbals. Most of them are good products. They do what they are supposed to, stabilize shaky motion which is something a lot of filmmakers have dreamed about for years. Back in summer 2016 we were the first ones to test the Zhiyun Crane which by now every filmmaker has heard of but when it was just released nobody knew about this company and their gimbals. Actually no one else wanted to test it. I actually didn’t expect much of this camera stabilizer but was positively surprised. After our review went viral more and more people started to buy the stabilizer and now it’s probably the best sold one-hand gimbal.
If you haven’t seen it yet make sure to watch the review of the original Zhiyun Crane below:
So in 2017 the filmmaking world was literally flooded with a huge amount of gimbals and camera stabilizers. We still have two new gimbals we haven’t really used yet because we were busy shooting videos that don’t require stabilizers. For our commercial work which is what we do on a daily basis, we only use gimbals if necessary. Even though we use gimbals a lot for our YouTube content it doesn’t mean we do the same for our daily work. Everything should be balanced. A few years ago people were obsessed with sliders and now no one talks about them anymore but that doesn’t mean no one uses them anymore. It’s just not cool and trendy anymore. It’s the same with drones. Almost every YouTube creator and vlogger has a DJI Spark or a Mavic and because they are being used in such an enormous capacity, the viewers are used to it. They expect it but they are not as excited anymore as a few years ago when small drones just got good and affordable.
Anyway, back to the hand-held stabilizers. We made two gimbal reviews in 2017. It should have been four or even more but we simply didn’t have the time to work on these video reviews because they take quite some time to make but we’ll definitely include the new ones in a future video. The good news is that most of the newer gimbals all do a good job and pretty much have the same features as well. But that also makes it tricky to decide which one to get. We also have heard very different things from different filmmakers. Some say the newer gimbals break easily, to be specific the motors break and others say they have no issues at all. So far none of ours have had major issues so we can’t complain.
The video below features the Moza Air gimbal which is one of the cheapest stabilizers available right now:
The great thing about the Moza Air is actually that the company is updating its features constantly and it seems to be a good tool for timelapsing and hyperlapsing too which can be a huge deal if you’re not only shooting live action video.
The other gimbal we have tested is the Nebula 5100 from Filmpower which was one of the first company to make affordable one-hand gimbals.
In case you are still looking for a gimbal, below are the purchase links to B&H:
You can buy the Zhiyun Crane HERE and the updated version HERE!
You can buy the Nebula 5100 HERE!
You can buy the Moza Air HERE!