C300: Tilta g2x + C300 Mkii?

S

seanarmada

Well-known member
Hey guys

Curious if anyone has any info on how well these two work together? An Instagram ad popped up the other day explicitly marketing the Tilta G2X with a stripped down C300 MKII. It's been heavily advertised as working well with the C200 also. If that's the case I'd love to pick this up with the Nucleus M/Nano and not have to deal with a full blown Movi or Ronin.

Thanks!

Sean
 
I was able to balance the C300 II with the 24-70 F2.8 II lens on the Ronin-M (using extensions I bought for the 1DX II). So the G2X could possibly work too. For really short takes it could work, however for anything beyond that you'll need some kind of rig/arm to support the weight.
 
I doubt it's going to work or work well enough. The G2X was said to be able to support the 1DXM2. I tried it and it didn't work well. Very hard to balance and the gimbal if tilted too far went a bit nuts.

The gimbal would also shut itself off randomly regardless of how big a camera was on it.

The C300M2 is about ½ pound heavier than a 1DXM2. The center of gravity between the two might be similar.
 
Good rule of thumb with gimbals is if it seems too good to be true, it is. Utilizing a single arm gimbal for large and heavy cameras is not a good plan. Ever. It's a hack of sorts that of can work for very short periods of time but from a physics standpoint, doesn't work well at all. And that's just the mechanical part, then there is your body, valiantly trying to support a relatively heavy, unbalanced isometric muscle load with one arm, smoothly and steadily for relatively long periods of time. You don't see any problems here? I agree with JCS, figure out a way to rig it to a vest and use your hips, not your back and shoulders, then you might have something. When we have cameras as good as the Fujifilm X-T3, IMHO, flying a C300 MKII on a gimbal is a waste of time, money and resources anyway. Sure, the Alexa Mini or a RED looks considerably better than an X-T3, but when you drop down to C200, C300 MKII, FS7 level cameras, my advice is just use a mirrorless, they are getting so good, the quality difference, especially for gimbal work is becoming less and less significant.
 
Thanks for the feedback guys, all good to hear. Puredrifting, yes that's very true. I've got the GH5 and I've generally just been using that for gimbal work, haven't had any problems.
 
seanarmada said:
Thanks for the feedback guys, all good to hear. Puredrifting, yes that's very true. I've got the GH5 and I've generally just been using that for gimbal work, haven't had any problems.
Click to expand...

Yep, the GH5 makes nice images. I just think flying big cams on gimbals is a PITA and the results, in many cases, is not much better than what a GH5, A7 or X-T3 could have done.
 
puredrifting said:
Good rule of thumb with gimbals is if it seems too good to be true, it is. Utilizing a single arm gimbal for large and heavy cameras is not a good plan. Ever. It's a hack of sorts that of can work for very short periods of time but from a physics standpoint, doesn't work well at all. And that's just the mechanical part, then there is your body, valiantly trying to support a relatively heavy, unbalanced isometric muscle load with one arm, smoothly and steadily for relatively long periods of time. You don't see any problems here? I agree with JCS, figure out a way to rig it to a vest and use your hips, not your back and shoulders, then you might have something. When we have cameras as good as the Fujifilm X-T3, IMHO, flying a C300 MKII on a gimbal is a waste of time, money and resources anyway. Sure, the Alexa Mini or a RED looks considerably better than an X-T3, but when you drop down to C200, C300 MKII, FS7 level cameras, my advice is just use a mirrorless, they are getting so good, the quality difference, especially for gimbal work is becoming less and less significant.
Click to expand...

Just shot two episodes of tv show with the C300MKII on Movi Pro and it was awesome, certainly not a waste of time. We used 3 x C300MKII and the Producer had a specific need for all footage to match exactly and to be 100% consistent. Only way we could do this was to use C300MKII on a gimbal. The extra weight of the C300MKII on the Movi Pro compared to the GH5 also made the shots and movement much smoother and graceful. In saying that - the C300MKII stripped down is incredibly light on a Gimbal anyway.
 
puredrifting said:
Good rule of thumb with gimbals is if it seems too good to be true, it is. Utilizing a single arm gimbal for large and heavy cameras is not a good plan. Ever. It's a hack of sorts that of can work for very short periods of time but from a physics standpoint, doesn't work well at all. And that's just the mechanical part, then there is your body, valiantly trying to support a relatively heavy, unbalanced isometric muscle load with one arm, smoothly and steadily for relatively long periods of time. You don't see any problems here? I agree with JCS, figure out a way to rig it to a vest and use your hips, not your back and shoulders, then you might have something. When we have cameras as good as the Fujifilm X-T3, IMHO, flying a C300 MKII on a gimbal is a waste of time, money and resources anyway. Sure, the Alexa Mini or a RED looks considerably better than an X-T3, but when you drop down to C200, C300 MKII, FS7 level cameras, my advice is just use a mirrorless, they are getting so good, the quality difference, especially for gimbal work is becoming less and less significant.
Click to expand...

I've been using a EOS R on a Ronin-S and it's great. Even better than the 1DXM2 because the R has C-log, weighs ⅓ as much, has the flip out screen, and better high ISO. The full-frame 1080 mode is really good as well.

On a very small crew production it's a simple way to add some production value.
 
Plexi Head said:
Just shot two episodes of tv show with the C300MKII on Movi Pro and it was awesome, certainly not a waste of time. We used 3 x C300MKII and the Producer had a specific need for all footage to match exactly and to be 100% consistent. Only way we could do this was to use C300MKII on a gimbal. The extra weight of the C300MKII on the Movi Pro compared to the GH5 also made the shots and movement much smoother and graceful. In saying that - the C300MKII stripped down is incredibly light on a Gimbal anyway.
Click to expand...

Your situation is different and the Movi Pro is a real $7k gimbal designed to deal with larger cameras that works really well.
If you have the budget and a dedicated camera, that's great, I'm sure it all worked like a dream.

I was alluding more to single camera operator/productions trying to cheap out by buying the wrong tool for the job,
a single hand gimbal for a relatively heavy camera like a C200/C300 MKII. For those situations, and my own most often,
I vote for using your A camera like an FS7/C200/C300 MKII on tripod and handheld and
use a dedicated high quality mirrorless dedicated and pre-set up on a one handed gimbal. C300 MKII on a Ronin-S is not a smart way to shoot.
 
I use a C300 Mark II on an $800 Glidecam and works like a dream. Don't even need to strip the camera down from my regular setup, so time to switch from tripod, shoulder rig, etc., to Glidecam is about 10 seconds.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top