Stabilens means never rebalancing your gimbal when you swap lenses

One of the big issues with motorised 3-axis gimbals is that you have to balance them. And if you’re regularly changing lenses while you shoot, that means you could rebalancing them a whole lot during the course of your day. Zac Miller at Stabilens thinks he’s figured out a solution to this problem. We caught up with Zac at PhotoPlus 2019 to see his solution.

The Stabilens is essentially a weighted ring that goes around your lens, acting as a counterbalance so that you can get the same centre of gravity with multiple setups. This way when you swap your lenses, you don’t have to rebalance your gimbal at all. You just take one lens off, put another one on, and carry on as you were.

The expandable ring holds up to 20 weights, allowing you to add up to about half a pound of weight to your lens. It stretches to fit any lens between 58mm and 100mm, although a larger version for broadcast lenses is expected in the future.

You don’t have to add all that weight, though. In a handheld gimbal, keeping things as light as possible is often key, especially on a long day. So, you can easily remove weights and have the ring further out towards the end of the lens to keep that balance where required.

It’s an interesting solution to the problem, for those that face it. But is the extra weight worth the time saved?

A final price for the Stabilens has not yet been determined, but it is expected to be available for pre-order through the Stabilens website in the next month or so.

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