From the course: Video Gear

Using a gimbal for a smartphone or GoPro

From the course: Video Gear

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Using a gimbal for a smartphone or GoPro

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- There's a whole new category of gimbals coming out these days for smartphones and action cameras and what we have here is one from ikan. And Rob, you actually turned me onto this product. - Yeah, you know I found myself shooting my kids around the house a lot or outside playing at the park and you know those kind of things, and those are memories that I want to keep of course, but being the perfectionist that I am, I was continually getting frustrated when I came home-- - Where's the jib? - Right, continually got home and go oh man, that's bumpy and shakey. And you know, there's a lot of good that the camera's can do themselves with built-in image stabilization and things of that nature, but this setup is actually pretty good. As you mentioned, this is an ikan. This is the FLY-X3-Plus. There's an older X3, but this is the new improved version of it. And this is a pretty heavy duty unit. - Yeah and it comes with two different mounting points. - Yeah so this is for a phone, which is just a spring loaded clip, and if you need to, right here on the back there's a couple little mini screws here so you can actually swap out on this side depending if you want sort of a GoPro style mount or if you want more of a phone mount. Now you have the GoPro mounted there. - Yeah and so what happens is it uses a standard sort of GoPro pin and it's interesting here, while it's snug, it still can rotate in and out. And why is that still important? - Well you know, so you can adjust things on the camera, see menus, make settings change, that kind of thing. - So when we flip that back in, it has a simple thumb screw on the top here to hold that in place and that's good because that gives us the best of both worlds. We don't have to take this all apart just to access the menus. - So the FLY-X3-Plus here has this nice pistol grip. It's nice and large, it's really comfortable to hold, it's got a pretty tacky surface. You know, it's kind of sweat resistant so you can hold onto it really nice. There's the battery down on the bottom and on the battery there's a little power button. But before I press the power button, Rich, what's going to happen when I power up, it's going to do a little sort of balancing calibration routine of where the camera is and if you turn the device on and the motors are kind of freaking out going er-er-er-er-er, that's normal, but if it's doing it where it can't align the camera after a few seconds, then you have a balancing or a weight issue going on. But I'm going to go ahead and press the power button. - And if it keeps doing that for too long, you should pull the battery out or turn it off so you don't damage it. But yeah, it's pretty good. - Yeah so there we go. And the thing that you're going to notice about this device when you turn it on, because it's relatively small and compact, you are going to feel those motors working. Now here's the cool thing. This is actually a three-axis gimbal. So as I tilt down or tilt up, you can see that's working like that. And if I rotate, it's also going to rotate with my hand. And there's a little bit of lag there so you can get some nice natural movements instead of that robotic movement. - Yeah and now that turning, if you're not moving it around, it's nice and balanced, but you can influence that with your thumb. It's going to do a little kickback, but maybe you want to keep walking with that, but sort of shoot. - Yeah and just be careful that you don't push it too hard or what's going to happen, right, what just happened to you, it says no, no, no, let me be in control. - Yeah, but now, it's aimed to the side. I want to get that back to the center. I can nudge it a little bit. - Yeah. - There we go. Back to the center. - And there are different manufactures at this price point. This is just under $400 for this device and ikan and a couple other companies are making these, but I think that if you're trying to do a lot of work with a GoPro, I mean you're shooting 4K on a HERO4, you know, or with an iPhone or some other smartphone, this is a great way to get professional results. I particularly like this for guerrilla style productions, you know, action movies, skateboard things, action films like that where you can be running and gunning with it, nice and compact. The other thing that I do want to mention, Rich, is that the carrying case that comes with this is actually really nice. This can fit in another backpack or another bag. It's relatively compact. - I have to admit I've actually taken this unit on vacation, but with that small case, Rob, it fits into a normal suitcase, you don't freak out customs. You've got a Pelican case, you stand out. You got a little zippered pouch that looks like maybe it's just holding your iPad, it's all cool. Now the other thing I'd say about this unit, we're going do some shooting with athletes, this feels comfortable, it's a good balance. Not very heavy so that it's not going to tire you out. Let's you shoot for a long period. The other thing, I got to be honest, I don't like reading instruction manuals, which is kind of strange, but the fact that you just plug this in, this is one of those pieces of technology I took it out of the box, I put the battery in, it worked immediately, fantastic. - Now if you do need to do a little balancing there are some great instructions on how to do that with larger phones or heavier phones. But I agree with you Rich, right out of the box, it's ready to go. I recently brought this on a trip to Japan and this was awesome because I didn't have to be that guy with a huge MOVI or a big motorized gimbal that made me stand out. I simply put my phone on this and I just look like a normal tourist, but I got great, quality video that was stabilized because of this gimbal.

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