5 Reasons NOT To Shoot With A Gimbal

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5 REASONS YOU SHOULD SHOOT WITH A GIMBAL: • 5 Reasons You Should S...
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0:00 Introduction
0:29 1. Precision
3:23 2. Balancing
5:25 Nanlite
7:03 3. Movement
9:35 4. Reliability
11:09 5. Rebuilding
12:50 Conclusion
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[@malcolmt9077]

Surprised steadicam wasn’t mentioned as an alternative and differences to gimbals!

[@lifeofapotato4595]

Well because it's not consumer level knowledge and expensive tool. If you are a filmmaker that still need toknow or justify why you should use or not a gimbal by his videos then definitely you don't need to be explained about steadicam.

[@diassmaker]

It's good to see more honest and reasonable approaches towards this subject!

[@renouncreation]

I bought a gimbal two years ago and pretty much never use it now. Handheld shooting + tripod is my bread and butter now.

[@theowlfromduolingo7982]

Same, I sold mine almost two years ago.

[@smann7236]

Why??

[@renouncreation]

@@smann7236 Gimbals were getting overused from the era of DSLR filmmakers (around 2017-2021). A lot of content started looking very similar. I started to emphasize still shots and handheld more as they give a different look to film, but also because it’s timeless. People can copy each other’s gimbal movements for years and it’ll become very generic. But handheld + locked off shots will never go out of style. Also, I’ve had gimbals fail me during client shoots before. If I ever need to track movement with a subject, I’ll just use my glide cam instead. Faster to set up and I never have to worry about failures.

[@erymano467]

Thanks for sharing this video boss. You always reminds me that I wanna be a director someday, after beating this f****** depression. Honestly your content is really amazing. This is good quality, well illustrate and well explain. Hope the best for you IDC.

[@loganbfilms]

You’re gonna be there one day!

[@who2999]

I think the key thing to understand about gimbals is they're a one size fits most solution to a lot of camera movement scenarios, but they're never going to be the best solution when you need a really particular extreme. They open a ton of camera movement options on small/low budget crews but almost anything a gimbal can do can be done better with a bigger crew and more task specific rigs.

[@MockeryManor]

Agreed

[@terencemorrissey4413]

I would like to see a video on shooting with shoulder rigs.

[@C.C.Cope220]

Yes! Thank you for making this video! Honestly I came up in cinematopgrahy around 2015 when gimbals were starting to become a craze. And even back in lie, 2018 I was realizing how over reliant I was on them. (And that was before the one handed gimbals made things even easier and more versatile.) Since then I have made a concious effort to think of different ways of filming, even if they are a little more complacited or a take a few more minutes (setting up dolly tracks and the like) or simplifying things down to just a tripod. Or handheld, which can be a brilliant tool when done right. Really at this point I try to think of a gimbal like a stabilizing head, put it on a lightweight jib, or use it as the head on a dolly, or even a system like tilta’s ‘float system’ (a pseudo trinity/steadicam set up for a ronin RS gimbal) in which case I treat the gimbal like a steadicam.

[@WhySteve]

I'm looking forward to the Nanlite Project Spark! Great video, I shoot everything handheld, even if I should be using a gimbal sometimes haha.

[@christoffer886]

I've started using in-camera gyros and post-stabilizing with higher shutter speeds that I then add in motion blur in post to be much faster to work with on set and for precision. Still a bit of a work in progress but if the workflow can produce reliability for any shot, it kinda renders gimbals unnecessary except for the most extreme cases.

[@JoelCinematography]

4 years ago when I started using gimbal I was very positive but little by little I lost enthusiasm, the result is always clumsy robotic movement, even in big productions when they use an Arri Trinity. I prefer the movement of a steadycam much more and I would only use a gimbal to rig the camera to a car or something similar.

[@CritterElectronics]

Random thought: When I got my Ronin S, I wondered why the joystick wasn’t like a plane yoke. I would have preferred it if you push up for it to tilt down, and down would tilt up. Can I change that in a menu? I always thought that would be more intuitive. I know I’m Crazy, but what Sal Goodman.

[@redkittyproject]

I'm shooting dreamy sequence soon and while at first glance the smoothness of the gimble makes sense, keeping the human wobble/shake and any unexpected odd framing is more natural. Dreamy is human not smooth mechanical, so that's where I'm leaning. Gimble free.

[@JeanSebastienLEGER]

I’m mostly an handheld shooter, but I like to use them to introduce a location

[@jmalmsten]

One thing that should be noted is that a perfect gimbal really only can negate rotational movement. Positional movement is outside the range of movements that they can help with. Like walking, you still need to keep the position in space stable. So I'm a bit surprised I haven't seen many electronic gimbals mounted on steadicam vests and arms. There is of course the Ronin S. But even it has only one extra axis of movement with its single motorized arm. It would need three axis in position to really be able to have full 6 axis stabilisation. Maybe we could get Boston Dynamics to make a camera-holder for their Spot robot dog. With its arm it could be the perfect overkill, way too expensive camera rig.

[@maddogtank8425]

For me, the biggest thing that makes gimbal. So prevalent through my work is number one. They're easy of course, like if you have your camera on a gimbal. Or if you use a camera which is a gimbal, like me in the roniin four d It's super easy to just have and it's super. Easy to make small little adjustments. And you don't have to worry about where you're placing your camera being perfectly flat. If you want to do stuff like that, it just makes everything faster. Second, the usefulness of a gimbal comes in the ability to pull your audience out. To physically disconnect them from the characters because with Shakeycam, you're physically connected with them. You feel like every move. They make you make you feel like every corner or something could be behind. But nothing to me is more unsettling than a perfectly still camera. Tracking a character slowly walking in a To the left or the right, but for this sense the. Left and having them on the Leftmost third, so you can see everything behind the character. But nothing in front of them. This is especially powerful in a dark scene or a scene that's obscured by snow or fog or something, and your character is unsure of their movement. This forces the audience to look behind or look directly at the character. But nobody can see in front of the character, not even the character themselves. That's one instance. There are more like, for example, if you want to take your audience again out of the event, so let's say there's a dude and we're following him through the house now if he's super stressed out and freaking the f*** out. You probably wanna go handheld? Because of course, he's sparking the f*** out. You want to put your Audience into that character, however, if he's walking through the house and he is Happy. Why would you want to have shaky cam? On a happy person, they are content. They are even they are smooth, so no shakey However, in one of my favorite, things to do is with the ronin four d We're following tracking a subject who's happy all of a sudden. He is stressed the f*** out. I mean, he is losing his s*** It is as simple as flipping it into fpv mode and boy. You better have some muscles. Because you're gonna have to make some pretty. Erratic movements And slap on that sports mode and boy. It's handheld and it works quickly. And it allows you to transfer from this very calm serene, even steady cam. Movement to handheld instantly. Gimbals are powerful tools. They can be overeuse. However, they are often only overused because people have a tendency to either shoot everything on it or. Very rarely shoot on it. And in all reality, you should probably be shooting just as much on it as off of it. Especially if your story calls for it, happiness and sadness. And contrast with each other. But that's just me and my two cents

[@Chandler_Goodrich]

Gimbals are helpful, but they aren’t completely stable. They have their own jitter while being stable at the same time; it’s weird. But they are helpful if you can figure out how to work with it. Something I’m still learning haha. I prefer steadicam over gimbal for walking shots.

[@jakewoodrow1348]

Can you do a 3 Budget Level video for Justin Lin?

[@theowlfromduolingo7982]

Plus a gimbal needs to be charged which also means that in remote locations you can’t use it anymore of you run out of battery.

[@green856w]

I agree. Don't shoot your photos using a gimbal - I tend to get better results using a camera to shoot my photos.

[@adammonroeproductions]

Got me ye olde glidecam, get a lot of nice shots with that but your arm wants ro fall off. I also have a gimbal, but its not big enough to support my camera with a battery pack, and the pans are...lackluster at best. Wife has been forcing me to watch the Harry Potter films. Some of the early ones, half the shots are Steadicam!

[@alexbernatzky5646]

It's chu suwannapha!

[@briano6115]

..... unless you are shooting "found footage", and then all the rules are out the window :) (one reason I loathe found footage shooting)

[@NicoleSeelig]

I agree. It was worse just after Blair Witch, what with everyone trying to make movies on the cheap. Nothing wrong with shooting with a locked off camera, especially when camera movement wouldn't really contribute to telling the story. You should just certainly not end up motion sick whole watching a movie.

[@benjamin.kelley]

Sold mine a month ago. This is why the DJI 4D is such a cool camera - allowing the user ti hit a button and lock the camera into a handheld rig.

[@robertobuatti7226]

I hate it when I watch a movie and the camera shakes a lot and is not stable, for war movies like Saving Private Ryan it was needed to tell the story because war is chaotic but when filmmakers use it for other types of movies it looks unprofessional and is distracting.

[@josephasghar]

I’ve had a few gimbals and the only one I kept is the weebil s for use with a smaller camera. Picked up a used Ronin MX last week and chucked it straight in the bin. I wish they’d never been invented tbh.

[@sbcinema]

i like camcorders 🙂

[@robertruffo2134]

You can just use a mimic system and precisely control via a 2nd Op.

[@fernandooliveiralino]

I didn't like Athena at all despite some of its technical marvels. I know why now. The operator must have been chickenshit all the time about having the camera well placed and that made the actors feels a lot more constrained and stiff.

[@ETFootprints]

In the movie Monster, they used DJI Ronin4D as one of their A cams. So I'm not sure what is the context of that movie in this video.

[@CCL1603]

Yeah, its literally comparing shots from Monster with the gimbal and shots from Monster that are on a tripod. In some of the examples theres even a little picture of the operator with the camera so you can tell which is which.

[@The_CGA]

Did you know? You can put a gimbal onto a tripod and use it as a fluid head in a pinch

[@christykail3314]

@@The_CGAI worked on a film where the camera (Alexa Mini) basically never left the Ronin. Plenty of tripod/dolly shots, but the Ronin always sat on top and acted as a kind of remote head.

[@jeromelightbody5155]

I disagree

[@werlism7763]

멍청한 소리

[@OSKVIDCreativemedia]

My all lenses are same wight, no need to adjust gimbal, so this tip is false!