When it comes to image stabilisation, one of the best companies in the business is Zhiyun. Two of the brand’s products, the Smooth 5 and the Zhiyun Crane M3, recently went in front of the renowned Red Dot Judging Panel, and both came out as Red Dot Award Product Design winners.
If you’re serious about producing video, you need a gimbal in your arsenal, preferably one made by a renowned expert in the field. Although some smartphones and standalone cameras come with exceptional built-in optical image stabilisation (IOS), they still fall well short of what you can achieve with a dedicated gimbal.
When it comes to gimbals, one of the leaders in the market is the Chinese company Zhiyun. We use their gimbals extensively on outdoor video shoots, and the results we achieve always exceed our expectations. Another major selling point with the brand is although their products allow us and others to achieve to what is through most eyes is cinema-like quality, their very competitive pricing means that you won’t have to break the bank to do it.
Although we use high-end smartphones for videos at the magazine, including the Huawei P40 Pro, as good as flagship phones are at stabilisation, they don’t offer the incredible extreme smoothness you get with other products such as drones. However, when using the Zhiyun gimbals when walking, we were able to create extremely smooth ground-level smoothness that many would mistakenly think was filmed using a drone; that’s how good the Zhiyun gimbals are.
However, our writing that the Zhiyun gimbals are good will not be enough for everyone. Others will prefer the opinion of some of the world’s leading design experts. At the Red Dot Awards, two Zhiyun products, the Smooth 5 and the Crane M3 went in front of around fifty of the experts as mentioned above. And at the end of the testing and evaluation, they shared our high opinion of Zhiyun, with the Crane M3 winning a Red Dot in the Camera and Camera Equipment category and the Smooth 5 winning one in the Accessories section, a subcategory of the Mobile Phones, Tablets, and Wearables category.
The Red Dot jury is made up of respected international design experts who test, evaluate and judge each entry individually. Given the times we live in, the judging was a little different from previous years, with people from Zhiyun talking to the panel via video calls, answering any judges’ questions and providing product and design information.
The head of Zhiyun R&D said, “At ZHIYUN, we are honoured to be awarded the Red Dot Award Product Design 2022 for our arduous R&D efforts in gimbal technology innovation and breakthrough. Our continued intention is to bring premium product experiences to global video creators with our boundary-breaking inventions.”
The Red Dot Awards is one of the largest competitions of its type globally and allows winners to display the internationally known Red Dot label, a symbol of excellence. Zhiyun, along with all the other winners, will be celebrated at an official ceremony which will take place in Essen on the 20th of June.
The Zhiyun Crane M3
The Crane M3 is a 3-axis camera gimbal that is ideal for vlogging due to it being ultra-versatile. At its launch, it sported five firsts, including its groundbreaking small size, built-in microphone and 800 lumen light, and excellent hot-swapping capability. You can read more about the Crane M3 here.
The Zhiyun Smooth 5
The Smooth 5 is a smartphone gimbal that allows users to take the type of shots Hollywood would be proud of, thanks to upgraded motors and algorithms, powerful magnetic fill light and an easy-to-use control panel. You can read more about the Smooth 5 gimbal here.
You can read our standalone feature on the Crane M3 here.
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