- One of the great things about the videos in our library is the incredible production value. Behind the camera right now is Jacob Cunningham, who's been the director on all of my videos, and he's amazing with a handheld camera. You might be thinking, "Wow, actually, this footage "I'm seeing right now is really amazing, he's so smooth, "in fact, he's smooth even as that guy's movin' around, "even as he's gettin' really weird, the camera "is staying smooth," now, some of that is to Jacob's credit, but I would say more of it, sorry, Jacob, in this case, is due to the fact that he's using a handheld gimbal that's beefy enough to support a mirrorless camera or an SLR, but still provides a full, I can't lose him, I'm tryin' to shake him, still provides a full, Steadicam-like environment, which allows you to get these incredibly smooth tracking shots with a piece of equipment that's cheaper than has ever been possible before.
This is the Beholder DS1 3-axis gimbal, I currently have mounted on it a Fuji X-T2 mirrorless camera. Gimbals are ranked and categorized by the amount of weight they can bear, just like a tripod, and this gimbal can hold a decent-sized camera, I can't remember, around three and a half to four pounds, I think, that's enough to hold a mirrorless camera, or a smaller SLR, like a Rebel, or a 1000 series Nikon. Depending on what lens you put on it, you may have more or less trouble getting your particular camera to work on this rig, however, Beholder sells other gimbals at larger and smaller sizes, you can probably find one to fit whatever SLR or mirrorless camera you have.
I'm going to turn it on now so you can see it in action. This is with the camera mounted on it, the gimbal's not actually doing anything, and already you can see that it, it kind of hangs there, but as I move it around, the camera's not being stabilized. If I power it up... (beeping) It makes that noise, and the camera just leveled off. Now, what's cool is, no matter how I move it around, the bottom of the camera stays parallel to the floor, and the camera does not tilt forward or back.
I can go up and down, left and right, everything that you saw Jacob doing earlier, all that smoothness was coming from the gimbal. What's really nice about the way this is designed is that when it comes time to do a camera movement, I can kind of lead the camera, so I'm going to tilt the gimbal's handle to the left, and after a moment, the camera follows, same thing going to the right. If I want to tilt down, I tilt it down, and the camera follows. The reason for that lag is that when I'm moving around, it allows me, it's difficult to explain, but it allows me to kind of lead the camera into the movement that I want and lead it back out of the movement.
I can do these very nice smooth eases and, eases in and eases out, it takes a little practice, but after a while, I've found that I can do pretty sophisticated, very smooth movements around kind of very particular choreography. I also have a little joystick on the camera, and this varies from gimbal model to gimbal model. If I move the joystick to the left or right, I can actually just pan or tilt, so when I'm just standing still, I can actually refine my shot here without having to trick the camera into moving.
So I'm really impressed with this setup, now, the gimbal has several different modes, I can turn off the kind of auto tracking thing so that I can only drive it with the gimbal, but this is the default mechanism, and I really feel like it's the best way to do it, with practice, as I said, you can do very sophisticated camera movements. Now, if you go online and look up this gimbal, you might find some people complaining about the setup. So I'm going to turn this off. And with the gimbal off, notice that the camera is still balanced along this axis and it's balanced this way, it's sitting pretty much where I would want it.
That's because I spend a good amount of time getting it properly positioned. If you look on the gimbal, you'll see all of these little gold knobs, there's two here, there's one here, there are two back here, there are two right here. These allow you to balance the camera. I'll just throw it out of whack here on one axis. I'm going to loosen these. I never can remember which way is loose. I mean, I know, you know, righty tighty, lefty loosey, but it's hard to know what that's relative to. So, there we go, if I loosen some of these up, and move the camera, I can throw the balance out of whack, so before you can do anything with this gimbal, you've got to get your camera on it, and you've got to get it balanced into that position that I was showing you.
So, this is not balanced. Where I had it before was, however, where I had it before was balanced for this lens, at this focal length. If I extend the lens too far, it'll go out of whack. If I open up the LCD screen, it'll go out of whack, so you've really got to get it all set up for the way you want. Now, as I said, if you go look at some reviews, you'll see people saying, "Ugh, it's too hard to get "it set up, this is unusable, I had to return it." Those people weren't patient enough, it doesn't take that much practice to figure out how to quickly get the camera on here and get it usable.
What's more, if you're always using the same camera and the same lens, most of the axes are going to stay the same from usage to usage, the only thing you're going to have to do is adjust this. This is easy enough to get going that I recently used it on a trip in Africa and was getting the camera onto the gimbal while in a bouncy land rover driving through the Bush, I was able to get this set up, so I would say don't believe complaints that this is too difficult to get configured. Also, Beholder has some nice YouTube videos online that walk you through the entire process.
What's great about this setup over something like an Osmo, or some of the little action cameras that have gimbals is that I've got a Fuji X-T2 on here. This is a 4K camera with an APS-C sized sensor and interchangeable lenses, I can get extremely good video quality out of this, so I'm not having to compromise the video quality that I get out of my SLR or my mirrorless camera if I want this kind of, if I want a gimbal, so again, it's shocking that this technology is down to the point where I can buy something that will stabilize my camera this well for somewhere between 500 and 750 dollars.
Your price is going to vary depending on which gimbal you need, and it's also going to vary because this gimbal seems to be branded under a couple of different names, if you go to Amazon, you're going to see it listed under Ikan, I-K-A-N, you're also going to see it listed under Beholder, the prices vary from one to the other. I don't know if that's just because they've packaged it in different ways at different times and changed the price or what, but shop around a little bit and you should find this down as low as 550 bucks, at least at the time of this shooting. Personally, I think that's a steal for what a good job this does of stabilizing.
Another cool thing about this is I can flip this around so that the camera can be held down low. It will hang from the gimbal, that allows me to do these cool shots down low to the ground, shooting animals, shooting people's feet while they're walking, or just generally getting a different vantage point. Sometimes even when I'm working up high, I prefer to have the camera hanging low, depending on the type of movement that I'm going to do. It's easier for me to walk really fast or even run with it hanging down, rather than trying to hold it up, so that's another configuration that you can use that buys you a little more flexibility.
As with any piece of gear, this is going to take practice, you're going to get better at it the more you use it, but I think you will find that, for this 550 dollars, you're getting, in some cases, a replacement for a jib or a slider or a crane or any number of other pieces of gear, in this case, I'm just replacing Jacob. No, I could never replace Jacob, it's not that good, but still, it's really amazing for the price, if you do any video work at all, particularly any video work involving a lot of camera movements, you should definitely look into some kind of motorized 3-axis gimbal for your camera.
Author
Updated
12/23/2020Released
5/19/2013Skill Level Beginner
Duration
Views
Q: Why can't I earn a Certificate of Completion for this course?
A: We publish a new tutorial or tutorials for this course on a regular basis. We are unable to offer a Certificate of Completion because it is an ever-evolving course that is not designed to be completed. Check back often for new movies.
Related Courses
-
Photography Foundations: Composition
with Ben Long5h 29m Intermediate -
The DIY Photographer
with Joseph "PhotoJoseph" Linaschke2h 39m Intermediate -
Photo Tools Weekly
with Chris Orwig26h 18m Intermediate
-
The Practicing Photographer - New This Week
-
16-bit in Photoshop6m 23s
-
-
Introduction
-
Previous Episodes
-
Choosing a camera5m 27s
-
Let your lens reshape you7m 26s
-
Working with reflections1m 26s
-
Exploring mirrorless cameras7m 25s
-
Using a tripod3m 33s
-
Wildlife and staying present5m 58s
-
Why Shoot Polaroid11m 12s
-
Seizing an opportunity4m 4s
-
Shooting wildlife7m 24s
-
Using a lens hood4m 48s
-
Working with themes2m 48s
-
Setting up an HDR time lapse7m 55s
-
Processing an HDR time lapse7m 55s
-
Scanning Photos5m 37s
-
Jpeg iPad import process3m 17s
-
Warming up3m 26s
-
Taking a panning action shot10m 17s
-
Shooting a silhouette3m 9s
-
Using Lightroom on the road6m 28s
-
Shooting level2m 42s
-
Photoshop and Automator8m 54s
-
Softboxes vs. umbrellas2m 55s
-
Working with hair in post3m 28s
-
Exploring how to use Bokeh5m 38s
-
Shooting stills from a drone6m 57s
-
Working with models2m 40s
-
Tips for shooting panoramas7m 16s
-
Dry sensor cleaning6m 23s
-
Composing in the center2m 48s
-
Vignetting9m 56s
-
Inspire3m 29s
-
Minimizing camera baggage4m 24s
-
Working without a tripod4m 11s
-
Printer options6m 51s
-
Exploring lo-fi printing options11m 58s
-
IOS macro photography gear12m 25s
-
IR Conversion Part 27m 27s
-
Raw editing in Lightroom mobile10m 35s
-
Shooting a macro insect shot13m 5s
-
A brief history of photography12m 19s
-
Shooting with a Petzval lens9m 49s
-
What is a low-pass filter?4m 35s
-
Teleconverters and lenses5m 12s
-
Media card care7m 19s
-
Dual slot4m 2s
-
Exploring smart previews9m 12s
-
Flying and photo batteries5m 41s
-
Partial vignettes on photos8m 38s
-
360 image editing plugins6m 59s
-
Using a gimbal with an SLR8m 13s
-
Choosing a lens6m 27s
-
Switching camera systems7m 42s
-
Using 360 drones5m 41s
-
VR gimbals4m 16s
-
Working with a photo subject14m 26s
-
Posing a photo subject12m 53s
-
Framing and safety7m 7s
-
RAW converter options3m 59s
-
Drone flight7m 19s
-
Basic abstract photography8m 51s
-
Aspect ratio3m 40s
-
Focus lock on your camera2m 11s
-
Using the Astropad app6m 33s
-
Working with dim sunlight6m 33s
-
Configuring dual cards2m 52s
-
Long lens options4m 45s
-
Moving images from catalogs7m 47s
-
Photography education11m 7s
-
In-camera focus stacking9m 52s
-
Exposure isn't everything4m 17s
-
Why shoot film?8m 55s
-
Culling4m
-
Choosing a film camera8m 38s
-
Analog workflow9m 9s
-
Easily produce giant prints10m 15s
-
Luna Display4m 19s
-
Choosing film7m 50s
-
Photo fads4m 46s
-
Portrait lighting techniques8m 32s
-
Diopter control2m 56s
-
Loupedeck for Lightroom6m 48s
-
Printing small3m 37s
-
Lens flare removal6m 28s
-
Paper choice for prints7m 39s
-
Aspect ratio for portraits2m 33s
-
When in doubt2m 24s
-
Looking vs. seeing2m 44s
-
Do you need a carnet?5m 23s
-
Scan large items6m 17s
-
Create an honest portrait5m 34s
-
A portrait assignment3m 23s
-
Am I good?5m 59s
-
Boredom4m 13s
-
Clichés4m 29s
-
Finding inspiration5m 42s
-
An everyday project5m 47s
-
Learning from students4m 56s
-
Life as a project5m 27s
-
Why take a workshop?4m 33s
-
Photographic honesty2m 52s
-
Up to interpretation3m 27s
-
Photographic style3m 40s
-
Photography drills6m 31s
-
Digital chores4m 23s
-
Photos and words4m 11s
-
Stay-at-home exercises3m 45s
-
Understanding your medium2m 28s
-
Darkroom for iOS5m 15s
-
iOS image editing extensions2m 58s
-
On set: Simplicity4m 5s
-
On set: Corners2m 19s
-
On set: The build4m 30s
-
On set: Same pieces, new set3m 18s
-
Choose a price first3m 20s
-
Rewind: Choosing a camera5m 41s
-
On time and in tune3m 3s
-
Avalanche for aperture4m 8s
-
Evaluating a wide-angle lens6m 14s
-
Auction catalogs4m 56s
-
Get out and shoot (safely)3m 45s
-
Do ruts exist?2m 24s
-
- Mark as unwatched
- Mark all as unwatched
Are you sure you want to mark all the videos in this course as unwatched?
This will not affect your course history, your reports, or your certificates of completion for this course.
CancelTake notes with your new membership!
Type in the entry box, then click Enter to save your note.
1:30Press on any video thumbnail to jump immediately to the timecode shown.
Notes are saved with you account but can also be exported as plain text, MS Word, PDF, Google Doc, or Evernote.
Share this video
Embed this video
Video: Using a gimbal with an SLR