As
more and more people take videos on their phones or cameras and post them
online, the issue of “anti-shaking” has been a public concern. Thus, the
portable and anti-shaking three-axis stabilizer, as a black technology, becomes
known to the public gradually which is also a milestone of the film and
television industry.
Currently,
the three most popular portable electronic stabilizer brands among global video
fans are Feiyu a2000, Zhiyun Crane 2 and DJI Ronin series. However, when it
comes to purchase, the DJI Ronin series will only be put on the professional
team’s procurement list despite its excellent performance.
Many
photographers always have no ideas how to choose a general as well as
professional stabilizer. As a shutterbug, now I will share my experience of
purchase and feelings on trial periods from which I hope you can know more
about three-axis stabilizers.
Experience one: The
load-bearing performance is the most important factor, not the loading
capacity.
To
be honest, when choosing a suitable three-axis stabilizers, loading capacity is
an essential part but not the only one. Stabilizers’ features of stable,
anti-shaking, mobile and flexible which are the public concern after all, should
be considered in an integrated way.
At
present, in the field of shooting short videos, the major equipment is welcomed
by users including but not limited to SONY compact camera and RX100 series;
Canon 5D series/200; Panasonic GH4/GH5; Gopro and other motion cameras. In
practice, after numerous matches between photographic accessories and lenses,
the maximum weight will be about 2,000g.
Besides,
because most people buy the three-axis stabilizers for holding their own
portable photographic equipment, the two most important aspects of the
stabilizers we should consider seriously are its portability and flexibility,
not its bearing capacity.
Some people may oppose that when doing dolly shot with a SLR camera and a EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM lens (about 2,000g), it is necessary to take into account the bearing capacity.
In
my opinion, if you like to take short videos with telephoto lenses, I recommend
you DJI Ronin series and mechanical Steadicam. Just imagine: what it would be
like if you take trip shots or snapshots with a 5-jin or more and a gigantic
stabilizer.
Back
to the topic, my equipment is a SONY A7S+24-70MM lens and a SONY A6300.
Recently, I have bought two new types of three-axis stabilizer: Zhiyun Crane 2
held with single hand and the suit edition of Feiyu a2000 which don’t have
great differences in price.
I
personally think their bearing capacities are excellent. How about the
load-bearing performance? Let’s see it.
Test:
Put the SONY A6300 on Feiyu a2000
Test
1: Put the SONY A6300 on Zhiyun Crane 2
Test
2: Put the SONY A6300 on Zhiyun Crane 2
I
can’t believe such mistakes will happen to Crane 2. Let’s find out the reasons.
Experience two: It’s very
important to level the stabilizer.
The
first step to use three-axis stabilizer correctly is leveling.
Leveling
means adjusting the three-axis stabilizer to a horizontal position before
powering on. Therefore, the stabilizer can keep a minimum load when the
electric machine is in balance, ensuring that it can operate in a sound and
fluent way. More importantly, the energy conservation and the durability can be
improved in that way.
I
am sorry that I level a2000 by myself without the instruction.
As
for the leveling sets, I think the tense damping should be upgraded.
Next
is the leveling of Crane 2. To be honest, I am very familiar with the damping
when installing the camera. But there are two bugs. The first one is the flat
design of a quarter screws on the quick shoe which makes it difficult to fix
camera without tools, like coins. The second one is the tightening wrench on
the side of the quick shoe is too long. Consequently, the anteroposterior position can’t be regulated in an easy
way..
It
is the cause that the stabilizer Crane 2 can not be leveled completely.
I
hope you can attain great importance to this issue because it leads to
overloading operations of Crane 2 pitch axis motor for leveling the camera. After
powering on in ten minutes, the temperature of the stabilizer itself surprisingly
increased by 58°C at which you can fry eggs and the electricity consumption was
more than half.
Then
when I was taking the videos stably, the stabilizer stopped working
intermittently because of the overheating electric machine. I can’t believe
that.
Experience three: Nikon,
Panasonic and SONY don't work in terms of integrated focusing.
In
fact, I am expecting Crane 2. The main reason I bought Crane 2 is its
distinctive function--manual focus when taking videos which Zhiyun Tech has mentioned
many times.
The
reason why I pay such attention to the function of focus is sometimes we need
to regulate the focus slightly.
Now,
Feiyu a2000 is only equipped with the function of assist focus which actually
is useful.
Crane
2 is useless when holding a SONY compact camera, following focus and regulating
the shutter speed and the aperture size.
I
have consulted the customer service staff, but she just told me the regulation
of the integrated focus, aperture and shutter is only available to Canon
cameras’ automatic lenses. I think it’s unfair.
I
fetched out my old Canon camera and performed its function of integrated focus.
In my opinion, the following focus of Crane 2 is inspired by the manual focus of
Canon cameras’ lenses. I personally think such professional function won’t be
commonly used if you are not a film and television photographer.
But
it’s a good solution to the slow focus of some Canon cameras. It’s also useful
to take some out-of-focus images. Now, you should have a Canon camera.
All
I want to say is that a good stabilizer is mobile, stable and anti-shaking
while a better one will have some other functions, like follow focus and
control of focus. Thus, if you want to buy a stabilizer, please don’t follow
anyone like sheep.
Finally,
here is a piece of video shot by me in a concert which shows the actual
performance of the stabilizer.
Equipment
used: SONY A7s + 24-70mm Carl Zeiss lenses, Feiyu a2000 stabilizer, Aiken
monitor, Rhodes microphone and Eagle head lamp
