- Hey guys, my name is Matt Johnson with whoismatt.com,
and this is the Zhiyun Crane 2S gimbal.
I've been using this gimbal for a few months
and I've filmed a couple of weddings with it,
as well as taking it with me on a trip to Colorado,
to film an elopement.
Today, I want to review this gimbal
from the perspective of a wedding filmmaker.
So if you happen to film weddings like me,
it should be helpful to you.
Also for the sake of ethics, I want you to know
that while Zhiyun did send me the gimbal,
they're not paying me to make this video,
and the first time that they're gonna be seeing this video,
is the same time that you see it,
whenever I upload it to YouTube.
This video does have a sponsor though,
my friends at Artlist,
but more about them at the end of the video.
With that out of the way,
I feel like there's really two different types of filmmakers
that are considering this gimbal.
The first and possibly smaller group at this point,
are filmmakers that have never used an electronic gimbal
and are considering picking one up.
To those filmmakers, I say welcome.
Gimbals are a lot of fun, almost as much fun as drones,
but that's another topic.
And if the first group of filmmakers is people
that have never used a gimbal,
it makes sense that the second group is of course,
filmmakers that already own a gimbal
and are considering upgrading to the Crane 2S.
Maybe you already own a Crane 2 like me,
you've had it for a few years,
and you're wondering if the 2S is a worthy upgrade.
Or maybe you're coming from something like the DJI Ronin-S,
and you're considering the RS 2,
but it's $850 price is a bit steep.
So whenever you see the Crane 2S is coming in at $600
or cheaper, you start thinking to yourself,
"Maybe I should save some extra cash."
Now, full disclosure right off the bat,
I have not used the DJI RS 2 yet.
So I am not going to be able to do
a full comparison between these two gimbals.
That said though, it's impossible to ignore
the RS 2 and its capabilities.
So I am gonna talk about some differences
between these gimbals, but this is a hardcore versus video
comparing every single difference.
Back to the Crane 2S review now.
This gimbal is going to be very familiar to you,
if you are coming from a Crane 2, original Ronin-S,
or honestly, most other camera gimbals.
For the past few years, it's felt like Zhiyun
was really trying to reinvent the gimbal.
New models, like the Crane 3 LAB, Crane 3S,
Weebill LAB and Weebill-S, have been great experiments.
But, I guess you can call me a bit of a gimbal purist,
because whenever I tried out those gimbals,
I never fell in love with them.
The Crane 3 LAB and 3S especially,
felt like they were sacrificing traditional
vertical usability for enhanced versatility,
with a low angle under slung mode.
Instead of a long handle on the bottom you could grip,
the handle came out the back.
And while that ostensibly made the gimbal better
if you wanted to fill the low shots close to the ground,
I don't film shots like that very often.
And I personally felt like this was a move
in the wrong direction from a usability standpoint.
That said though, I know plenty of filmmakers
that love the Crane 3.
Personally though, it just didn't work for me.
I did not plan on upgrading from the Crane 2,
unless I was going to be moving to a gimbal
that had a similar form factor.
Thankfully, looking at the Crane 2S,
this gimbal is very similar to the Crane 2,
just bigger, beefier and stronger,
with some nice quality of life improvements
over the Crane 2.
To start, the arms are longer than before.
Unlike my Crane 2, which I needed to buy
an extension plate for so I can mount
my a7S II with the battery grip,
the Crane 2S has large enough arms out of the box,
likewise, the motors are larger too,
which probably means the 2S has a larger payload.
Wait Matt, why are you saying probably?
Well, this is where things get a bit weird
about the Crane 2S, because I cannot find
a payload rating for this gimbal anywhere.
In the past, it seems like every company
that came up with a new gimbal was screaming
in all their marketing material
how much weight the motors could handle.
The Crane 2 had a seven pound max payload.
The new Ronin RS 2 can hold up to 10 pounds.
The Crane 2S has a high load capacity,
where are the hard numbers?
This used to be such a simple metric
to determine a gimbal's strength,
but Zhiyun seems to have moved away from that.
I can't find a payload rating anywhere on their website,
marketing material or in their manual.
Now in place of the max payload rating,
Zhiyun does give you a very detailed PDF,
saying what cameras and lenses can be balanced
on the gimbal, but this absence of a maximum
payload capacity does make it difficult
to understand at a glance,
whether the motors are actually much,
if at all, stronger than the Crane 2.
It's weird, right?
That said though, I do feel like we've reached
peak motor strength for gimbals,
or at least a motor strength level
where nobody's gonna complain about it anymore.
Ever since the Ronin-S and Crane 2 came out,
it's very rare for me to see someone complaining
that their motors aren't strong enough on their gimbal.
For the Crane 2S, in my testing,
I've found that it can easily hold my Sony a7S II
or a7S III with the battery grip.
I've also seen videos online Of people mounting two cameras
on top of the gimbal, which is crazy, but kind of cool.
My point is, you shouldn't need to worry about the weight
of your camera and lenses on this gimbal.
Your footage should be stable and smooth.
And to show, that I've made sure to film some shots
in 24 frames per second, with no slow motion
while using the gimbal, to give you a good idea
of how stable it is when filming.
Looking down here to where your camera base plate
mounts to the gimbal now,
you'll see the Zhiyun has reworked this entire arm.
One of my favorite features of the Crane 2,
was that it used Manfrotto Quick Release Plates,
the same plates that I use on all my cameras and tripods.
This made taking the camera on and off
the gimbal pretty fast.
That said though, even with the quick release plate,
it was a bit slow mounting the camera to the gimbal,
because the camera needed to be locked
into the exact position where it would be properly balanced.
This wasn't a huge amount of time,
but when you're filming a wedding,
where something important can be happening
and every second counts, being able to mount your camera
on a gimbal quickly is very important.
With that in mind, Zhiyun kept the same mounting plate,
but made a really nice improvement to it
With this lever here.
Slide it open and the entire base of the gimbal
can slide off instantly, pretty fast.
But look at this.
When I went to put my camera back on the gimbal,
I can slide it back in, lock it,
and the gimbal is now perfect balanced and ready to use.
No need to make any small balancing adjustments.
I love that speed, and it will save me
a few seconds when filming.
Keeping that speed in mind,
the Crane 2S now has a button on the back
that toggles through different shooting modes.
I prefer to use the follow-up mode when filming,
so I can now easily turn on the gimbal
and press one button to be in follow mode.
Another big improvement to the Crane 2S,
which you've been seeing in action this entire video,
is that the arms now lock.
This makes the gimbal so much easier to transport.
Just slide the locking switch,
move the arms and they lock into place.
I love this feature.
This is also a great benefit
whenever you're balancing the gimbal,
because you can lock the arms and balance them individually,
which greatly speeds up the balancing process.
In addition, these feet are also larger
and more sturdy than the Crane 2.
And I'm less worried about this gimbal falling over,
and I don't have to retighten the legs often
like I did with the Crane 2.
Lastly, one of the most welcome improvements that I've found
is that the 2S now lets you change motor settings
on the gimbal itself using its screen.
I'm someone that prefers to lower the panning speed
of my gimbals to make them look more organic,
and whereas with the Crane 2, I had to pair an iPhone app
with a gimbal to change settings over Bluetooth.
The 2S does away with all that and allows for easy setting
changes on the gimbal, no phone or Bluetooth required.
So as you can see overall, there are some nice improvements
that the Crane 2S has made over the Crane 2.
And there are a lot of new features
that I haven't even had the chance to use yet.
Things like mounting your camera vertically,
which for me being a wedding filmmaker,
I don't see myself filming
a vertical wedding video anytime soon,
that is unless it's some TikTok celebrity wedding,
which, hey, that could be cool.
There's also Zhiyun's TransMount Image Transmission system,
a mechanical wall of focus, sling grip, lots of cool stuff.
But for me as a wedding filmmaker, like I said,
I'm a bit of a gimbal purist.
I want a compact, lightweight system
that I can carry around all day,
that isn't going to have a ton of bulk.
I don't even want to hook the camera
up to the gimbal with cables
to be able to start and stop recording,
because that's gonna make it take even longer
to take the camera off and put it back on.
In short, the rest of these accessories and add-ons,
don't really interest me for wedding film making.
And I don't know many wedding filmmakers
that use a lot of accessories with their gimbals either.
And I suppose this is the part of the review
where we talk about where I feel the Zhiyun
missed the mark with the Crane 2S.
See, while many of the upgrades
that Zhiyun made to this gimbal are welcome,
they aren't exactly what I wanted from this gimbal.
Before this gimbal was announced,
if you came up to me and said, "Matt,
what are the two main changes that you want to see
in the Crane 2 successor?"
That's easy. I would have told you, I want to gimbal
with a slightly smaller hand grip that's easier to hold,
and I also want a gimbal that is lighter.
Notice that both of these things are very helpful
if you are carrying a gimbal around
for 12 hours on a wedding day.
Looking at the Crane 2S's grip,
it's now carbon fiber instead of metal.
But looking at the circumference, it's essentially the same
as the grip that I used on the Crane 2.
The circumference of this grip is at the upper limits
that I feel comfortable holding with my average sized hands,
especially after using the gimbal for hours.
In contrast, having used the Ronin-S,
I prefer the slimmer, rectangular shape
of that gimbals handle and I find it easier to hold
for an extended period of time.
Of course, I understand that the Crane 2S is grip
had to be this size to hold the three batteries inside it
that power the gimbal.
And I do greatly appreciate that the gimbal
uses replaceable batteries that can be swapped,
versus the Ronin, where you have to buy
a completely separate grip if you're worried
about your battery's dying.
But I can't help but wish,
that Zhiyun had somehow found a way
to shave a few millimeters off the circumference
of the grip, or put the batteries in a different orientation
that allowed it to be thinner.
My second major complaint about the Crane 2S
is the weight of this gimbal.
With my Crane 2, I always wish
that it was just a little bit lighter.
It'd be easier for me to carry around on a wedding day.
Unfortunately, with the Crane 2S,
Zhiyun went the opposite direction.
And for some reason,
added almost two pounds of weight to this gimbal.
Yes, it clocks in at 4.63 pounds.
That's 1.83 pounds heavier than my Crane 2,
which weighed only 2.76 pounds.
This thing is chunky even with a new carbon fiber grip.
I really wanted it to weigh less, not more.
And whenever you compare the weight of the Crane 2S
to the new DJI RS 2, this is where things start to get ugly.
Because the Crane 2S is 4.63 pounds,
is 1.77 pounds heavier than the weight of the RS 2,
which only weighs 2.86 pounds.
For comparison, the original DJI Ronin-S weighed 4.1 pounds,
meaning DJI managed to trim 1.24 pounds off
and nearly make it the same weight as my Crane 2.
Okay, lots of numbers there,
and I'm very sorry to my metric using friends.
Moving on, let's talk about another annoyance
that I have with this gimbal, this joystick.
As I said, I prefer to use follow mode,
so I rarely use the joystick.
But my gripe isn't about the joysticks usability,
my gripe is about how fragile it is
and how easy it can fall off.
This is the same joystick from the Crane 2.
And maybe my joystick on this specific Crane 2S
is worse than others, but the amount of Google results
that come up for Crane 2 replacement joysticks,
doesn't exactly instill my confidence in that,
because this joystick can fall off quite easily.
Get a fingernail underneath it, and it pops right off.
And what's gonna happen, is that you're gonna be
unloading your gimbal from your car, like I was,
and you're gonna look down on the ground and say,
"What's that piece of plastic down there?
Oh, that's my joystick, I almost drove off and left it."
And then I would have no way to adjust the gimbal
other than using follow mode, that sucks.
Now, "Matt," you may be thinking,
"why aren't you keeping your gimbal in its case
so it's protected whenever you're transporting it?"
Well, that's the next issue that we need to talk about,
the case.
And I really, this is a bit more of a tangental thing
because we're reviewing the gimbal, not it's case,
but Zhiyun did so well with the case for the Crane 2,
that it makes it's the Crane 2S is case
look pitiful in comparison.
The Crane 2S's case is rigid, but has some flex.
Nice zipper, storage for accessories.
And most importantly, I could fit my gimbal inside it,
fully balanced and ready to go.
All it had to do with screw on the feet,
slide my camera on and start filming.
In contrast, the case for the Crane 2S is hard foam,
it has these cheap plastic locks, and there's no way
to keep the gimbal balanced when you pack it up.
It feels like a huge regression
to go from such a nice case with the Crane 2,
to something so mediocre with the Crane 2S.
Lastly, let's talk about the arms of this gimbal.
And this isn't so much of a con as it is an oddity.
The Crane 2S uses a very traditional
90 degree roll motor arm on the back.
This is just like the Crane 2,
and unlike many of its competitors
that have switched to a dropped 45 degree arm.
In every single piece of marketing material
that I've seen for the Crane 2S,
Zhiyun always shows it with this 90 degree roll arm.
The website shows a 90 degree arm.
In the instruction manual there's a 90 degree arm.
So imagine my surprise when I'm watching fellow YouTuber,
Dan Watson's video about the Crane 2S,
and he has modified his to have a 45 degree arm.
This is possible, I had no idea.
And the more research that I did,
the more it started to look like
this may be more of a sketchy modification,
than one that is fully endorsed by Zhiyun.
That said though, it does appear to work well.
And as someone that really likes a dropped 45 degree arm,
I'll probably do it on my Crane 2S soon enough.
If you want to do it yourself,
I'll link down to the description
to my friend, Josh Morgan's tutorial
over on his Momentum Productions YouTube channel,
it's not hard to do.
Regardless, if this is a sanction modification by Zhiyun,
I would think that they should be shouting this
from the rooftops, because it's really cool.
I don't know of any other gimbal that lets you change
your roll arm angle from 90 to 45 degrees.
I think it's a cool selling point.
But alas, just like the lack of marketing material
for the maximum payload for this gimbal,
it's all just a bit weird.
With that, it's time to wrap up this review.
Let's talk price and the competition.
The Crane 2S comes in at $600 for this gimbal,
but I've seen it on sale for as low as 540
at the time of making this video.
In contrast, the closest competitor to this gimbal,
the DJI RS 2, comes in at $850.
So now we're at the point
where you need to start asking yourself,
is the $250 or more price premium
of the DJI RS 2 worth it over the Crane 2S?
Let's go back to what I said at the start of this video.
I think there's two kinds of filmmakers
that are considering the Crane 2S.
You're either a filmmaker that is buying a gimbal
for the first time, or you're upgrading your gimbal
and are considering the 2S.
If you're a filmmaker that is new to gimbals,
the first thing that should dictate
whether you're gonna buy this gimbal,
is the weight of your camera and lens.
Do you typically shoot with mirrorless cameras
and smaller lenses?
In that case, I think the Crane 2S
with its much higher payload capacity, size and weight,
is overkill for most smaller camera lens setups.
And I think you would be better served
with a more lightweight gimbal, like the Zhiyun Weebill-S,
MOZA AirCross 2, or if you can afford it, the DJI RS 2.
Now let's say that you are considering upgrading
from the Crane 2 to the 2S.
In that case, I think you really need to consider
if the added benefits of the locking arms,
the faster quick release plate the removes the gimbal arm,
the ability to change your pan and tilt
motor settings on the gimbal,
and possibly a sketchy role motor modification are worth it.
Keep in mind that the 2S is going to add
nearly two pounds of weight over the Crane 2 as well,
and you will feel that weight at the end of a wedding day.
Personally, while these upgrades are nice,
I don't think they're worth spending $600,
especially if your Crane 2 is still working well.
This puts the Crane 2S in a bit of a weird position,
because thinking about it,
the only way that I would really recommend this gimbal,
is if you have a heavier camera,
so you need its capabilities,
but you also don't have an extra $250 to buy the DJI RS 2.
But if you have a heavier camera,
it's probably way more expensive,
meaning that you can probably afford the RS 2.
It just puts the Crane 2S in a weird position.
So for me, as a wedding filmmaker that prioritizes
having a lightweight camera and gimbal set up,
I can't recommend the Crane 2S,
either as a standalone purchase
or as an upgrade from the Crane 2.
It's not a bad gimbal by any means,
but most wedding filmmakers don't need its capabilities,
the competition is offering something
that is lighter and easier to use,
and I don't think Zhiyun made upgrades
in the right areas for wedding filmmakers.
With that, thank you so much for watching this review
of the Zhiyun Crane 2S.
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