- Hey guys, my name is Matt Johnson and today,
I want to talk to you about this little fella,
the Zhiyun Crane 2 electronic camera gimbal.
Look at this thing.
It's so cool.
Now, this review is not gonna be your typical review
where I just read off a spec sheet
and take it out of the box and show you
the first five minutes of footage that I filmed
with the drone, doot, doot, doot,
running around in my backyard.
No, that's not how I want to review this gimbal
because I want to review this gimbal in the context
of filming weddings, so if you are a wedding filmmaker
or wedding videographer, I hope
this review will be helpful to you.
If you are not, well, stick around
because it'll probably still be entertaining.
With all that said, I want to review this gimbal
in two contexts.
The first context is how easy is this gimbal to set up?
Can I put my camera on it quickly, get it balanced
and begin shooting as quickly as possible?
The second context that I'll be reviewing the crane in
is that as I review the Crane 2, I will be comparing it
to the Glidecam HD 4000 and the Ronin M
because I assume that there are those of you out there
that are already using one of these two gimbals already
or you are considering purchasing
one of these three gimbals, the Glidecam,
the Ronin or the Crane 2.
All right, I gotta put these things down now.
They're heavy.
Now, I'm sure there are a lot of you out there
that have already watched my previous review of the Ronin M
and how I compared it to the Glidecam.
If you didn't see it though, here was my conclusion
about the Ronin M.
In my case, shooting weddings, needing to move
from location to location very quickly,
getting a ton of shots, not wanting to mess with
electronic calibration or batteries,
I'm gonna stick with the analog Glidecam
that really only requires basic weights and muscles.
My beard was so short back then.
I'm an old man now.
Anyways, I've been continuing to shoot
with the Glidecam HD 4000 for about the past year and a half
ever since I made that Ronin M review and I've loved it.
My camera has been on this thing the majority of the time.
It has been trusty, reliable and with that,
my opinion about electronic gimbals hasn't changed a ton.
I'll let my brother explain to you my opinion
about electronic gimbals versus the Glidecam.
- He really talks like that, JK.
But that really was my opinion of electronic gimbals.
Why would I switch to an electronic gimbal
whenever I'm getting awesome shots with my Glidecam?
That said though, I did say this
at the end of my Ronin M review.
If DJI or another company make a Ronin M
or another electronic gimbal that is smaller, lighter,
quicker to set up and has an actual stand, then I will
definitely, heavily consider that over the Glidecam.
Clearly shorter bearded Matt was hoping
that something would come out that would fix
the shortcomings of the Ronin M.
Enter the Crane 2 and the Crane 2 piqued my interest
for two reasons.
The first reason is because of its large weight capacity.
This thing can hold cameras up to seven pounds,
so I can use it with my A7S II and a battery grip
and a heavy lens and it handles it no sweat.
The other reason that I was interested in the Crane 2
is because it uses a Manfrotto quick release plate.
Yes, the quick release plate that I use
on all of my cameras my tripods, my slider, my Glidecam.
This is huge for filming weddings
because you do not have a lot of time
whenever you're filming.
So when the Crane 2 was announced,
I pre-ordered it on the same day and it came
about a week before I had two weddings two weeks in a row,
the perfect opportunity to test this gimbal,
and to be clear, I spent $750 of my own money on this,
plus about another 100 on accessories.
I'm not being sponsored by Zhiyun Tech to make this video.
I bought this because I was interested
and wanted to try it out for myself.
That said though, Zhiyun Tech did reach out to me
about a month ago and said hey, we like your videos.
We'd love to send you a Crane 2 and I said awesome!
I already have one, but then I had an idea
and I reached out to my contact at Zhiyun and I said hey.
I've already been using my Crane 2
extensively for months now.
I don't really need a second Crane 2,
but would you be willing to send me a second one anyways?
And they said sure, why not?
Here, take the second one, take some accessories,
have a good time and I said really?
Because I am now excited to tell you
that I am in possession of this,
a brand new unopened, unboxed, untouched by me
except for the outside here, Crane 2
and I'm gonna be giving it away to one of you.
Yes!
So I will have more details about the giveaway
at the end of this video.
For now, we need to actually review this thing.
So let's start talking about the Crane 2.
Let's start by talking about the weight capacity
of this gimbal.
Zhiyun advertises it as being able to hold
up to seven pounds and in the marketing materials,
they show it holding a Sony FS5, a Canon 1DX Mark II,
bigger cameras, and it's supposed to be able to hold them
with ease and so I was excited because I use a Sony A7S II
with a battery grip.
I was really pumped to be able to hold my camera
on this gimbal, but what Zhiyun does not tell you
is that if you are using a taller camera,
such as the 1DX Mark II or the Sony A7S II
with a battery grip you are not going to be able
to balance this camera on this gimbal.
It is too tall and this bar here does not go down low enough
for it to be able to achieve perfect balance.
I was able to achieve roll balance,
but whenever it came to achieving tilt balance,
where the camera tilts up and down, back and forth,
I was not able to achieve balance,
so the camera would want to slam down rather hard
and it was kinda terrifying.
Now you would think with the motors being
as strong as they are would be able to compensate
for this lack of balance and they do, until they don't.
I discovered this whenever I was driving down a dirt road
in Colorado, filming B Roll of the forest for a wedding.
I went over a big bump in the car
and the motors had to compensate for the extra stress,
but they got overloaded and shut off, which meant
that my camera was suddenly flinging itself around
and slamming into the bottom of the gimbal
and it was kind of terrifying.
So because I was in the mountains of Colorado
and I wanted to continue using my Crane 2,
I set out to do what I feel like most filmmakers would do
in this situation, I went to Home Depot
and I bought some washers and some screws
and these washers and screws actually fit perfectly here
into the bottom of the Crane 2's plate here.
You can see that there are some mounting points for them.
So I started screwing these screws and washers
into the bottom of this plate here to increase the weight
on the bottom of the camera and thus make it balanced.
It worked and I used this for two weddings
and everything was fine.
It was a little janky, don't get me wrong,
but the physics were solid, I think.
You've probably noticed that there are no screws
or washers on the bottom of my Crane 2 anymore,
and it does appear to be properly balanced
and the reason for that is that someone at Zhiyun realized
that there are people that have taller cameras
that were not balancing properly
and so they needed to release a fix for that.
In January, they announced the gravity adjustment plate,
which is actually just this little piece of metal here.
For comparison, here is the old piece of metal.
You can see that it is about one inch longer.
That is really the only difference
between these two different plates,
but this one inch was critical
because by lowering the camera a little bit more,
I was able to achieve proper balance
and it makes shooting with the Crane 2 so much easier
because I'm not terrified about the motors
being overloaded and shutting off.
Even with a heavier lens like this Sigma 24 millimeter 1.4,
my Crane is properly balanced and I can still flip it
upside down and use it in inverted mode.
(glass clangs)
Ah, I'm hitting my chandelier.
Isn't that cool, though?
It's so great!
This gravity adjustment plate costs $29 and I will have
a link to it down in the description as well.
And to put this all in perspective, my Glidecam HD 4000
can easily balance, even with the A7S II battery grip
and Sigma 24 millimeter lens, which is one of the reasons
that I've been using it for so long.
Alternatively, the Ronin M is not
going to be able to support this set up
because the camera with the battery grip
and a Manfrotto quick release plate
that I would need to put on it is going to be too tall
for the stock Ronin to be able to handle.
I have read that you can purchase extended mounted bars
for the Ronin M that will enable you to lower
the center of gravity even more,
but I have not tried those out and the Ronin M
has other drawbacks you can hear about
in my Ronin M review video.
Now that I've talked about the weight capacity
of the Crane 2, we need to talk about the setup time,
Namely, how quickly can I set up the Crane 2
on a wedding day and have it ready to shoot?
Well, the Crane 2 comes with this very nice
semi-hard case here and the benefit of this case
is that you can keep the Crane nearly completely assembled.
All that I need to do to make sure the Crane is ready
on the wedding day is screw in the little bottom tripod feet
and because I'm using the extended gravity plate here,
I need to adjust this screw and slide this over
just slightly whenever I store it.
So if I'm at the start of the wedding day
and I'm getting out all my gear and getting it all ready,
I can have the Crane 2 ready to go in about two minutes
and that is awesome.
To put that in perspective, with the Glidecam,
I always keep mine fully assembled.
Just throw it in the car like this,
take it out and it's ready to go.
The only setup that I really have to do with the Glidecam
is to put the camera on top of it, slide it up,
lock it and it's ready to go, so this is very, very quick.
In comparison, the Ronin M requires a lot of setup assembly
to make sure that it's working properly
and this was one of my biggest complaints about the Ronin M
because whenever you are filming on a wedding day
that has multiple locations, I would often find myself
needing to tear down the Ronin every single time
that I moved to a new location.
That got to be a major pain and what's funny
is that I started receiving comments from people saying
you don't need to tear down the Ronin!
No, I just put mine in the car seat
and I buckle it in with the seatbelt.
Seriously, that is a thing.
A lot of people do this.
I never thought about strapping my Ronin into the car
like it was a child.
Good technique though.
In comparison to the Ronin, though, the Crane,
once I get it set up to this level
where I have it balanced, ready to go, it's small enough
that I don't have to worry about disassembling it
just to transport it to another location.
I can gently lay it on top of some things
in the back of my car or in the floorboard
whenever I'm moving from location to location at a wedding
and I don't have to worry about the Crane being damaged.
So in that context, the Crane
is just as good as the Glidecam.
Another huge perk for the setup time of the Crane 2
is that it uses the Manfrotto 501PL base plate,
which, as I said, I use on all of my cameras and accessories
so whenever I need to swap from a monopod or tripod
or even handheld to the Crane 2, I can do it
in about 20 seconds with this quick release plate.
That is wonderful whenever you're shooting a wedding
and you do not have a lot of time to go get shots.
Unlike the Crane 2, whenever I was using the Ronin M,
I kept finding myself having to take off the Manfrotto
base plate and put on the proprietary DJI base plate
and that can be a major pain
whenever you're filming a wedding and you're like,
"hold on, don't kiss, just wait!"
You cannot do that on a wedding day.
You do not have the luxury of that sort of time.
Another thing to consider if we're talking about setup time
is what if you want to swap lenses on your camera?
Normally, most of the time, I'm shooting
with this Sigma 24 millimeter lens on both the Crane 2
and my Glidecam because I love the wide, sweeping shots
that I can get with it, but what if I wanted to use
this smaller 50 millimeter lens?
This lens is much lighter than the 24 millimeter,
so I'm gonna have to make major adjustments
to all of the knobs here to make sure
that it is balanced properly on the Crane 2.
I also have to make sure that I find a flat surface
that I can put it onto so that I can balance it properly.
With the Glidecam, on the other hand,
because all that I have to do to adjust the balance
is adjust this screw here and this back screw here,
I can change my lens and still be walking, holding it
and adjusting the balance as I go.
This can save a lot of time and in this category,
the Glidecam wins again.
So if you're a person that likes to swap lenses
or uses longer zooming lens like say a 24 to 70 millimeter
that extends out, the Glidecam may work better for you
because you can adjust it much quicker
than you can the Crane 2.
Lastly, in regards to swapping lenses,
the Ronin M is gonna behave very comparably to the Crane 2
in that you need to adjust the balance every single time
that you switch lenses.
The con of the Ronin M though, over the Crane 2
is that the Ronin M requires you to have this huge,
stinking stand here to make sure
that you can balance it properly.
Without the stand, good luck balancing your gimbal.
With the Crane 2, look at this.
It has feet!
I know I already mentioned this,
but this is still very exciting to me
because this is one of the biggest things
that I wanted from a gimbal.
I wanted legs built into it so I can put it down
whenever I want and not have to carry around a big,
hunking stand like I have to do with the Ronin.
This is wonderful.
Moving on, let's talk about usability,
namely, how good is the Crane 2 whenever it comes
to actually filming weddings?
Well, to sum it up, it's really good.
It takes a lot of the strengths of the Glidecam
and adds to them, which is really awesome.
I'll tell you a story.
I was shooting establishing shots at a wedding
a few weeks ago and I was on a very limited timeframe,
so I opted to use my Glidecam because I still feel
a little bit more comfortable with it than the Crane 2,
but towards the end of shooting the establishing shots,
I had this one shot of the reception venue
that I really wanted to get.
There was this awesome oak tree
with its branches hanging down overhead
and I had this tilt down shot that I wanted to get
from the tree leaves tilting down,
revealing the reception venue.
It was gonna look so awesome,
but I ran into a difficulty with my Glidecam.
One of the most difficult shots to get with the Glidecam
is a tilting shot because the way
that you normally use a Glidecam is you have one hand
on this handle here and then you are using your fingers
to control rotation of the Glidecam,
but if you're doing a tilting shot,
you need to have your hands on the Glidecam post
while it's tilting and this can lead to the Glidecam
wanting to rotate while you're tilting it
and so the shot doesn't look perfectly smooth coming down.
I did the shot multiple times with the Glidecam
with the trees and the venue,
but I wasn't super in love with it.
So then I had an idea.
I went out to my car, got out my Crane 2,
mounted my camera onto it, set the Crane 2 to follow mode,
where, wherever you tilt it, it will also tilt the camera,
went back and did the tree shot and it looked awesome.
I nailed it on the first try with the Crane 2.
Likewise, I had that wedding in Colorado a few months ago.
The one where I had to go to Home Depot and buy screws
and washers to properly balance the Crane
and I took the couple out on a hike
the day after their wedding and I opted to bring
the Crane 2 with me and I had this one shot
that I wanted to get, where the couple
was walking down this little forested path,
the sun was shining down from the trees
and I thought it would look so cool to have a super low
to the ground shot of the couple walking.
So I took the crane, I flipped it over so it was inverted
and then I pressed follow mode again
and pretend that this is lower than it was,
down near the ground, but you won't be able to see it
if I do that and I walked after the couple
with it slightly angled up and it looked gorgeous.
Now, I could've done the shot with the Glidecam
if I had wanted to.
I could've shortened down the center post a little bit,
flipped it over upside down and used it inverted in this way
but with- ah, I keep hitting my chandelier, dang it!
The way that the Glidecam works is I would've had
to have my hand on this handle, which would've put me
very awkwardly low to the ground, hunched over
as I'm filming and that would've been really difficult.
Totally doable still, but far more difficult
than the Crane 2.
In these two scenarios, the Crane performs far better
than the Glidecam and I would say it's about on par
with the shots that you're able to get with the Ronin,
but what about less crazy shots?
What if you don't wanna do any crazy tilting
or panning movements and you just wanna pick up the Crane
and do nice, smooth walking shots.
Well, I'm pleased to say the Crane handles that
very well too.
When I was at home visiting my family a few weeks ago,
I brought along the Crane 2 and showed it to my brother
and within a minute of him picking up the Crane 2,
he was getting awesomely smooth stabilizED shots
and he has never used a gimbal before.
The Crane is really easy to just pick up and use.
With that said, the Crane 2 does struggle in one area
where the Glidecam does not.
Whenever you're filming with the Glidecam,
you're holding onto this handle and this handle isolates
a lot of your body movement.
It isolates horizontal body movement and it isolates
vertical body movement because the handle twists like this.
So a lot of the normal bouncing that occurs
whenever you're walking normally,
even though it's nearly imperceptible,
whenever you are using the Crane 2,
that bouncing is translated because it has no
vertical movement dampener like the Glidecam does.
To compensate for this bouncing movement,
you need to make sure that whenever you're walking
with a Crane 2, you are walking as slowly as possible
to minimize any vertical movement in your video.
We also talk about long term usability of the Crane 2.
Whenever you're shooting a video for eight,
10, 12 hours at a time or even longer, you need a gimbal
that's not gonna completely break your biceps and your back.
Thankfully, between the Crane 2, the Ronin M
and the Glidecam, the Crane 2 is the lightest
without a camera, weighing in at only three pounds,
seven ounces.
To put that into perspective, the Glidecam,
without a camera, weighs five pounds seven ounces
and the Ronin M weighs six pounds, 15 ounces.
Yes, nearly seven pounds for this entire setup
and I haven't even added a camera yet.
How heavy of a camera can the Ronin M carry?
Up to eight pounds.
How heavy of a camera can the Crane 2 carry?
Up to seven pounds.
That is very impressive that something this size
can almost carry as much as this.
Now let's add a camera onto those weights.
My A7S II with the camera, battery grip, lens adapter
and 24 millimeter lens weighs in at four pounds.
So with my Crane 2 and the camera,
this entire setup is 7.7 pounds.
With the Glidecam, it is 9.7 pounds and with the Ronin M
and that camera, that entire setup is 10 pounds 15 ounces,
nearly 11 pounds.
I've been shooting with the Glidecam HD 4000 since 2011
and I'm kinda surprised at this point
that I don't look like that bodybuilder dude
from Lady in the Water.
You remember that movie?
M. Night Shyamalan, fairytale, came out long time ago?
There's a dude that works out only one side of his body
so one bicep is huge and the other bicep is small?
That's kinda how I feel at this point
because I always carry my Glidecam with my left hand,
which means that this bicep is definitely far more developed
than this bicep, just being totally honest here.
Now let's compare the handling of the Glidecam
to the Crane 2.
With the Crane 2, I can hold it just like I do
with the Glidecam, with my left hand
or I can hold it with two hands, kinda like a lightsaber,
which, hey, that's just awesome.
You know, you gotta love that.
Or I can even switch over and use my shriveled up
right bicep with the Crane 2.
That is so awesome because unlike with the Glidecam,
where I'm really only good using it with my left arm,
once I get tired with my left arm, I'm really out of luck.
I just have to keep on shooting and get more and more tired.
With the Crane 2, I can shoot with my left arm.
When it gets tired, I can switch to the right.
The Crane 2 is very versatile and can enable you to shoot
for a significantly longer period of time
than you can with a Glidecam.
Now, let's say that you're coming from the Ronin M
or another two handed electronic gimbal
and you prefer to hold your gimbal with two hands.
Well, I have good news for you because Zhiyun Tech
has released this handle adapter kit
so you can put this on your Crane 2
and turn it into a dual handled gimbal.
This is one way that you can mount the handles
to the Crane 2 and it essentially turns it into
an upright mode Ronin M, but it has an added benefit
of still having its little tripod feet down here
so if you need to put it down,
you can just set it down normally
without worrying about it falling over, unlike the Ronin M.
Do you prefer your gimbal to be hanging low though
like the Ronin M?
Well, ta-da, look at this.
It's a little baby Ronin M.
How cool is that?
Plus, if my arms get tired, I can just grab it here,
flip it over to upright mode and put it down anywhere
on the tripod feet.
I love that.
All that said though, I don't really find myself
using the dual handles of the Crane 2 very often.
They remind me a little bit too much of the Ronin M
which gave me great struggles whenever I was needing
to hold it out or up, but if you're somebody
that had less upper body strength,
the dual handles may be a great choice for you.
We also need to talk about the visibility
of your camera monitor whenever you're using the Crane 2.
If you remember from my Ronin M review,
one of my bigger complaints was that I had to use
an external monitor mounted to the top of the Ronin M
because the camera's held down so low
that whenever you're filming, you gotta squint
and the battery's blocking your view, so it's really hard
to see your camera screen,
which is why you need a monitor up top.
With my Glidecam on the other hand, whenever I'm holding it
in its natural shooting position, you can see how close
my face is to the viewfinder here, so I can immediately tell
if everything is in focus
and exactly what my camera is seeing
and if I need to change focus, I can just grab
onto the pole here, adjust my focus a little bit
and then go back and continue shooting.
Likewise, with the Crane 2, it is very similar
to the Glidecam in the respect that I can hold it up here
and see the screen very clearly and if I need to,
I can hold it like this, adjust my focus a little bit
and then keep on shooting.
Another thing that I was very pleased to discover
is that the Crane 2 does not suffer from a major issue
that a lot of other pistol grip gimbalS in this style
suffer from.
Namely, most gimbals like this have a design issue
where this bar that runs along the back
blocks your visibility of the screen
and from this angle, it kinda looks like it does,
but because I actually shoot a little bit off to the side,
and with it angled a little bit,
I can still see the screen perfectly fine.
Now this is only really in my case
because I use the battery grip on the A7S II,
which raises it up high enough to be visible,
but this still a major win and if you're like me
and you want to have your camera raised up like this,
you will not have any issues being able to see your screen.
This has been enough of an issue
that in the past year or so, I've seen gimbals come out
that actually lower this bar here down to about here
and that is a style of what
a lot of gimbals are moving towards,
but I find that with my setup,
I do not have to worry about the bar.
Oh and if I wanna change my A7S II batteries,
I don't have to take this whole camera off the gimbal.
I can just undo this little notch here, flip this out,
pull my batteries and swap them, put them back in.
Easy.
Speaking of batteries, the Crane 2 has
phenomenal battery life.
Zhiyun rates it at 18 hours
and I'm inclined to believe them.
That said, I still did buy an extra set of batteries,
just because I'm paranoid like that.
I will link to them down in the description
if you want to check those out.
We also need to discuss the smartphone app
that Zhiyun makes called ZY Play, that you need to download
if you want to adjust some of the settings on your Crane 2.
Yes, there is a little screen back here with a menu
and options, but these options do not cover
all of the settings for the Crane 2.
For that, you're gonna need the app.
The reason that I recommend downloading the app
is that the Crane 2's default settings for panning
are very sensitive and I highly recommend changing them.
What I mean by panning is that whenever I rotate the handle
of the gimbal here, you can see how quickly
it wants to pan the camera left to right.
It is very sensitive, too sensitive in my opinion
to really be able to get dramatic sweeping slow
panning shots, so you need to change these settings
in the app.
What I do is I open up the ZY Play app,
select connect my device and let it connect to the Crane 2.
Then I tap the gear in the top right
and then in the far right column that says pan,
I turn the follow rate to 30, the control rate to 20,
the smooth degrees to 200 and the dead zone to 15
and I find that these settings make the Crane's panning
much smoother.
Lastly, we need to talk about auto focus and manual focus.
I've been shooting with my Glidecam HD 4000
since way back in the day whenever I had my Canon 7D.
Yes, I'm an old man.
This is far before the days of dual pixel autofocus
or any sort of video autofocus that was even remotely good
for that matter, so if you wanted to focus your lenses,
you had to do it manually and you had to like it.
Thankfully, I got pretty good at it.
But then the Ronin M came out and this thing
is nearly impossible to use with manual focus lenses
because if you wanna adjust your focus,
you have to lift it way up here,
probably hold it with one hand
and then adjust the focus a bit and that can be a major pain
so I ended up going out and buying
a Sony 16 to 35 millimeter autofocus lens,
which got me some use whenever I used the Ronin
and then once I switched back to using the Glidecam,
I went back to manual focus lenses
and promptly forgot about autofocus
and it's been going great.
All that said, with the Crane 2, Zhiyun integrated
this really nifty little follow focus knob directly into
the stabilizer and that sounds really awesome on paper.
The issue is that currently, this follow focus knob
only works with Canon cameras.
Yes, the cameras that already have
amazing dual pixel autofocus so you're not gonna wanna
really manually focus anyways,
have the ability to use this for manual focus.
I think it's hilarious that the only camera system
that actually supports this is also the one
with the users that are least likely to use it.
Now, Zhiyun have come out with something
for Sony and Panasonic shooters.
It's a remote mechanical follow focus
that mounts to the Crane 2 right about here
and then will mechanically interface with your lens
to adjust the focus, but the issue for me
is that if I had to add that to the Crane,
I have to add weight and more importantly,
that's gonna affect how quickly I can take off the camera
and put it back onto the gimbal
and I guarantee you that if I have to slide it on
then line up the follow focus gears,
and make sure that's all calibrated properly,
that's gonna be significantly longer.
So for me, that's not that appealing on a wedding day
and I'm gonna stick with manual focus lenses.
That said though, if Sony puts the same awesome autofocus
capabilities that are in the A9 and the A7 III
into the A7S III and I buy that, whoo,
I might need to purchase some autofocus lenses
'cause that sounds really appealing.
So in conclusion, I really like the Crane 2
and I feel like there are two camps of people
that are considering buying this gimbal.
You're in the first camp if you've never bought a gimbal
before, but you wanna start adding stabilized moving shots
to your videos, so you're considering purchasing
the Crane 2 or a Glidecam.
We're not gonna talk about the Ronin M
because I feel like the Crane 2 and Glidecam are far better
choices whenever it comes to filming a wedding.
You can watch my Ronin M review video if you wanna see why.
Pros of the Crane 2 include that it is much easier
to get started shooting with than the Glidecam.
With little to no experience, you can start getting
beautiful cinematic imagery in your wedding films
or any other video, for that matter.
The con of the Crane 2 and really all electronic gimbals
is that there is something between you and the camera,
namely there is a computer system in here
that's doing a lot of calculations
to smooth out all of your shots.
With the Glidecam on the other hand, it is just you,
your camera and basic physics keeping it stable
and in my opinion the Glidecam still has a bit more
of an organic feel to it, which can be very appealing
in filmmaking.
Keep in mind that the Glidecam
is gonna be more difficult to learn,
Much like a tender lover, you're gonna have to learn
how to touch it, caress it and hold it in a way
that can get you the shots that you want.
Yeah, Glidecam's a little more difficult.
Don't worry camp one, I will answer the question
in just a second if you should buy
the Crane 2 or the Glidecam, but for now,
I wanna address camp two and you're in the second camp
of people if you already own a Glidecam.
If you know how to use it, if you're pretty happy with it
and you're really kinda wondering about electronic gimbals
because everybody won't stop talking about them
and the hype is real, so what should you do?
Should you melt down your Glidecam and purchase a Crane 2?
That's a tougher decision.
This isn't like having a tripod and buying a slider.
No, these two tools are very similar.
This is the old guard, the tried and true, the analog.
It's a great gimbal, but this is the future.
The digital, where everything is going.
For me though, the Glidecam still wins in organic feel.
I love the way my videos look whenever I shoot with it,
but like riding a bike, the Glidecam is gonna take
significantly longer for you to learn how to use
than the Crane 2, which out of the box,
is gonna give you 80 to 90% of the same quality of shots
that you're gonna get with the Glidecam.
So which one do you buy?
Camp one, if you are starting out in wedding filmmaking,
you have never owned a gimbal before,
in that case, I would buy the Crane 2.
You are gonna get phenomenal shots with it
right out of the box and then after you've shot
some weddings with it and mastered how to use it,
if you're still not fully happy with the shots
you're getting from it and they still feel
a little mechanical to you, then in that case,
I would consider purchasing a Glidecam.
The good news is that if you buy the Glidecam
after buying the Crane 2, it should be
a significantly easier learning curve
than just buying the Glidecam first.
Now, camp two.
What if you already own a Glidecam
and you get really great shots with it?
Well, if you're expecting to buy the Crane 2
and have radically better shots that are mind-blowing,
well, I'm sorry, it's not gonna happen.
That said, though, I would still buy the Crane 2
as another tool to supplement your work.
There are some things that it's better at,
such as tilting shots and low to the ground shots.
Also, you will not be nearly as tired
at the end of the day whenever you shoot with a Crane 2
over a Glidecam.
In an ideal world, you would own a Glidecam
and an electronic gimbal, which would enable you to get
an even greater variety of quality shots in your videos.
For that reason, I'm keeping my Glidecam
and using the Crane 2 more as a supplement
whenever I have shots that are more difficult to get
with the Glidecam.
So yes, it is time to buy an electronic gimbal
and the Crane 2 is a very nice option,
but to be clear, it is not the only option out there.
There are a ton of quality gimbals
for you to be able to choose from
and if you're not in my specific situation,
where I needed a much heavier payload,
I've heard wonderful things about the Zhiyun Crane v2,
their smaller model that holds lighter cameras
that retails for about 470, which hey,
that's definitely cheaper than the $750 this thing cost
or you can look at the brand Moza.
They have some really awesome gimbals
that are cheaper in price too.
I believe their new Moza AirCross,
which has pretty decent reviews,
is retailing for 420 bucks right now.
That's not bad at all.
If you wanna watch reviews for Moza gimbals,
I highly recommend checking out my friend
Dan Watson's YouTube channel.
He has a ton of awesome gimbal reviews.
I'll link to him up in the corner
and down in the description
if you wanna check his stuff out.
He's reviewed basically all electronic gimbals
at this point.
Every single time I go to his channel,
he has a new one that he's tried.
It's really awesome.
The DJI Ronin S is also coming out later this year
and that thing is gonna sell like hotcakes
'cause everything that DJI makes sells like that.
It's just crazy.
I'm betting you that it's probably gonna be
a pretty good gimbal though, so if you have time,
you might wanna wait for that, but if you want
a solid electronic gimbal that's out right now
that isn't too expensive, that has a heavier weight
carrying payload, that has a Manfrotto quick release plate
standard and most importantly, has a gosh darned stand,
so you can put it down wherever you are without worrying,
then in that case, I would highly recommend
the Zhiyun Crane 2.
I think it's a fantastic investment.
Thank you so much for watching.
I hope this video was helpful to you
and gave you some great insight
into whether you should purchase the Zhiyun Crane 2.
Speaking of the Crane 2,
I have one to give away.
And I'm gonna be giving away this Crane 2
to a person who's subscribing to my email newsletter.
Don't worry, I'm not gonna spam you.
I don't have time to spam you,
but if you wanna win this thing, you do need to click
the link down in the description of this video
and enter in your email address
into the giveaway entry form.
If you're already an email subscriber,
please go down there and enter your email again.
Don't worry, I will not email you twice
or something ridiculous like that,
but I do need to have your email
so you can be entered into the giveaway.
Also, this won't help you win, but please leave me
a comment below letting me know what ridiculous thing
you would film with the Crane 2.
Lastly, this contest is open to people that are 18 or older
that live inside the continental United States.
I'm sorry, I wish this could be worldwide,
but this is literally just me going to the post office
and sending this to you.
I'm not a big deal.
I hope to, in the future, do more giveaways
and hopefully make them worldwide, but unfortunately,
that's how it has to be for now.
The giveaway's gonna be ending on midnight May 1st
and I'm gonna be notifying the person that wins
by using the email address they used
to sign up for the giveaway,
so please make sure that your email address is accurate.
I would then love to be able to send this to you
and you can use it just in time
for the beginning of the summer wedding season
and I'm excited to see what stuff
you're gonna be able to film with this.
As always, if you have any questions or comments
about this video or about the giveaway actually,
please feel free to leave one below
or get in touch with me through my website whoismatt.com.
It is also a Crane 2 payload sized help to me
if you would consider liking this video
and subscribing if you wanna see more videos
like this in the future.
I also have links down in the description of this video,
so many links.
If you click the little read more button down there,
all the links will appear to you.
I have links to my Kit page, where you can not only
check out all of the gear that I use,
but you can now actually sign up
for one on one consulting with me.
Before, you could only do it through my website.
Now, you can book through my website and my Kit page.
Pretty cool.
I also have links down in the description to my Facebook
and my Instagram pages if you wanna check those out
or to my wedding film production company,
Film Strong Productions.
All of that is linked down in the description.
Thank you so much for watching and have a great day.
- I'll be back with Glidecam!
- [Matt] Just ad lib Arnold Schwarzenegger.
- You want to get big?
Use Glidecam.
Glidecam feel like this weight.
Weight is huge, make your arms big like Glidecam.
It feels the same.
So strong, I get so strong.
I'll be big in no time.
Glidecam make your arms strong!
Get huge on Glidecam.
Oh, I'm tired.
(Matt laughing)
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