Hey everyone my name is Evan and in this video I'm going to show you how to setup the new
Zhiyun Crane Version 2, how to balance it and give you some tips and tricks.
I know you're busy, so I'm going to keep this video short and sweet, and tell you everything
you need to know about to get setup with the Zhiyun Crane and start shooting.
After trying my friend's Zhiyun Crane I had to get my own, it's an amazing tool, it's
fairly priced, and it adds so much production value to your videos.
I'll link to some videos in the description of big youtubers, and big filmmakers that
use the Zhiyun Crane to achieve this incredible shots.
So this is the Zhiyun Crane version two, and if you currently have the first generation
and you're thinking about buying the second generation, or if you want to buy your first
Zhiyun Crane, I'm going to tell you there difference between generation 1 and generation
2.
So let me unbox it first.
Ok so right away, when you open the box you'll see that it comes with this little base, this
is where the batteries go in, comes with a battery charging port, uh a charging cable,
with batteries, and finally, the gimbal itself, and I've added a baseplate here and I'll tell
you why in just a second, alright so if you currently have the first generation Zhiyun
Crane, and you're wondering what the difference is between second generation, there is a couple...
so the second generation Zhiyun Crane only comes with two batteries, which is one set,
these two batteries will last you about 12 hours of shooting, which is pretty incredible,
the first generation Zhiyun Crane comes with two sets of batteries for a total of four,
and gives you about four or five hours per set, so a total of 10 hours.
The second difference is that the control panels have been added to the front, right
here, on the first generation Zhiyun Crane, the zoom and what not are on the side, so
this is much more convenient and makes much more sense.
And finally, the second generation has the base plate you can unscrew for a quick release
although I still prefer to put my own baseplate on and I'll tell you why.
So the differences are subtle, really the main difference, is the battery life, which,
if you're shooting all day, can be very important.
In my opinion, if you already have the Zhiyun crane 1, there is probably no need to update
to the Zhiyun crane 2 for now, ok so now I'm going to show you how to balance the crane
and this is very important, why is it important to balance the crane?
Well because the more balanced your camera is on the gimbal, the less the gimbal has
to work, which means that your shots are smoother, for starters, and second of all, you will
use far less battery life.
There is one trick you should know about when balancing the gimbal, and that is to find
the center of gravity on your camera.
The best way to do this is to just feel it out and try to get a visual of where the center
of gravity is, so obviously it's not going to be here, if I were to try and balance this
on my finer, it would go down, it's not here because it would fall here, the center of
gravity is going to be somewhere towards the middle of the camera, and somewhere located
up in the middle of the camera, generally kind of like where the mirror (sensor) is,
of course if you have a longer lens, it will be moved out.
And what you try to do it align the center of gravity of the camera, over the center
of this bottom plate, and in line with the center of this, when you have the camera perfectly
aligned with those two points, then your gimbal will be stabilized.
So let me show you step by step exactly how to do that.
Ok to get your Zhiyun Crane setup it's very simple, just take the bottom stand, put your
batteries in like so, the minus sign goes towards the bottom, and then you screw it
in.
And the first thing you'll notice is that this is a very well made product, completely
manufactured in China but it doesn't have that bad wrap as a crappy sort of product,
it's really quality made, it's made of some sort of metal, it's very light weight, you
can tell just by holding it that this is a nice tool.
It's not some cheap gimmicky thing, and professional film makers use this.
Ok so one the base is screwed on, you'll attach it to a tripod or some sort of stand, mine
didn't come with one, I read that some do, so I just bought this one off of Amazon, and
I also bought three identical quick release plates, so these are cheap.
I have one on this stand, one on the tripod the camera is sitting on and one also on the
gimbal, so that way I can quickly move my camera from the tripod to this stand to this
gimbal and then also I can quickly release the gimbal from the stand.
Ok the first thing is to take the baseplate you bought on Amazon and attach it to the
baseplate of the gimbal.
This little screw came in the box with the crane.
Try to find the center of gravity of your camera, by the way I shoot with a Sony A6500,
which is what is being used to film right now, some I'm just using my old canon t2i
for this demonstration, try to think about the center of gravity going over the center
of the crane.
Like this, first let's attach it, ok so right away you can already see that it's really
off balance.
So if I let go it's completely off balance.
So I'm just going to make some really quick adjustments.
When the camera is balanced, you can leave it in any position and it will stay.
So this is clearly off balance.
And the order we go in is this screw first, then this side screw second, then this bottom
screw third.
Ok step 1 is to visualize getting the center of gravity over the center of the crane.
So, clearly this is too far back.
Because when I let go it falls back, so we're going to want to move this baseplate a little
bit forward.
Unscrew it, slide it, slide it, and that's pretty good, so I'm going to tighten the base
plate.
Now while adjusting this screw we're going to want the camera to face up, so I'm going
to hold the camera up, and you can see it's falling back, so the COG is too far back this
way so we want to pull the center of gravity that way, so I'm going to loosen the screw
and push the camera that way.
You're always making micro adjustments, the slightest fraction of movement will shift
the weight.
Tiny little adjustments.
And that's pretty good.
You can see the camera wants to go up, and if I put it down it wants to stay down.
So the first screw is already looking pretty good.
And if this is frustrating, it will be frustrating, but you will get the hang of it.
The second screw we want to adjust is in the back and adjusts the tilt, so again, think
of getting the COG directly in line with this.
So if I tilt, it stays there, we need to move the COG that way a little bit.
Again just micro adjustments.
I moved it too much, so I want to go back that way a tiny little bit.
The last thing you want to do is hold this up to the side and try to get the camera,
you're trying to get this back thing to stay completely level, and it's going down that
way and it's obviously too far back, so we're going to take the screw and push the whole
thing forward towards the camera.
Still going too far back, now it's going too far forward, so I'm going to take this back
towards me again.
And that's pretty good, now the camera is balanced so you should be able to point it
in any direction and it will stay there.
And of course did this very quickly so it's not perfectly balanced, but the Zhiyun Crane
is pretty well balanced.
And you can see it stays in any position.
So now you can turn on the crane, I just hold down this button for a coupe of seconds, and
the crane comes to life.
There you go, that's how you balance it.
That's the hardest part, it takes practice, keep doing it.
Now you can see the Zhiyun Crane is balanced.
One of the things you should buy in addition to the base, is the control cable, the Zhiyun
Crane V2 does not come with a control cable, but you can buy it on Amazon, it's like $15,
there's a link in the description, and here it is, and you simply pop open your HDMI port,
connect it here, and then connect it with the port that is located right here.
I'd just like to ask you guys one favor, if you're enjoying this video and you find it
useful, please like the video, subscribe to my channel, leave a comment below and follow
me on instagram, that way you can keep up to date with all the cool films I'm hopefully
going to be shooting with this new crane.
Ok so now that your Zhiyun Crane is setup, there is one tip I highly recommend, and that
is to make notes of where your balancing points are, so on the baseplates, and on all of the
arms, there are little notches with numbers, and you can write down those numbers in your
phone, so that you can always remember the right balancing points for your camera, so
that way if you were to change lenses, let's say I were to put a zoom lens on, I would
obviously have to rebalance the camera, and then I wanted to change back to this 50MM
prime, I would know from my notes, exactly how to adjust the camera so I don't have to
fiddle around with balancing, I could just go to the exact numbers that are on the crane's
arms.
That's pretty much it for setting up the Zhiyun Crane.
If you're curious about the three different modes, I'll add a link in the description
to a really good tutorial, there's not use of me making a tutorial, because I found one
that shows you the three modes, so just follow the link.
If you have any questions about the Zhiyun Crane, go ahead and leave me a comment.
I respond to all of the comments.