hey everyone my name is Evan Thomas I'm a photographer and a travel video maker
and in today's video you are going to learn how to balance the new zhiyun
crane - I'm not going to show you how to set it up I have another video for that
so if you don't know what comes in the box you don't know how to get it set up
you don't know the various modes then check out the other video I'll link to
in the description and that way it can become familiar with the crane before
you need to balance it why do we need to balance the crane well when the crane is
properly balanced its motors are going to need to work less they're gonna save
battery but more importantly you're gonna get a
much smoother shot if the crane is turned on while it's out of balance it's
gonna be vibrating and when you do move the gimbal around it's not gonna be able
to compensate because the weight is thrown off so properly balancing the
same crane - is very very important before you start shooting with it I'm
gonna zoom in now so you can see exactly what I'm talking about while I'm
balancing it before you start balancing your gimbal you want to get it shoot
ready and what I mean by that is you want to have it the same weight as it's
gonna be while you're shooting so you're gonna take the lens cap off if you're
gonna touch a lens hood you're gonna tap that make sure the batteries are in the
straps are off you want the final weight of the camera while you're balancing it
okay so there's one thing to remember while bouncing and that is you want to
find the center of gravity of the camera because you want to align the center of
gravity with all of the points with all of the motors so it's finding the center
grab the center of gravity on a camera like this is generally kind of where the
sensor is so maybe right around here the longer the lens obviously the further
out the center of gravity moves if you have a shorter lens the center of
gravity moves that way so if I were to try to balance this on my finger right
here and I let go you can see it's gonna fall back if I were to balance it closer
to here it's a little bit more stable so just kind of get your hands on the
camera and think about where the center of gravity is because that's gonna help
you a lot with balancing it because we're gonna lie that centre of gravity
with the motors so I'm gonna reattach this back on okay so as you reattach
this back on I'm just gonna keep in mind where the center gravity is I'm going to
try to line it with this motor the steps we're going to follow our side motor
first back motor second and then finally the bottom motor last so it's going to
be one two three those are the steps you always follow a balancing okay so that
looks about right for aligning the center of gravity with this motor I'll show
you from the side here's the motor here's the center of the motor imagine a
line running down through intersecting with the center of gravity with the camera
so I'm going to tighten the base plate
and now we're going to adjust this motor so the way to do that is by pointing the
camera down and this is actually already pretty adjusted but I'm just gonna throw
it on balance so you can see how I would do it anyway so let's say when I pointed
it down the camera was falling this way so what that's telling me is that the
center of gravity the camera is too far on this side of this motor so we need to
move the center of gravity back in line with the center of this motor so I'm
going to move it this way and you always make micro adjustments the smallest
movement on these gimble's has a big effect so you only need to
move it just barely and every time I move it I'm just letting go to see if
it's falling back okay so that is perfectly balanced for this motor so now
I'm going to tighten this
and now we're going to move on to the back motor that's step number two the
back motor so you can see that if I hold this if I let go the camera is falling
this way so what is that telling us that's telling us the center of gravity
is too far that way so we need to move it back this way
so again micro-adjustments it's a little stiff because this cameras this gimbal
is brand-new get micro adjustments still I have to move it this way and that is
pretty good for the purpose of this demonstration not gonna get it perfect
in the interest of time it does take practice to get this down perfect but I
can do this in under 60 seconds now the first time I tried doing it I was so
frustrated I almost threw this thing out the window took me 25 minutes half an
hour but just keep practicing guys and you'll get it you can do it under 60
seconds once you know just once you get the feel for it then finally to do the
last adjustment which is on this bottom plate you hold the gimbal to the side
and again the camera is falling I'm gonna hold it this way you can see the
camera is falling forward so I'm trying to get this motor like this see how it's
falling that way that means I need to move it back this way and this is the
most difficult ones you have to hold it at the same time so now when I line it
up in the middle it looks like it's working I'm trying to get this this
motor on the back parallel to the floor it's kind of hard to see so that one is
adjusted and now when the gitmo is properly balanced I should be able to
point it in any direction and it will stay in that direction that's how you
know the gimbal is properly balanced so now when I turn it on by holding the
power button down for two seconds for three seconds
it comes alive and it's perfectly balanced I'm gonna
put it on the lock mode by pushing down the mode button one time and you can see
no matter which direction I move this gimble it's always facing straight it's
locked on the street that is a perfectly balanced gimble here's one tip that I
always like to share with people you're going to be using different lenses for
your shoots or at least most people will be and that's gonna throw out the
balance so what you want to do is make note of the little hash marks that are
on the side here you want to make note of these hash marks so that when you
change out your lens you know exactly which hash marks to go to and I just
store those notes in my phone in the notes section so when I'm on set or I'm
out traveling and shooting and I need to change my lens I say okay I'm putting on
my attendee 18y lens these are the hash marks that I need to go to and I don't
even really need to balance it I just line up little hash marks and that lens
is perfectly balanced so a great tip is once you have this perfectly balanced
making notes of the hash marks in your phone and you'll never need to balance
it again because you know exactly the best point for that particular lens are
setup alright guys if you have any questions leave a comment below I
respond to every single comment if you found this video helpful please give it
a like and please subscribe to see the videos that I make with this new Z and
crane too as well as any more tutorials I think you'll enjoy the videos that I
put out so please subscribe or leave a comment thanks
you