Gimbal project 2024!

[morgan_moore]

Cp

For sure i hate joysticks amd see operating with little finesse with them.

My 'movi' electronic control is attached to a satchler head for the second operator and I think offers intuitive feel.. like a satchler fluid head!

But if kids dont care or frame loose enough then they are happy with them and trad sc operators just tilt the rig to pull a tilt.

 

[rob norton]

The poor person's trinity project is on ice at the moment. I haven't abandoned it, but I've prioritised figuring out a more day-in day-out set up. Plus I think the trinity project might be best served with the absolute smallest camera possible.

If you haven't followed the thread, I own the tilta advanced ring grip, which I actually think is OK for handheld gimbal work. This is under the assumption that the entire rig is light enough to hold in the hands. I still think ring grip is doable after adding ready/easy rigs, but as mentioned, as overall systems I'm not as much of a fan.

The biggest issue with the ring grip is moving between handheld and tripod mounted, specifically for dana dolly and jib use. Although awkward, the grip with its feet deployed will fit on the dana dolly platform, but it obviously doesn't belong. A jib is almost a non starter, you'd have to really want to use the combination in this way and it'd be underslung with creative rigging solutions to "mount" everything.

The other issue is the footprint, the depth is fantastic, but it's at the expense of extreme width and height.

So, I've been working on creating a camera agnostic base station that can easily move from handheld to a tripod head, while also redistributing some dimensions of the ring. As I worked through the build, after overcoming one challenge another presented itself immediately. This is still incomplete and more testing needs to be done, but it's ready to shoot and I'll keep shaving off weight where possible.

It's almost as if I've made a version of a DJI 4D (not to be confused with gimal in use, which is the DJI ronin 4s pro).
Criteria:

- mounts to dovetail baseplate
Original DJI grip with its single thread was instantly out of the question. The tilta powerbase has two threads like a camera.

- ability to provide wireless image via tx
- nothing mounted to camera
I'm no expert and I know people have balanced ridiculous rigs on gimbals, but I think almost any avoidable rebalancing delays on set or in the corporate world are such a waste of time.

- external monitor, essential due to previous point. Also important to provide strain relief for the beloved mini tx, not that I would, but if for example a cable ran directly from camera to tx
I bought literally the cheapest 5 inch monitor from B&H. It feels like each power on could be its last, but this is a stopgap monitor for now. Funnily enough, the HDMI exits from the rear of the monitor, a huge design win. Also, the tilt arm, while also on borrowed time, reminded me how much I prefer a monitor tilting in place (rotating) rather than needing its height in real estate fore/aft to move through a full range of motion. There's no pan/swivel either but this is OK for now and possibly future.

- gold mount battery
I only have 150wh batteries. These are too heavy and I'm currently leaning towards core 50wh batteries for as much weight saving as possible.

- tilta ring right hand grip used as my right hand grip
This one element changed the design quite a bit. I originally had two of the rubber grips (left hand grip pictured below) on either side. This let me use a single cheese plate rather than 3. Baseplate rods would mount the battery and monitor, so the overall shape would have been same height, narrower, but deeper. But since the rubber handles are dumb handles, I wanted the ability to use the right hand grip the same way I would on the ring, which is massively helpful. It provides joystick control (likely not mid shot as discussed but adjustments before rolling), reset to first position, roll adjustments and TBA record start/stop. I did a few shoots with the dumb handles and it was too much of a pain changing the gimabl setting while holding whole rig with a single hand. Not taking hands off the rig for the win. The right grip mounts vertically via NATO rail with an adapter, so I added a sideways cheese plate to mount the nato rail. I could have continued to use rods for the remaining accessories but increasing distance from the body starts depleting the human battery pretty quickly. Instead, I matched the cheese plate for the left side. Either way, you can see below it's shaved off almost 9 inches from the width of the tilta ring grip.

- more ergonomic operating
The grips are more neutral than a more externally rotated position when holding the ring grip. IDK science behind this but it feels better.

- easier to transport
The ring itself was good for the front seat but with cables etc. attached, it wasn't great.

Photos below:

 

[rob norton]

Latest improvements with handles in line with gimbal/camera, which feels much lighter than the rig from the previous post. I didn’t add a transmitter but this set up hasn't felt heavy yet. The term "all day" isn't necessarily helpful, but I didn't have any on a full day of intermittent gimbal shooting.

R5 Mark II with 15-35 f/2.8 RF lens. Core 50Wh battery still had all four bars at the end of the day. Core need to make a 10Wh gold mount battery as thick as a coaster. Anyway, no charging DJI hand grip batteries like a child!

You'll notice the newly positioned right hand grip. To place it more in line with the gimbal, I spaced/lowered with the silver pieces (just 3/8 to 1/4 20 adapters) and offset with a mini cheese plate, which allowed the hand grip to be vertically nato rail mounted. Compared with the wooden camera rubber hand grip on the right, attached via NATO rail, the right grip feels prosumer. There's an element of flex but it seems fine after holding the entire rig with the grip while walking between shots.

 

[markfpv]

Cool Rob! Appreciate the update. Always fun to see what others are doing.

 

[rob norton]

Cool Rob! Appreciate the update. Always fun to see what others are doing.

Thanks Mark!

Next steps:
- Confirm whether the tilta control will allow start/stop via bluetooth the same way the DJI control does. Pressing record on camera isn't a huge deal but it'd be great to gain those few seconds back in the shot where it's resettling after the button press. Plus it'd be even less time with a single hand holding everything so reduce fatigue even more.
- Keep adding other accessories to see how much weight I can take. First test will be to add a tx underneath (the dji wireless mount underneath the camera is really good) and counterweight above camera in shoe mount.
- Storage - I have a pretty small bag with every broken down for travel, but I'd like to get a local case with everything already assembled. Doing "zero rigging" is so satisfying where you can just pull the rig out and shoot. Current frontrunner is this tenba case https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/103974-REG/Tenba_634_402_Car_Case_CC17.html. Many hard cases have similar dimensions but it's quite unusual to find these dimensions while also made for this vertical orientation. I'm sure I could lay the rig on its side but would rather try this top loading case first. The rig can go on a dovetail plate, so I'll also add a dovetail plate to the rock n roller cart, but would still like to have an assembled rig case for when rock n roller space isn't at capacity.

I think that's it for now!

 

[rob norton]

Wheels for the RS series of gimbals:

I think you'd be nuts to jump on v1, it's sort of like any tilta/dji/smallrig stuff - it can get taken more seriously from v2/3(/4/5/6) onwards.

YT comments saying the pan/tilt wheels are inverted, which would be a problem for operators used to larger systems but it looks like you can switch them.

 

[CharlesPapert]

YT comments saying the pan/tilt wheels are inverted, which would be a problem for operators used to larger systems but it looks like you can switch them.

It's grotesque that the factory default has pan and tilt swapped. Even if no-one on their development team has ever operated a remote head, this information is easily searchable on the web. Sigh...