Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Budget DSLR Gimbals – Are They Any good?”.
Hey, what’s up folks how’s it going. This is waj hope you guys are all doing well and in this article we’re going to be talking about camera stabilization, gimbals uh, specifically for your dslr or mirrorless camera. What we have over here is the vueflex tarzan m. It’S an active three axis gimbal and it comes at a pretty significantly lower price tag than a lot of other active stabilization.
Three access gimbals that you’re going to find from many of the big reputable companies uh. Now what we want to find out is uh. Is there any compromise with a budget oriented gimbal that you’re going to find online on amazon or anywhere else? So let’s actually take a look at this.
One specifically see what the pros and cons are and see if it’s going to be ultimately right for you now. Firstly, let’s start with the overall build quality of the viewflex tarzan m. I would have to say that, generally speaking, it’s definitely not too bad, mostly metal construction, uh, there’s some plastic overall buttons, but nothing to really overall complain about. It feels very sturdy.
All the adjustment arms for the gimbal are very nicely laid out. It can actually support up to 2500 grams or 2.5 kilograms and about five pounds. I have it loaded with a full dslr camera, it’s the old 60d and a 50 millimeter lens. Probably not the best configuration out there, but just to give you guys an example, because i’m filming with my panasonic g7 and that’s primarily the camera that i use to do all my test footage with now uh. Generally speaking, we have it disabled right now, but when you set up any kind of gimbal system, you actually want to have a natural state of balance. So when you do turn it on everything is nice and stable and we can actually turn it on right now and boom. There is your stabilization system ready to rock and roll now. You can also calibrate the system on a level surface to make sure everything is in line in a single plane and there’s a couple of different follow modes that we’ll also go over as well.
Now the gimbal itself is comprised of three brushless motors that controls for both pitch yaw and roll and uh. The operation of these motors are pretty much near silent, so it’s perfect for really any kind of filming environment. I’M actually filming it with it right now and you can probably not hear a thing now in terms of controls. You have a single power button, a uh four-way, a joystick controller, as well as a set or function button. That’S going to switch between different modes and different functionalities. You also have a zoom, a dial over here, which is going to actually be compatible with only certain type of sony cameras which is going to control for things like focus and taking photos and even zooming in and out. If you have a powered lens for that, i haven’t tested that, because i don’t have a sony camera that works with this thing. At this point now, this gimbal is actually powered by two 20 60 650 batteries, which gives it a capacity about 4 000 milliamp hours, and it’s actually rated for about 10 hours of straight usage. But in realistic terms, you’re going to get anywhere between four and a half to around six hours, based on my experience, which is pretty much fine for most shoots that are going to typically last a couple of hours now in terms of the setup process. It’S actually relatively simple: uh, there’s a quarter inch amount at the bottom of the base plate and there’s a free screw that you just can screw your camera directly onto the base plate or you can have even a quick release system.
If you want to have easy access to your camera now, as we mentioned before, to get the best results, you want to make sure you have a natural state of balance before even turning on the gimbal so make sure your arms are adjusted accordingly and you want To make sure that your camera is nicely tightly fastened onto the base plate, or else you’re going to get some pretty ugly, looking footage like you’re seeing over here now, you can operate the gimbal in a couple of different ways: four modes, specifically, if you tap the Set button about four times, you’re going to enter into 360 mode, which you’re seeing right over here, which the camera is just going to rotate at 360 degrees and give you that video footage and it’s going to basically stabilize if there’s any changes. This is great if you’re going to mount it on a tripod or something like that, if you uh double tap the set button you’re going to enter into the different modes, which is the fully locked mode which you’re seeing over here, that means that, whatever i do, Uh, whether i go forward backwards side to side, the camera is basically gon na, be fixated on a single point and it’s gon na be level to the ground. If you put it in um, the half follow mode. Essentially, what it’s going to do is keep the plane level with the ground itself, but you can turn the operation of the camera with the handle and it will follow along with that.
One thing important to note is: if you do turn the hand off quicker, the gimbal does a quicker movement if you’re more slower, with your movements it’s going to adjust accordingly. Unfortunately, there’s no hard and set way to kind of control the speed and responsiveness of that gimbal. It’S pretty much following the operation of the handle. Now, if you put it into a full, follow mode now, what we’re going to do is if we change the angle of the gimbal handle itself, it’s going to follow accordingly, as you’re seeing over here and, of course, it’s going to turn with the handle.
So this is great for a full follow mode setup where you don’t need to be all level to the ground all the time. You can certainly use these modes in a couple of different ways, depending upon what kind of shot you’re going for. So that’s pretty versatile and they work pretty well more or less now in terms of the performance that you’re going to get with tarzan m as you’re. Looking at some of the footage over here, you can see that it’s relatively smooth and consistent there’s.
Definitely some skill involved with the operator moving as smoothly and as fluidly as possible, and once you get a little bit more practice in moving more smoothly and efficiently you’re going to notice that your footage looks better and better. So, there’s definitely some skill involved even with a system like this. That being said, i would have to overall say that the footage is certainly not earth shattering. In most cases, this is just a tiny step up of what you’re going to get with a smartphone stabilization.
Gimbal something like the osmo mobile that we tested out from dji a couple of years ago. You can get some pretty similar, looking results, especially if you’re looking at more of a wide angle. Uh perspective base shaw, you’re, going to not get to see a huge difference between a system like this and a mobile system, and in fact, in a lot of cases, i think the setup process and the overall uh ease of use on the mobile platform is certainly More accessible and can certainly be passable depending upon what kind of project you’re working on and now, certainly, if you’re, more uh looking into that cinematic look with shallow depth of field and different lens selections. This will definitely give you more that versatility and give you a little bit more of a professional edge but again you’re not going to get earth shattering results and it’s still not going to compete with some of the higher-end gimbal systems that you’re going to find out There for more established based companies, but factoring in the price tag.
There’S nothing really to complain about, and certainly with a little bit more practice, i’m sure you can pull off some pretty impressive. Looking footage now, one accessory that may help you achieve more smoother. Looking shots is uh that double handle attachment for the tarzan m i’ll, have a link to that attachment in the description down below you can also buy another remote uh, certainly with the double handle attachment you’re going to get a little bit more of a rock solid Basis for the operator – and it’s probably going to result in smoother, looking footage and with the extra remote control you can remotely control the gimbal movements, which is going to be a little bit more ideal. If you’re, maybe using the system on a motorized dolly or on a jib or something like that, so uh by the way there is a quarter inch attachment at the bottom of the handle. So you can definitely attach this to a whole bunch of different camera rigging configurations, which is pretty cool. But really besides that, i would say that the tarzan m is certainly definitely looking into if you’re on a particular budget and uh.
Sometimes even the rental cost of some of these more expensive, uh stabilization, gimbals uh, could certainly even outweigh the cost of the entire unit itself. So something definitely to consider. If you have any specific questions, let me know check out the description down below for all the links and details about everything we talked about. Thanks for your support, thanks for watching and we’ll see, you later take care. .