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Zhiyun Crane-2

How To perfectly balance a Black Magic 4k on a Zhiyun Crane 2

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This is about ten-minute read where we dive into all the dos and dons approaching a gimbal and balancing. If you’re interested in how to balance your gimbal as fast as possible jump to the actual balance process section towards the end.

When the P4K first hit customers hands, there was a borderline backlash in the forums. Proud owners of their new camera were disappointed to find out they couldn’t mount their cameras onto their Crane 2 gimbals. At first glance, it seems borderline irrelevant to even want to balance such a powerful camera on a gimbal that has been updated already to its big brother, the Crane Lab 3, but there are a lot of advantages to being able to take up less space and carry less weight (especially if you don’t need the extra weight).

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How to set up the DJI Ronin-S on a Steadicam with the Steadimate-S

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A few months ago, Steadicam announced the Steadimate S. It’s a device to attach your DJI Ronin-S or Zhiyun Crane 2 to a Steadicam arm and vest system. Steadicam was exhibiting at IBC 2019, so we paid them a visit to find out how it all works, how to set it up and why you might want to use one.

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Here is the gear we use to cover trade shows like IBC

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With the many tradeshows we cover, a constant question that comes up is what gear we are using to cover each show and why. Some of the gear has been with us for a long time and some of it changes as we go. For now, though, this is the optimal setup we use to cover tradeshows.

Starting with probably what is our first decision when we plan our coverage is the camera. We have grown quite fond of the Black Magic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K (or BMPCC4K). The footage quality is great and the low light performance are fantastic, especially when it comes to shooting on the tradeshow floor were light can be pretty unpredictable.

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The Steadicam Steadimate-S helps stop that annoying bounce in your DJI Ronin-S gimbal shots

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I couldn’t not have a gimbal in my filmmaking toolkit now. I don’t always use it, but when I need it, there’s really no other substitute. They’re quick to set up, and if you’re moving around a lot, especially over rough terrain, they help you to get a pretty stable shot very easily. But they have one big problem. Z bounce.

It’s not so much a design flaw with the gimbal, but the inherent structure of humans. People naturally bounce up and down when we walk, and so does anything we’re holding. It’s referred to as the Z-axis or 4th-axis bounce. And Steadicam has a solution to help eliminate it!

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DIYP reviews the Zhiyun Crane 2 motorised 3-axis gimbal stabiliser

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Ever since I got to play with the original Zhiyun Crane at Photokina 2016 I’ve wanted to put one of these things to work and see how it handles. I’ve used a number of smaller gimbals for phones, but the ability to load up a DSLR or mirrorless camera offers huge benefits. I almost never invest in the first generation of anything, but then they released the Zhiyun Crane 2.

GearBest got in touch with us to see if we wanted to check one out for ourselves and how it might help with the content we create here on DIYP. With The Photography Show and other events coming up where we need to shoot video, it seemed like a great opportunity to give it a good workout and really put it through its paces. But it’s quickly become one of my favourite video creation tools.

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Zhiyun announce new Crane Plus 3-axis gimbal and tease mechanical follow focus unit

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Zhiyun have officially announced the new Zhiyun Crane Plus motorised 3-axis gimbal for mirrorless and DSLR cameras. Technically, this should be called the Crane V3 as it’s being billed as a replacement for the Zhiyun Crane V2, not to be confused with the Crane 2 (review here). Perhaps the new name is to help prevent more confusion going forward.

Anyway, with an increased load and several new features, it’s a nice little upgrade over the V2 for virtually the same price that the V2 would’ve cost you a couple of weeks ago. It doesn’t have the follow focus dial of the Crane 2, but we’ll get to that.

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Zhiyun’s new Crane-2 gimbal features 7lb load capacity and remote follow focus

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Well, this is pretty awesome news. Zhiyun have updated its 3-axis motorised handheld gimbal for DSLRs & mirrorless. To be clear, this is the “Crane-2”, it is not “Crane v2”, which is a revision of the original Crane. I know, it’s confusing, but that’s what it is.

Zhiyun have doubled the load capacity with the new Crane-2 to a whopping 7lbs. They’ve also added an integrated follow focus control, an OLED display, and battery life has increased from 12 to 18 hours.

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