Feiyu a2000 VS Zhiyun Crane 2

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