might be my new favorite travel gimbal for when like when you just need a little bit smoother
footage then you can get handheld with a camera this thing does a really good job
hey my name is jake and i create content here to help solo creators on the go today we're
talking about the crane m3 a super compact small lightweight travel gimbal from jun
has a lot of things going for it and a couple of things that need to be addressed or fixed
but let's talk about it full disclosure june did send this gimbal to me but they're not
paying for this review they don't get any input on this video and they don't get to see it before
this video is released so these are my opinions about this gimbal after working with it for the
last few weeks there's a lot to like about this gimbal and one of my favorite things is how small
and lightweight it is for a small bare bones gimbal this thing is fantastic i mean
absolutely fantastic it's so lightweight that i can just hold it out at an arm's length
which is what you're seeing now it just it doesn't tire my arm out my shoulders out
like a lot of other gimbals will like the i mean i use the rsc2 i use the rs too i use the weibull s
that are and all of those gimbals like you only get so long before your arm gets tired this
just get a lot longer because it's just that much easier that much easier to carry all right
actually we might go see if we can catch some sunset shots because it looks like it might be
pretty spectacular i've fallen in love with this gimbal it is so much fun to use and i really
stopped taking gimbals like to places like this with me because they just were too big and bulky
where this fits in my camera bag when i break it down it's super lightweight and
easy to carry by hand like this that's pretty much what i've done all day today one thing
that really stood out to me about this gimbal is though even though it's really small and compact
and obviously has very small arms it actually does get really smooth footage especially
if you do the ninja walk now with a gimbal this size and with something that's this big
you do need to walk as smooth as you possibly can to get the smoothest footage but here even
just handheld walking through the snow which means my footing is changing all
the time so i'm not able to walk super smoothly i was able to get really good
looking smooth footage so for example this is active stabilization on the sony tv1 handheld
now this is just the gimbal no stabilization in the camera turn active stabilization off
just a gimbal handheld pretty good which also means you gain that extra field of view because
now if i turn active stabilization on it'll do the crop in to help get the stabilization working
so now this is the gimbal and active stabilization which does work well but it definitely crops in a
bit and makes it a bit of a tighter shot one of my favorite features about this gimbal is
the little light that june has built into it it makes it so much easier to go and shoot in
locations where you might need a little bit of extra light you push and hold the little
dial that's on the side and boom all of a sudden you've got light it dims in 10 increments so you
can dim it and put it right that's max brightness right there and it also changes color temperatures
from 2600 kelvin to 5400 kelvin which is great if you're trying to match different kelvin you
know temperatures if you're shooting inside with warmer light or outside with the sunlight i don't
think you need this light with the sunlight but you know just depending on what you're shooting
with you can match so that is fantastic and the fact that it just comes with all the different
packages the gimbal it's not an upgrade is really neat which makes this even more valuable as a
travel gimbal because now you don't necessarily even need to remember to bring a little light
with you while i was out using this gimbal even in very cold conditions of about 10 11 12 degrees
fahrenheit which is about minus 12 degrees celsius the battery life really impressed me i was able
to get pretty much like six hours and that was while it was also charging my sony zv e10 which
is really saying something considering how cold it was now jun says that you get up to a full eight
hours on a full charge that will obviously depend on how you're using the gimbal how heavy the load
is how well it's balanced if you're using the light or not if you're charging your camera or not
but the great thing is too that because they've included a power delivery port here on the side
you can recharge the gimbal from basically zero all the way to full in under two hours
using something with up to 25 watts of power delivery that means you can run around with
this thing all day and recharge it in between your shoes or even just plug a power pack in
while you're shooting and keep this thing charged so you can really run around with it
all day and while we'll talk about some of the shortcomings of this small compact design
in just a little bit one thing i was impressed was just how easy it was to use
even in low situations it just is super easy to move from a higher to a lower situation
and be able to use the gimbal just like you would for anything else it makes getting low shots like
this one really easy and really fast and intuitive you don't have to really think about trying to
put the gimbal down into a low hanging position or anything like that you just put it down and
then start running with it one of my favorite features about this little gimbal is this oled
touchscreen it's really responsive it works really well and it gives you access to pretty much all of
the parameters that you need to be able to access to adjust the gimbal and get it set to your liking
i do wish there was a way to fine tune some of the parameters a little bit more and give us a
little more granular control over like the motor strengths and things like that but otherwise this
touchscreen really makes being able to get around and adjust the gimbal and set it up the way you
want it really fast really intuitive and very easy and one more thing that i really do like about
this gimbal is how well the little quick release plate system that june has built works you put the
gimbal away when you're ready to film again or do something with the camera you know handheld
then you just come in pop it in and hook up my usb cable you can take the camera off the gimbal
use your camera handheld or put it away in your bag and then pop it right back on without having
to rebalance the gimbal assuming you don't change any of the arm lengths and settings and stuff like
that but it makes being able to take your camera off the gimbal use it in another way handheld or
put it away for a bit and then put it back on the gimbal without having to rebalance
really fast and easy and takes that whole step of having to rebalance your gimbal every time
you reattach your camera completely out of the equation which is really nice one thing that this
gimbal is limited to is the size of the camera you can put on it and effectively stabilize and
that's partly due to just because the fact it's a tiny gimbal the arms are not that big the motor
strength while it is really strong you only have so much space that you can balance a camera and so
when i balance my 7s3 on here i'd use a really short very lightweight lens to make it balance
properly and while it did work it definitely was pushing the load limits of the gimbal but
for example this combo here which is most of the footage you've seen is the tamron 11 to 20. i can
zoom it in or zoom it out because i balanced it about halfway and the footage has looked really
good overall throughout the system but this is probably the largest camera and the longer
longest focal length lens that i'd want to put on this but if you're using something like a 6400 an
a600 with some of the smaller lightweight lenses that are available for that including this one
you'd have no problem at all now if you use smaller cameras like the sony zv
one you'd have absolutely no problem running around with it one problem that i do have with the
design of this gimbal even though i really like the design overall is the power button it's really
easy to accidentally turn it on or off because the power button isn't in set or recessed at all
if you put it in your bag with something near it it'll chances are it will turn the power on
and then your gimbal will be dead by the time you get wherever you're going or at least we'll
have run down the battery pretty significantly that is something you need to watch when you're
packing this up or traveling with it if you get a certain package you'll get a bag with it but
if you're just sticking it in or taking it out of your camera bag like i generally tend to do
then you do need to be very careful of what you put around the gimbal so that it doesn't touch the
power button and accidentally turn the gimbal on while you're traveling the last weak point
that i've come across and again i think this is something that june can address via firmware is
i've had trouble with the roll axis staying level now i've been pushing this thing way beyond what
june says you should push it through and so i'm pretty sure it has a lot to do with the cold
messing up the the motors and their sensors to know where they are in their calibration
but i do think that's something that june can adjust through firmware and maybe
improve it and make it a little better down the road there are of course links in the description
if you want to check this gimbal out i really have enjoyed and kind of fall in love with working with
this thing because it is so small and compact it just makes running around with it a breeze
and the fact that it's held up against the extremely cold temperatures that we've had over
the last couple weeks really is a testament to june doing a great job with the design
now if you want to know about other larger gimbals if you've got a larger camera set up
click or tap there i put together a playlist of some of the other gimbals that i work with
as always if you have questions ask me in the comments below or join my live stream wednesday
nights at 4 pm alaska time 8 pm eastern i'll see you again soon in the next video cheers