- Alright, you guys know my kinda love/hate relationship
with gimbals.
I wanna love them so badly,
but the ones I've tried so far still haven't tempted me
enough to switch from the good old steadycam glidecam.
I always just revert back to this.
It's simple, no electronics, it doesn't break on you,
it doesn't fail, it's easy to pack up,
it's just simple and easy to use.
But we have another contender, the DJI Ronin S.
(electronic music)
Now, I've heard so much good stuff about this gimbal,
but I'm always a little skeptical of the hype.
I want to test it out for myself,
and really see is it as good as people say,
and instead of just doing a review, I thought it'd be nice
to first test it against my favorite gimbal
up until this point, which has been this guy,
the Zhiyun Crane 2.
This, I think is,
up until this point,
this has been my favorite gimbal to use.
So I want to see is the DJI Ronin S better than the Crane 2.
Yeah, I'm a little late to the party,
but thanks DJI for sending me this Ronin S so I could do
this comparison and tell you guys
which is the better gimbal, in my opinion.
And before we actually go out and film with these gimbals,
let's take a look at the specs, see how they compare.
Let's look at the most important specs
and see how they compare to each other.
First, let's look at the build quality,
and I'd say both of these gimbals are built pretty well.
I like them.
There's some bonuses, I think, on the DJI Ronin S side,
namely the handle.
It's got a nice rubber grip to it.
Just feels a little bit better in the hand,
and then also the cradle is built in a way so that it
doesn't actually cover the LCD screen like the Crane 2 does.
So that's actually a fairly big bonus, I think,
so you can actually see better what you're filming.
And I like that they both come with these little stands,
these little feet, so it's just easier to set it up,
easier to balance, you can put it down on the ground
when you're getting tired.
I really like that all.
Pretty much all the gimbal companies are instituting these
little monopod feet, essentially.
Both also come with a nice case, which is great.
I would say the DJI one might be a little bit worse
because you have to break it down more,
so you actually have to take apart the gimbal more
to put it in there,
but both cases work great.
I do remember, though, when I got the Zhiyun Crane 2,
when I first opened the case,
it felt like 10 smokers had just breathed into the case,
and that wasn't the best first experience opening the case,
but yeah, both cases work great.
Weight-wise, the Zhiyun Crane 2 is only 2.7 lbs,
or somewhere around there,
and then the Ronin S is actually 4.1 lbs,
so the Ronin is a heavier gimbal.
But it's not a crazy big difference,
but there is a difference there.
And then that also reflects in the weight capacity,
so the amount of weight that you can put on the gimbal,
the Zhiyun Crane 2 can take seven lbs,
whereas the Ronin S can take eight lbs,
and I've actually seen, like, really big cameras
on the Ronin S, which is kind of crazy.
I even saw, I think, Kai W put a C300,
which is this camera here.
A C300 is a big camera, I'm very surprised
that you can put a C300 on this guy,
so super impressive with the weight load,
the max capacity of the gimbal.
And then price-wise, I actually thought
there was going to be a bigger difference.
So the Zhiyun Crane 2 is about 650 dollars,
and then the DJI Ronin S is 700 dollars, 699, so
not too big of difference in price,
so that kind of evens out the playing field
and we can really see which one is worth the money
because they are so close in price.
And there's probably a whole bunch of little presets
and different settings
that make a difference in the two gimbals,
but none of those really matter too much to me.
I just want to know how well does it work,
how easy is it to use,
and what are the final results like, so
why don't we actually go and test these two gimbals out,
and see what kind of results we get.
Matt, I need a hand, do you wanna help me
test these things out?
- Let's do it
- [Narrator] Alright.
(electronic music)
- Hoof, okay, I'm sweating, I'm super hot.
It's crazy hot out there.
It was really interesting to see the two different gimbals.
We were out there for a couple hours.
I used the gimbals, Matt used the gimbals,
and it was interesting seeing the different perspective,
because Matt hasn't...
Matt's my editor, if you didn't know,
Matt hasn't used gimbals that much,
and then I've tried, pretty much,
all of these different gimbals,
so I have a little bit more experience,
but it was nice having that different perspective
on the two gimbals.
First off, setting them up, I would say there wasn't really
that much of a difference here.
Both are pretty easy to set up, I mean,
gimbals can be a little bit tricky, but no issues here.
I would say the Ronin S was a little bit better
because of the auto tune function.
It just did a super good job,
just tweaking it and making sure it was super stable.
But yeah, both were pretty easy to set up.
Okay, and then actually using it, filming with it,
using the two gimbals back to back,
it's really apparent the differences between the gimbals.
You're not really seeing the difference
so much in stability, which we'll talk about later,
but the user experience,
there's a massive difference between
the Crane 2 and the Ronin S.
Like, massive difference.
Straight out of the box,
using the Ronin S for the first time, it felt really good,
really intuitive.
There was no big headaches or no big frustrations using it,
and I actually liked it way more than using the Crane 2,
even though I've had the Crane 2 for way longer.
This was my first time using the Ronin S,
and I enjoyed it way more.
Moving from the different modes, the normal shooting mode,
the flashlight mode, undersling,
just going between the modes was super easy and fluid.
There was enough room for the camera on the cradle,
nothing was hitting while I was moving the gimbal,
whereas on the Crane 2 it would sometimes hit,
which is never good.
Now, the Ronin S is definitely heavier,
and I really worked up a sweat using it,
but it was way more fun to use.
It was the first time that it felt like the gimbal
was working like I wanted it to work.
I wasn't having to battle with it,
fight with it the whole time,
kind of trying to make it work for my filming styles,
it just worked really well, first time using it.
I loved the front trigger, using that to lock all the axes
not only for when you're filming,
it's really handy when you just want it to be locked off,
but also switching between modes,
it's just really quick to be able to switch from, you know,
normal to the flashlight or all the way to undersling.
You just press the button and swing it down,
ready to go, super easy, super fast.
And then if we're talking about the undersling mode,
which is kind of doing that low to the ground shot,
holding it upside down, with the Crane 2
I actually couldn't even do that, having a 1D X-II on there.
It just couldn't go all the way around,
whereas on the Ronin S, super easy, just put it upside down
and you can get nice and low to the ground.
And so with the Crane, we would kind of have to do that
flashlight kind of just sticking straight forward more,
and that's a lot more shaky, way harder to get those shots.
It's really awkward being low to the ground with the gimbal.
It's just really not a good way to shoot.
So the Ronin S definitely won in the undersling mode
because it could actually do it with the 1D X-II,
and that's one of my favorite shots to do,
so this is actually a really big factor for me,
that I can just quickly put it upside down
and get those low shots without having to
do some awkward movement
and just have really shaky footage in the end.
And let's talk stability.
DJI is actually claiming that these are the strongest motors
in this kind of sized gimbal,
and I was a little bit skeptical, but looking at the footage
it's actually really surprising,
I didn't see any of that kind of micro-jitter that you
sometimes get with gimbals when it's not doing
a good job of stabilizing.
I didn't see any of that on any of the footage,
I don't think. There might have been a few little spots, but
pretty much nonexistent, whereas on the Crane 2
you definitely get some of those micro-jitters
every once in a while, especially during the flashlight,
undersling, low down to the ground.
You're definitely getting a lot of that micro-jitter,
so I actually fully believe DJI claiming
that these are the strongest motors,
and with the weight capacity it makes sense that, yeah.
The Ronin S can do 8 lbs vs. the Crane 2 can only do 7 lbs,
so definitely stronger motors
and that's gonna make for more stable shots
for all of your shots, basically.
So 100%, this does seem like the strongest motors,
at least that I've seen or tested out.
Then some other stuff to mention,
I really like the sport mode, so you can just hold down
the M button and then it moves really quickly
wherever you move it, it goes really fast.
It almost feels like a glidecam, which is one of the things
I really miss when I'm using gimbals,
is that it doesn't feel as kinetic
or it doesn't feel like
you're really in control of the gimbal,
whereas on the glidecam, steadycams,
it moves exactly where you move it.
So this is a really nice function, having that sport mode.
I really liked it.
I'd like to use it more to see how good and how usable it is
but I really enjoyed it.
Another feature that the Crane 2 doesn't have
is the infinite spin, which you can basically
put the Ronin S into flashlight mode and then just have it
roll or spin around an infinite amount.
It's kind of a gimmicky shot.
It is a really cool shot, but you're just not going
to be able to use it all the time.
But, again, it is a really nice option to have
when you wanna do something different,
or it's a music video or something,
and you want to get a little bit of a trippy shot.
Just a really nice option to have.
Now, one big gripe I did have with the Ronin S
is this little quarter 20 screw that came with it.
When I put it in, originally, into my 1D X,
it was just barely threading into the bottom,
and then I was asking Peter about his
and he actually, I think,
he's not completely sure, but he thinks,
it actually stripped the thread in his 1D X
because it's just barely in there so it just pops out,
and it just ruins the whole thread in the camera, so
it's not a big deal because you can easily fix this,
but this is definitely a flaw.
This should not be this small, so I actually
just right away replaced this with a different one,
and yeah, no issues there.
Alright, overall verdict,
and this one's a bit of an interesting one
because usually I kind of, you know, say well,
this product is good for those people
and this one is really good for these people,
but, in this case, there's a clear winner, it's the Ronin S,
like, there's no questions about it,
and because the price difference is so small,
it's like a no-brainer.
100%, I would always go for the Ronin S,
whether you're a wedding shooter or an indy shooter,
a Youtuber, I would just buy the Ronin S.
There's actually not one single reason why...
(loud thud)
My phone just fell.
There's actually not one single reason
I can think of right now, using both the gimbals,
why I would buy the Crane 2 vs. the Ronin S.
I'm still trying to think of one.
I got nothing.
Stronger motors, having more stable footage
because of those, and then just the ease of use,
that's the biggest thing for me.
I actually enjoyed using this gimbal,
whereas a lot of the other gimbals that I've used
I've just been hating those shoots.
And even this shoot I was dreading
because I thought it was going to be very similar,
where I'm just like I don't like either of these,
but I gotta, you know, pick a winner.
But in this case, it was very clear who the winner was.
So, yeah, if you're looking for a smaller gimbal,
I'd say go for the Ronin S,
and this one I can say with confidence.
Of course, take my word with a grain of salt,
because I did get this gimbal for free,
I mean I did get both gimbals for free, but yeah,
this is my opinion.
You need to test it out, see for yourself
and find the right gimbal for you.
I feel like this video's a long one
but I wanted to do a decent job of comparing
the two gimbals, I wanted to do them justice.
I hope you got something out of this.
If you're looking for a gimbal, do some more research
and test them out, that's really the best way to figure out
what the best gimbal is for you.
Alright that's it for this unscientific comparison review,
and I'll probably do a full comprehensive review of
the DJI Ronin S once I've used it a little bit more,
but this was a good start, I think.
Yeah, just make sure to hit that like button,
subscribe to the channel
if you're not already subscribed to it,
I'd love for you to be a part of this community,
and go out and film something fun,
and I'll see you guys in the next video.
Bye.
(electronic music)