It is Zhiyun’s newest flagship gimbal and they brought back the crane 2 design-the original crane 2. This, in my opinion, was Zhiyun's best gimbal and now they made it even better with a ton of new functions and completely new build design, and carbon fiber here. For the lower handle, the first thing you're going to notice is that it's not made from metal anymore, and it's made out of carbon fiber.
However, carbon fiber is much more expensive than aluminum but it has much better qualities because it's lightweight and it's extremely strong On top of that, it just looks really cool you'll also notice that we get a larger LCD screen so you can constantly see the current status of your battery life filming mode and so on. Importantly, they upgraded the follow focus wheel to be smaller but now it's metal and textured so it's a lot easier to turn.
A brand-new function to the crane 2s is the axis locking systems except they are much stronger than that of the Weebill S, and they're comparable to the crane 3s locking system once you lock it up it remains tight and it doesn't wobble around. We also have two accessory ports on opposite ends of the pan axis and this allows you to attach monitors lights or any other lightweight accessory.
Another new to the crane 2s is the trigger. This allows you to go right into full follow mode or into selfie mode and just as before we are using the same 18650 batteries when you take a closer look at the motors on the crane 2s.
And you'll notice that they are much beefier and this means you can rig up this thing with a lot heavier weight. For example, you can rig up a fully loaded black magic pocket with no problem. Then the crane 2s now supports both the follow focus motor and zoom motor so you can have both motors mounted at the same time the LCD screen allows us to access many more features than the previous crane too, such as the new auto-tune feature.
They developed a new stabilizing algorithm for the crane 2s because it has much larger motors so now, we don't have to custom set our motors unless you really are looking for a shooting style. We can also access the dead band smooth degrees and speed settings within the gimbal without having to go into the app and now we can program the follow focus style to do either the focus pulling or the zoom control when it comes down to the trigger button. You can hold it down to enter full follow mode or you can change it to just tap and that will also enter full follow mode.
Now another big feature that they added to the crane 2s is the new vertical mounting system so now you can just easily remove your camera mount it vertically without having to rely on a camera cage or some other ridiculous rig, so this is perfect for your Instagram stories or if you want to just change up the look of your video. Along with the vertical mounting system, we also have upgraded tensioners which are a lot easier to grab and adjust the balancing for your gimbal.
Now let's get down to the performance I tested out this gimbal using the 24-70 zeiss lens I shot at 24 50- and 70-millimeter focal lengths. This is raw footage it's untouched no stabilization, not even color grading, so take that as you will. This is 100 raw footage as you can see.
This gimbal behaves extremely well actually better than the Zhiyun WEEBILL-S because the motors are more powerful and even when you zoom in and unbalance your rig. This gimbal compensates for that extra weight no problem. Just like previous zhiyun’s gimbals, we do get pov and vortex mode and you can see how smooth this footage is coming out even though I’m making contact with the actual trees leaves it pushes through without stuttering or hesitating. These motors are so strong, and with this gimbal, there's a ton of different accessories that you can get.
Now I know what you're going to be thinking why didn't zhiyun drop the roll motor down to 45 degrees well. Honestly, it's not that big of a deal well at least for me because that motor never really bothered me, and now with the new cameras that are coming out the new flip screens. It really doesn't matter much I mean it's user preference I never really held the gimbal upright perfectly, so the roll motor never got in the way but for some of you that might be a game-changer. But I’m telling you right now that this is the perfect gimbal at least for me, they brought back the original crane 2 and transformed it to make it an absolute powerhouse.
This is the gimbal to get the crane 2s is just you know the crane 2 was my favorite gimbal. And until now this is my new favorite gimbal. It just works for me it's based on an old traditional gimbal design and when you go into the inverted mode it just feels right it feels fluid it behaves like a dolly it's so smooth when you go into inverted so just keep that in mind. I like the traditional gimbal and I like the traditional design because it just feels right and I’m very blessed that I have different gimbals to try out but I’m telling you right now. The traditional design works and that's something that I really do love about the crane 2 Series.