Ronin S and DJI's (un)logic logic

[KrocanX]

Hey,

I consider myself as a gimbal fan since dawn of gimbals. I had first custom built gimbal from china way before hype of gimbals and I spent quite a lot of time using various gimbals. Unfortunately I was taken away by Ronin S hype last year and bought it when it was released. Before Ronin S I had original Zhiyun Crane which was so good but with bigger lenses there was limitation so I have decided to upgrade.

Fast forward today I spent a couple of months with Ronin S, many jobs, some traveling and a lot of fine tuning. Ronin S always seem to me not too good compare to Zhiyun even though Ronin should be so much better. But no, it is simply stupid gimbal. I wouldn't recommend it. What I hate most about Ronin S is that it never recenter after movement. You have to douple tap trigger after every movement. I have found this thread today - https://forum.dji.com/thread-163729-1-1.html. I am not the only one who thinks it is stupid. But it looks like it is not bug but feature ...

There is reply from DJI's employee who is trying to describe "SmoothTrack logic". What he wrote make sense but workaround is not working. So I have to live with this "feature". I am not crying just I hope some people will find this before they will buy it and they will decide if it is good or bad for them.

 

[puredrifting]

Hate to say it, but you should have bought the Crane 2 instead. I had the original Crane and I too liked it but the joystick wore out and stopped working and as you know, getting a Chinese piece of gear actually repaired is a myth.
So far, four months in, the Crane 2 is just like the Crane only bigger, more weight capacity, better with the status screen and better joystick and with some tuning, you can make the movement a bit less mechanical and robotic.
Got it last year on sale at B&H for $499.00 too. Have been using it to shoot lifestyle footage for our documentary with our two subjects. Bought the Zhiyun extension handle and mount the Røde Video Micro on the handle for
scratch audio. It's a very good gimbal and weighs a lot less than the Ronin S.

Last weekend I was on the back of a tandem bicyle with the Crane 2 and Fujifilm X-T3 shooting one of our subjects training for an upcoming ultra marathon. Some of the shots with us tracking in front of her and then panning as she passes by
us look amazing and this was with an 18mm focal length. The Crane 2 and X-T3 combo is turning out to be great and not very heavy so I can shoot with it for hours without getting the shakes.