I have reviewed a lot of different gimbals over the time and they were great. However, they could be only used either with the phone or with an action camera and I sometimes ended up carrying two gimbals.The Zhiyun Crane M is the most versatile gimbal I’ve ever had. You can use it with a compact mirrorless camera, smartphone or any action camera. Learn more in the full Zhiyun Crane M review.

VIDEO REVIEW

UNBOXING

What is awesome is that the gimbal comes in a high-quality travel case where all the items are packed neatly.

Besides the gimbal, you get the USB cable, a carrying strap, USB charger with 2 batteries and depending on where you buy this gimbal, you may also get a mini tripod or some other accessories.

DESIGN and FEATURES

Since the Crane M is designed for many different cameras, it is a bit larger and heavier than e.g. Zhiyun Smooth 3 or Smooth Q gimbals that I have reviewed before. However, it is still quite compact but your hand may get tired after a while since the gimbal weighs 740g.

As usual to Zhiyun’s products, the build quality is top-notch. The gimbal is made entirely of metal, there are no plastic parts except for the buttons, which are clicky and don’t seem to break anytime soon.

In order to start using the gimbal, you have to mount your camera using the 1/4 screw, which is a standard size for most of the cameras. It is very important to balance the gimbal by adjusting the extendable axis on each side. It takes less than a minute to do that and you are good to go. I used the gimbal with my Panasonic G7 with 25mm prime lens and it works just great since gimbal has the max. load capacity of 650g.

You can also use the Crane M with any smartphone with the supplied cradle or any other camera as long as you are not over the load capacity limit. Even though the minimum load is 125g, I found the stabilizer to be working fine with a super light YI 4K action camera.

The ability to use any camera is the key selling point of the Crane M, in my opinion. As I said, I love filming with my phone or action camera but I don’t want to carry different gimbals. I think that the Crane M is a perfect solution for my needs.

This stabilizer has the same control system like any other gimbal made by the company. The mode button allows you to switch from one mode to another.

The default mode is called the pan following mode and I used it most of the time. If you press the mode button once, the gimbal will enter the locking mode, which is great for smooth pan or tilt shots if you want to film a particular object.

If you press the mode button twice, you will enter the pan and pitch following mode, where the gimbal moves towards the direction you point the camera to.  This mode works pretty well too. Even if you move the gimbal quickly, you will get a smooth shot since all the axes move slowly. The last mode is the selfie mode and it is triggered by pressing the mode button 3 times.

You can also control the gimbal manually using the joystick and I found this feature to work great. However, I suggest you reducing the pan and tilt speeds in the app to get those nice slow cinematic shots. Honestly, I think that this gimbal can replace a tripod and fluid head if you are on the go and don’t want to carry all your heavy camera supports if you need to take just a few shots.

The 1/4 screw mount allows you to attach the gimbal to all sorts of accessories like tripods.

You can also control the gimbal with a remote control, which is sold separately. If you don’t want to spend the extra cash, you can control it using your phone via the Bluetooth, which is awesome if you want to avoid any shakiness in those slow pan ant tilt shots.

I love that both pan and tilt axis can rotate 360 degrees, so you can use the camera in any position you want. That’s a huge advantage over some smaller gimbals I’ve tested.

If you plan to use the Crane M with a phone, make sure to download the ZY Play app that allows you to take a full advantage of the control buttons. Obviously, you can take pictures or shoot videos, switch from the main to the front-facing camera and so on. You can also zoom in and out but I wish zooming was a bit smoother.

You can also adjust the gimbal speed settings, change the resolution, set the timer or use a manual mode. However, it is really frustrating that this app does not allow you to shoot in 4k for some reason but I was told that the application will be updated soon.

IMAGE QUALITY

Like any other Zhiyun gimbal, the Crane M does an excellent job reducing the shakiness as the footage looks stunning if you use the gimbal while walking or even running. The video looks really smooth either if I used the device with a camera or with a smartphone or with my action camera. Well, the footage may look a bit shaky under extremely windy weather conditions but that is the case with every gimbal I’ve tested.

BATTERY LIFE

The Crane M is powered by two 3600mAh replaceable batteries that allow you to use the gimbal for up to 12 hours, which is a very good result.

However, if you use the Crance M with a mirrorless camera, you should expect about 10-11 hours of battery life.

A dedicated USB charger can fully charge the batteries in just a few hours but you can also charge them directly via the gimbal’s micro USB port.

CONCLUSIONS

I was impressed by the performance and overall feature set of the Zhiyun Crane M and I think it will be the only gimbal that I will be using now since it supports my Panasonic G7 camera, any smartphones or action cameras.

Well, the gimbal could be a little lighter but I prefer sturdy all-metal build instead of the plastic one. Also, I hope the ZY Play app will have the 4k video recording feature soon.

All in all, I still find the Zhiyun Crane M to be a great gimbal for my work as I can use it with each camera or smartphone that I have. For the price of under $400, I can easily recommend it as this is my go-to gimbal for more than a month.

The post My Most Favorite Camera Stabilizer – Zhiyun Crane M Review appeared first on Gizmochina.

I have reviewed quite a few smartphone and action camera gimbals over the time and | can tell you that they have become one of my favorite gadgets that allow me to shoot professional looking videos. The Zhiyun-Tech Smooth III is by far the best smartphone gimbal we have ever tested. Learn more in our full Zhiyun Smooth 3 review.

Check out Zhiyun’s YouTube channel

VIDEO REVIEW

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWrz3l8FgA0[/embedyt]

UNBOXING

The gimbal ships with some paperwork, a charging cable and a strap that can be attached to a high-quality gimbal case that I found to be really handy once I’m on the go.

DESIGN and FEATURES

The gimbal is made entirely of metal and it just screams quality. Everything is precisely assembled and it is really comfortable to hold it in one hand. Also, I love those those red accents that make the gimbal match with my Manfrotto camera supports.

The Smooth III is thicker and a bit heavier than the previous generation Smooth II gimbal but it looks less bulky than the budget Smooth Q.

If you want to start using it, you just have slide your phone in, make sure it sits nice and tight, press the power button for a few seconds and you are good to go.

It’s worth mentioning that the Smooth III has a built-in counterweight system, meaning that you don’t need to use any counterweights like on some other gimbals. There is an extendable axis to balance the gimbal by just one step.

The gimbal holds the phone in landscape mode, which is the mode I used most of the time. If you want to use the phone vertically e.g. for some live streaming services, you simply need to unscrew the screw holding the phone cradle to change the position. That is a huge upgrade over some other gimbals like the Smooth II since you don’t need to buy any extra accessories.

In fact, I used to vertical mode to mount my action camera even though this gimbal is designed for smartphones. I can’t say it worked perfectly once I started moving the gimbal but it can get the job done for some shots. Anyway, you can buy an action camera plate to make the gimbal work perfectly with action cameras.

There are a few control buttons on the gimbal that are clicky and tactile. The mode button allows you to switch from one mode to another.

The default mode is called the pan following mode and I used it most of the time. If you press the mode button once, the gimbal will enter the locking mode, which is great for smooth pan or tilt shots if you want to film a particular object. If you press the mode button twice, you will enter the pan and pitch following mode, where the gimbal moves towards the direction you point the camera to.  This mode works pretty well too. Even if you move the gimbal quickly, you will get a smooth shot since all the axes move slowly. The last mode is the selfie mode and it is triggered by pressing the mode button 3 times.

 You can also control the gimbal manually using the joystick and I found this feature to work great. However, I suggest you reducing the pan and tilt speeds in the app to get those nice slow cinematic shots.

You can use the gimbal either with your stock camera app or with the ZY Play app that is an upgraded version of the Zhiyun Assistant app, and control the phone over the Bluetooth using the buttons.

Obviously, you can take pictures or shoot videos, switch from the main to the front-facing camera and so on. Also, the rotating wheel is really cool once you want to zoom in or out quite smoothly. Also, the ZY Play apps offers some new cool features like a time-lapse, slow-motion, long exposure or panorama modes. You can also use an object tracking feature, which works quite well with moving objects. See the video review for a more detailed look at the camera app. 

I have to tell you that the footage looks just stunning as I was simply walking normally and I didn’t try to hold my hands steadily at all but the video still looks very smooth.

We made a quick comparison how the 4k video from my Samsung Galaxy S8 looks with the gimbal and without the gimbal while I’m climbing up and down the stairs. The difference was pretty obvious. I remember that the Smooth II gimbal started wobbling a little bit under very strong wind but the Smooth III now has 40% stronger motors and the gimbal works just fine even on a very windy day. That is really impressive.

I remember that the Smooth II gimbal started wobbling a little bit under very strong wind but the Smooth III now has 40% stronger motors and the gimbal works just fine even on a very windy day. That is really impressive. See the video review for video samples.

What I love is that the phone stays firmrly in the gimbal no matter how hard you move it, so you wont end up breaking your device.  Also, the Smooth III is very silent since it uses brushless motors.

The 1/4 screw mount on the bottom of the gimbal allows you to attach the gimbal to all sorts of accessories like tripods. What I love about the Smooth III is that it can stay vertically without any tripods.

BATTERY LIFE

The Zhiyun Smooth III has a replaceable 4600mAh battery that performs just great. The official claims are about 14 hours of continuous use and I can assure you that I was able to achieve similar results. That means that you won’t need to charge the battery very often.

Speaking of charging, it takes about 3 hours to fully charge the gimbal. One of my favourite features of the Smooth III is that you can charge your phone from the gimbal. However, you need to use the microUSB to microUSB cable, which is sold separately and the charging speeds are just 1A.

CONCLUSIONS

The Zhiyun Smooth 3 is by far the best smartphone gimbal I have ever tested. I’ve used it for about a month and it has been working absolutely fine. I love that it looks and feels premium, it has a ton of features and most importantly it stabilizes the video very well even under poor weather conditions.

The main shortcoming would be that there is no microUSB to microUSB cable included in the packaging, so you would need to buy it separately.

At the end of the day, the price of about $300 may sound steep for some but the Zhiyun Smooth III has everything to be called a great smartphone gimbal and thus, I can easily recommend it.

The post Zhiyun Smooth 3 Review – The New Best Smartphone Stabilizer of 2017! appeared first on Gizmochina.