Micro Gimbal for GH4, BMPCC, A7s - $699 USD

[focuspulling]

How is telling people WHAT the in gimbal calibration operations actually do "not necessarily helpful advice"? All the push 4 times calibration does is calibrate the sensor attached to the sled. All the push 5 times calibration does is calibrate the gyros according to the input PID values. You would do that in a ambient temperature change or after long uses.

What you gave was "not necessarily helpful advice" telling people to use the sensor calibration and gyro calibration in their hopes to get different results. Which they wouldn't. ALL GIMBALS need PID adjustments to tune for specific camera packages and performance expectation. Calibrating the sensor will only tell the gimbal what is level. Calibrating the gyros only lets the board send the proper power to the gyros from the PID values.

Take it easy, you're overreacting to a gesture directed at someone else, to refine advice down to only what's needed incrementally. It's misleading to say that "ALL GIMBALS need PID adjustments" as that simply isn't true and can waste tons of time. I'm getting fantastic results on a variety of brushless motorized gimbals from the CAME 7800 to this Nebula 4000 Lite to simpler gear from Big Balance, between a BMPCC and GH4. When you perfectly balance a camera, while prudently matching a lens with modest weight (ideally a pancake, though I've gotten zooms working great), there's a lot of forgiveness around default PID settings. Whereas, there is definitely a drift effect and those four-push and five-push calibration operations are extraordinarily easy first steps when there's a leveling problem. I get it, you spent hours figuring out how to use SimpleBGC, but just like that name, keeping things simple is king.

I'm thrilled by the prospect of mass consumer adoption without geeking out folks on PID tuning, if for no other reason than I'm fatigued by shaky cams in indie films and this could be a revolution.

 

[focuspulling]

Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera with Olympus 9-18mm rectilinear zoom lens. Much preferring this to my GH4 for numerous reasons, mostly non-REC.709 log color space, 10-bit 4:2:2 internal recording, and CinemaDNG RAW (the Panasonic GH4 won't come close without mounting its new Shogun which will defeat the purpose of this portable device, leaning me to my CAME 7800 for that configuration). Also works great with the 12-35mm zoom lens at these same balancing settings, just pushed forward. No PID tuning necessary at all, with perfect results. I think a lot of early adopters are trying to jerk the gimbal around quickly and in dramatic moves that wouldn't play well in usefully artful cinematography, so it's sensible to engage in PID tuning only to the extent you may need it for actual creative implementation. Put another way, you might be doing something else wrong if you're digging into the firmware.

 

[dustylense]

Take it easy, you're overreacting to a gesture directed at someone else, to refine advice down to only what's needed incrementally. It's misleading to say that "ALL GIMBALS need PID adjustments" as that simply isn't true and can waste tons of time. I'm getting fantastic results on a variety of brushless motorized gimbals from the CAME 7800 to this Nebula 4000 Lite to simpler gear from Big Balance, between a BMPCC and GH4. When you perfectly balance a camera, while prudently matching a lens with modest weight (ideally a pancake, though I've gotten zooms working great), there's a lot of forgiveness around default PID settings. Whereas, there is definitely a drift effect and those four-push and five-push calibration operations are extraordinarily easy first steps when there's a leveling problem. I get it, you spent hours figuring out how to use SimpleBGC, but just like that name, keeping things simple is king.

I'm thrilled by the prospect of mass consumer adoption without geeking out folks on PID tuning, if for no other reason than I'm fatigued by shaky cams in indie films and this could be a revolution.

And with this asinine response, I will gladly bow out of the thread. Good luck guys with your N4000's. Focuspulling will now be your go to guy for all N4000 updates and input. I mean, look, he balanced a BMC on the N4000 and took a still of it. Surely he will upload some footage for you all to be impressed by. He's sure to direct you all in the right direction with the N4000 and your camera configurations. I mean, he has a blog site and everything.....

 

[focuspulling]

And with this asinine response, I will gladly bow out of the thread. Good luck guys with your N4000's. Focuspulling will now be your go to guy for all N4000 updates and input. I mean, look, he balanced a BMC on the N4000 and took a still of it. Surely he will upload some footage for you all to be impressed by. He's sure to direct you all in the right direction with the N4000 and your camera configurations. I mean, he has a blog site and everything.....

This is out of nowhere; sorry to see you're so furious (having a bad day, leading up to Christmas?), but I'm seriously just trying to help. Everyone deserves a voice, even where initially, you were the most vocal here. Products launch and go into the wild, then it's everyone's baby. I'm liking it and I think it's relatively easy to use. Excited to see more footage from everyone.

 

[Kraut69]

On my attempt to put the N4000 on a Merlin arm/vest, I replaced the quick release plate with a ball mount to regain some tilt functionality. Will probably shorten the glidecam adapter post a lot, and add some significant weight under the ball mount to smooth movement out.

 

[focuspulling]

On my attempt to put the N4000 on a Merlin arm/vest, I replaced the quick release plate with a ball mount to regain some tilt functionality. Will probably shorten the glidecam adapter post a lot, and add some significant weight under the ball mount to smooth movement out.

Nice idea; I'm similarly hooking a Manfrotto Pixi table-top tripod into the bottom 1/4"-20 hole, that has a simple push-button-to-adjust ballhead, doubling as an extended handle as well as a stand.

 

[Steve Benjamin]

Your input was very welcomed by me Dustylense so very a sincere thank you for your input, sure you won't reconsider and carry on commenting? Thanks to all you who are sharing your findings with the rest of us it really is a big help.

 

[mr bill]

Thanks for blazing a trail, dustylense, and thanks for generously sharing your time and information.

 

[noirist]

dusty, you've made a great contribution to this thread (and many others). Why not just put focuspulling on your ignore list rather than dropping out of the thread? It's very easy to do, just click this link in his profile:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/profile.php?do=addlist&userlist=ignore&u=113122

 

[Dugdale]

Dusty if you are still around, are these the settings? Hard to read from your image.

PID Controller:

• Roll 41, x, 24
• Pitch 34, x, 22
• Yaw 32, x, 27

Motor Config:

• Roll 117, x, 14
• Pitch 125, x, 14
• Yaw 145, x, 14

 

[vladwolodarsky]

Hi everyone,

I'm planning on shooting a music video of a dancer in a lofted apartment. I own an a7s and I thought the Nebula4000 could be the right tool for the job of following a dancer around in a big apartment. The shots would probably be 10-15 seconds long. After looking through the sample footage it looks like the bobbing might be an issue for shots that long.

Do you think there would be less bobbing if the camera operator was being pushed around in a wheelchair while holding a nebula4000?

Is the nebula 4000 the right tool for the job? Unfortunately I don't have the budget for a DJI Ronin.

 

[Graeme Meiklejohn]

Just pulled the trigger on picking one of these up for a web series I am shooting for the Canadian Freestyle Ski Association. One handed operation was just to sweet to pass up on. Big thank you to everyone who has been so helpful in this thread, I'll be posting up several different lense packages and how they work upon arrival.

 

[Erik Naso]

Just got off the phone with Filmpower and looks like my unit is having issues so I cant use the software. It wont let me change the settings at all. I did perform the non-software sensor calibration and that worked very well.

My roll issues was from the cable that comes off the roll sensor. It was rubbing against the arm and knocking it off balance. I pulled it tighter and cinched it up now it works perfect!

With the A7s and 35mm attached and basic balance I don't think I will need to tune but I need to get out and shoot a little more. So far with the fix it's very smooth.

 

[dustylense]

Just got off the phone with Filmpower and looks like my unit is having issues so I cant use the software. It wont let me change the settings at all. I did perform the non-software sensor calibration and that worked very well.

My roll issues was from the cable that comes off the roll sensor. It was rubbing against the arm and knocking it off balance. I pulled it tighter and cinched it up now it works perfect!

With the A7s and 35mm attached and basic balance I don't think I will need to tune but I need to get out and shoot a little more. So far with the fix it's very smooth.

Send it back for a replacement. Tell them DVXusers are watching and not to mess with them.

 

[focuspulling]

My roll issues was from the cable that comes off the roll sensor. It was rubbing against the arm and knocking it off balance. I pulled it tighter and cinched it up now it works perfect!

I had that too; there's a simple plastic cable tie that slides away from the center axis over time, and keeps the rubbing cable cinched in place for most of the time (but needs checking every once in a while, unfortunately). Similarly as the brief manual notes, the cables going into each of the motors can get twisted to the point of possibly snapping, so that's another thing to check from time to time.

 

[Dugdale]

Thanks for the settings Dusty.

 

[focuspulling]

Tell them DVXusers are watching and not to mess with them.

For the sake of reference, this is the temper I was referring to, enough said. Keeping forums like this intelligent and helpful are the only things I'm interested in, personal insecurities be damned!

 

[dustylense]

For the sake of reference, this is the temper I was referring to, enough said. Keeping forums like this intelligent and helpful are the only things I'm interested in, personal insecurities be damned!

Dude, go blog.
What I mean by not messing with DVXusers is that our sharing will hold anybody accountable. If Erik got a bad unit and they mess with him getting him a good unit in a timely fashion, then it will be vetted right here on DVXuser. You have 39 posts here. Many of us have 1000's. I bet you can find 100's of people on this forum that will attest to my helpfulness and input. Many of them contact me privately and I do my very best to help them out with any questions or input. And many of them help me out in my quest for the betterment of my own.

But here on DVXuser, if you mess with a member, you're messing with a community.

 

[Erik Naso]

Send it back for a replacement. Tell them DVXusers are watching and not to mess with them.

Ha! All good. I have a review unit so no sending it back until I'm done testing it out. I do wish I could tweak the settings a little to see how much more I can get out of it but for the sake of a review i think I can get by.

Thanks for all the great first hand experiance posts and yes this community is a force.

 

[vladwolodarsky]

Do you guys have any other wide angle lens ideas for flying an A7s on a Nebula 4000? I had aspirations of using video AF on the A7s but I heard the AF is ****.