Zhiyun Crane 3 - How to Balance Your Gimbal The RIGHT Way

What's up guys my name is Alex Chung and today we are talking about how to balance your gimbal so you don't ruin it. So I've been meaning to make this video for the longest time now because I keep seeing beginning gimbal users on the internet completely balancing it wrong or just not even doing it at all. Balancing a gimbal is one of the most important parts of actually using it. When you don't have your gimbal balanced perfectly it leads to motor failure so when you're holding it at a certain position the gimbal is not able to handle the payload at that certain angle or in that certain position and the motors shut off and then you have to double tap the power button to reset it and the more you do it the more the motors fail the weaker those motors become in the future. So in order to prevent some dead gimbals I am on a mission to show you exactly how to properly balance your gimbals. Now this tutorial works as long as your gimbal has three axes like the DJI Ronin-S, Zhiyun Crane 1, 2, and 3, the Moza Air 1, Moza Air 2, FeiyuTech AK2000, AK4000, all the other ones out there in the market that I don't know about. As long as it has three axes then we are good to go. So first thing is first we have to connect the base plate to the camera. Now the camera that I'm using today is the Canon 5D Mark IV along with the Tamron 24-70mm lens. Now this is a pretty heavy lens and camera combo so one tip that I have for you guys is if you are using a heavy lens like the 24-70mm, the 70-200mm, the 16-35mm is to push the base plate as far forward as you can. One of the things that I see a lot of people doing is they put the base plate so that it sits right in the middle of the camera and you can get away with that if you're using a lighter prime lens but if you're using a zoom lens that's kind of heavy then you need to have the base plate as far forward as you can so you can slide the camera as far back as you need in order to properly balance. Really quickly before we even put the camera on the gimbal I want to go over the four things that we are balancing today which is the camera, the tilt axis, the pan axis, and the roll axis. Three axis gimbals have three axes and each one of them has to be properly balanced before we can safely operate the camera. I see a lot of people only balancing one or two or whatever none of them and that's what leads to motor failure over time. So once you've got the base plate attached to the camera go ahead and slide it onto the gimbal. We're using the Crane 3 today and one of my favorite new features on this gimbal is the locking mechanism that each of the axes have. You can lock and unlock each one of the individual axes so that when you're balancing it it doesn't just you know wobble in every freaking direction. So the first thing that we are balancing is the camera. When you first attach the camera to the gimbal you'll notice that it'll start immediately falling forwards or backwards depending on where you actually locked it down. If the camera falls forwards that means it is too front heavy. If it falls backwards that means it's too back heavy and the faster it falls the further away it is from center of gravity. So once we adjust the base plate to the point where the camera doesn't start tipping forwards or falling backwards that's when we know that the camera is perfectly balanced on the cradle. Now moving on to the tilt axis you're going to want to flip your camera so that the lens faces up towards the ceiling. Again we just want to make sure that the camera doesn't fall forwards or backwards by adjusting the cradle itself. Sometimes it only takes a little micro adjustment to make the camera balance perfectly so make sure you take your time and go slow. Once you have the tilt axis balanced go ahead and flip your camera back down to see if the camera itself is still centered. Sometimes after you adjust the tilt axis the camera gets a little bit thrown off balance and all you need to do is just move the base plate just a little bit and you're good to go. Next let's balance the roll axis and for this one we just want to make sure that the arm isn't falling to either side and all you need to do is push the arm left or right depending on where it's falling. Now one tip that I have for you guys is that if you have a flip out screen on your camera go ahead and flip that out because it does affect the weight distribution on the camera and when you're trying to balance it it will make a difference whether you have it out or if you have it closed. Another thing is if you have anything that you need to attach to the side of the camera go ahead and plug that in because it does affect the weight distribution as well. And after a couple adjustments back and forth we have this roll axis completely balanced. The last thing that we are balancing is the pan axis and this is the one that a lot of beginning gimbal users usually forget or flat out ignore and the way to balance this is to take your gimbal and just tilt it to the left and see which way your camera swings. If it swings clockwise that means your camera is too back heavy and you need to push the arm forward. If it is spinning counterclockwise that means it's too front heavy and you need to push it backwards. And after a couple quick adjustments you've got it perfectly balanced to the point where the camera doesn't move or swing around when you're tilting it on its side. So there you have it that is a really quick and simple and easy tutorial but very important on how to balance your gimbal properly. Once you get used to the process you'll be able to balance it a lot quicker a lot easier. I've seen too many people online where the gimbal starts going like this and then the camera goes and then the gimbal just dies and I'm like ah god it hurts it hurts it just hurts my soul to see that happen to people. Like I said over time it just weakens your motors over and over and over again to the point where you're gonna start getting stuff like like your camera's gonna go like that and it's not gonna look pretty your footage is not just not gonna look pretty. Learn and balance your gimbal it's a really important step in properly operating the gimbal and it's something that you just you just need to do you just need to do it sorry. If you found this video helpful go ahead and hit that like button make sure to subscribe hit the bell to get notified of every video that I post. I will be making more videos on the Crane 3 other photography tutorials and filmmaking tutorials so make sure to stay updated on everything. My name is Alex Chung and I'll see you later bye