Zhiyun Crane Plus Review 2022: Is It A Best Choice?

Are you looking for the best handheld Gimbal stabilizer? The Zhiyun Crane Plus is the best one around! This amazing device allows you to have complete control over your footage making it the ideal choice for both professional filmmakers as well as hobbyists.

Read the full Zhiyun Crane Plus Review over at Dreamcheeky. Don’t forget about ordering yours today! The Zhiyun Crane Plus – Using a Crane Gimbal To Boost Your Workflow.

Zhiyun Crane Plus Review

Zhiyun Crane Plus Review

Design

Design

The Crane Plus is built on the 3-axis gimbal, which has been a popular handheld gimbal product for many years. Crane Plus can be easily upgraded to any other gimbal. You will find many similarities between Crane Plus and your older gimbal.

This is a great way to start your first gimbal. Even if you don’t know much about gimbals, it is very easy to use. The balancing process for Crane Plus takes less than one minute with some practice. This will ensure your gimbal’s calibration to your camera rig’s exact weight and motors working at their best.

Motors will work best if the gimbal weight is accurate. This will increase the battery life.

Build Quality

Performance and FunctionalityThe Crane Plus is built to the highest standards, as you would expect from Zhiyun. It’s composed of high-quality materials and boasts a light, sturdy, and compact gimbal unit. The gimbal’s small weight allows you to hold it for longer periods of time without cramping your arm. Furthermore, the handgrip shape prevents your hand from cramping.

The older generations of the Zhiyun Gimbal Range were highly limited in terms of allowing you to use longer lenses. There were no third-party support bars on the Crane v2. They were a pain to work with. The Crane Plus comes with removable lens support that can be connected to your camera gear to help you get more out of longer lenses.

We’d like to emphasize one more point about the Zhiyun Crane Plus’s quality and design. It has a 1/4-inch mounting thread in its base, allowing it to be mounted to a tripod if necessary. Despite the fact that this is expected in today’s world, many gimbals at this price point still lack a mounting thread.

User Interface and Control System

User Interface and Control System

Our favorite user interface is Crane Plus. Despite the fact that Zhiyun’s earlier generations of gimbals gave a wealth of input and experience, this is still the case. The gimbal’s main control mechanism is positioned on the handle, and you can easily modify the settings with your thumb.

Although this simple design is relatively common nowadays, Zhiyun was the first business to develop a gimbal handle that provided full control with the thumb. They’ve improved it over time, and the Crane Plus gimbal handle is now available.

The four-way stepless joystick is incredibly sensitive and intuitive to use. Even if your thumb is cold or damp, the joystick responds swiftly to your touch. This ensures that regardless of the weather, you have complete control over your gimbal.

The Zhiyun Crane Plus features additional functionality for Sony and Panasonic cameras for better functionality.

Your camera body, on the other hand, must be updated to the latest firmware version. Zooming, focussing, and other small capabilities are included as well. There are several methods available online for extending the capability of other cameras’ bodies, but we don’t encourage it because it may void both your camera and gimbal warranties.

Point of View Mode Updates

The Crane Plus has a new point of view mode, which you can easily switch on or off using the control panel. This feature can be useful, depending on the niche and what you want to capture, but it is still a nice feature.

The gimbal’s stabilization will be limited by the new point of view mode. This allows the gimbal to roll the camera in sync with your movements up to 45 degrees. This will allow you to capture excellent point-of-view video footage.

This mode is useful in many situations. However, it’s best to think about extreme sports. Imagine yourself snowboarding down a mountain, carving the snow as you go.

The image stabilization on your gimbal, even without the enhanced point of view mode will ensure your camera is level throughout your run. This can produce some amazing video footage but it has its limitations.

Your camera rig will follow you around in the snow as you carve turns. This gives you a better view and increases the viewer’s excitement. It also adds a dramatic effect to your video footage that older gimbals can’t match.

Night Lapse Mode

This mode allows you to take full advantage of your camera’s timelapse capabilities, and blend in with any motion your gimbal provides. This mode allows you to pan or tilt your camera in any direction you want during the timelapse, adding another layer to your footage.

Zhiyun makes night lapse mode control easier by allowing pre-program intervals as well as the number of activations. With just one click, you can set up your night lapse. The camera will then take exactly what you want.

Motion Memory

The Crane Plus is able to rotate 360 degrees along all three axes when compared with previous crane gimbal generations. Here is a complete list of motion capabilities:

  • Abnormalities in motion state – Min: +-0.05 deg, max: +-2.25 deg
  • Deviation in a static condition – min: +/- 0.01 deg, max: +/ 0.03 deg
  • Tilt mechanical range – standard: 360deg unlimited rotation
  • Standard: 360-degree, unlimited rotation roll mechanical range

The motion memory setting allows you to save your speed configurations, tilt speed, panning speed, time and tilt speed. This allows you to prepare the camera to work regardless of whether you are not present or using another camera to capture a second image.

This feature can be used in many ways. We think that the most common use for this feature is by travel bloggers who want the opportunity to portray famous landmarks. Imagine you are at Tower Bridge in London and cannot go online to chat with your client.

You can set the Crane Plus in motion memory mode to continue recording the same route as the bridge. This allows you video-call your client, or to do any other task that you choose.

You can save time and do multiple tasks at once. The bridge is also captured at different times, so the lighting and water flow can be varied. This will help you choose the best clip for your YouTube video. This feature has many uses, and you will be able to find out the best way to use it.

Performance with Mirrorless Cameras

The Zhiyun Crane relies heavily on mirrorless cameras. Furthermore, most mirrorless camera bodies weigh between one and two pounds, making them simple to support on the gimbal. Even with the extra microphone and lens that you might wish to attach to the mirrorless cameras, the overall camera rig weight is still much below the maximum load of 5.5 pounds.

The Crane Plus is a budget-friendly gimbal that works best with mirrorless cameras. It will provide superb image stabilization and support for your camera equipment.

Performance Using Smartphones And Action Cameras

As we indicated at the beginning of this section, the Zhiyun Crane Plus has a minimum load capacity of at least 0.77 pounds in order to give you accurate image stabilization. Most smartphones and action cameras on the market today weigh between 0.25 and 0.33 pounds, which can be an issue because they are too light for the Crane Plus to properly steady.

Fortunately, if you really want to utilize your Crane Plus with your smartphone or action camera, there is a method to make it work. To make your action camera or smartphone heavier, you’ll need to get some gimbal counterweights (Click here to see product prices and availability).

We prefer the type with the strap that we linked so that you can attach them to your device instead of the screw-on ones because it makes mounting the weights to your phone or action camera a little easier. They are normally simple to add to your action camera, but they can be a hassle to add to your smartphone. The simplest approach to attach the weights to your phone is to make a short charging wire for it, then put the weights on it before tying the charging cable to keep them in place.

As you can see, this is a bit of a pain, but as we mentioned in the previous section, the Zhiyun Crane Plus was intended specifically for mirrorless cameras, but it can also sustain the weight of a DSLR camera.

Use A DSLR Camera To Get The Best Performance

Use a DSLR camera to get the best performance

Gimbals of entry-level were not able to support weight or provide image stabilization until recent times. Recent advances in gimbal motors have made this obsolete.

The Canon EOS 1d camera body alone weighs in at 2.7 pounds. If you add accessories such as a microphone or lens, the payload can easily be increased to 4 lbs. When weighing a DSLR rig, the Zhiyun Crane Plus can carry a payload of 5.5 pounds.

We know of no other entry-level gimbal stabilizer that can support professional camera rigs but still provide excellent image stabilization.

The only problem with the high payload of the gimbal is that some people report that their arms become tighter after long periods of use. To prevent this, we recommend a dual-handle grip for the rig.

Smartphone App Support

Launching the Zhiyun smartphone app was difficult. When it was launched more than a decade ago, there were many bugs and stumbling blocks. Zhiyun has put much effort into the app and it now works well. Remote control of your gimbal is possible.

The performance section has been dedicated to the intelligent object tracking capabilities of the gimbal. This video shows the amazing technology. To set the gimbal up, just touch your smartphone screen to track the object and place it in the center of the screen.

At the time of writing, the Zhiyun smartphone app has been tested on every iPhone, Samsung and Huawei camera body. This indicates that the app can be used on any smartphone with more functionality.

Intelligent Object Tracking

We love the intelligent object tracking feature of the Crane Plus and believe that most people who purchase the Crane Plus will make use of it. We are also aware that no other gimbal in this price range offers similar features.

Aside from that, the tracking technology in the Crane Plus is not as effective as the cheaper gimbals available on the market.

POV Mode

POV Mode

You can tilt the gimbal up to 45 degrees left and right. The gimbal can be controlled to follow your movements. It is easy to use, and you get smooth footage. These results are incredible, especially when you consider how similar gimbal footage can be. This mode can be used sparingly to spice up your footage.

Conclusion

For filmmakers and video editors looking for a handheld camera, the Zhiyun Crane Plus will be the best choice. It is stable and performs well, and it is easy to use. This is, in fact, one of the most reliable handheld gimbals available.

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