Smartphones are dramatically bettering their digital picture stabilisation with every era, as such, exterior stabilisers are now not the need they as soon as have been, no less than for informal customers.
Nonetheless, should you’re extra critical about your smartphone filmmaking, a gimbal can actually elevate the smoothness to the subsequent stage, in addition to supply useful extra options.
Zhiyun is aware of this, and as a substitute of concentrating on the mass market, has come out with one thing that is aimed squarely at prosumer-level content material creation, the Clean 5S.
It is a smartphone gimbal that appears prefer it means enterprise, it is huge, weighty and coated with tactile guide controls – making it the polar reverse of DJI’s tiny and light-weight Osmo Cellular 6.
So, how does this instrument carry out? We have been placing it to the take a look at to search out out if such a hefty smartphone gimbal is smart in 2023.
Zhiyun
Zhiyun Clean 5s
This gimbal will not be for everybody, it is extra of an expert filmmaking instrument than a cell phone accent, but when that is what you want – then the Zhiyun Clean 5S does the job nicely.
- High quality appear and feel
- Tactile and exact controls
- Lengthy battery life
- Works with heavy payloads
- Wonderful vary of movement
- It is fairly large
- App options behind a paywall
- No fast switching between vertical/horizontal
Design
- Dimensions: 311 x 168 x 52 mm, 625 grams
- Constructed-in fill gentle, optionally available magnetic lights
First issues first, it is a very massive gimbal, to the purpose the place it is about the identical dimension as a few of Zhiyun’s mirrorless digicam gimbals. It would not fold right down to a smaller dimension, both, so it is not essentially the most transportable possibility for travellers.
This design works to its benefit in some regards, although. It has a particularly comfy grip, for starters, and the bigger controls make it simpler to regulate with precision.
The load can be a bonus relating to stability, because it’s simpler to maintain your palms and arms regular when gripping one thing with a bit extra heft to it. After all, this additionally signifies that you may really feel this gimbal weighing down your backpack.
We’re testing the white model, which has a reasonably daring look, with contrasting black accents that remind us of a stormtrooper from Star Wars. We’re very keen on the design, however should you want one thing extra refined, it is also obtainable with an expert darkish gray end.
A brand new characteristic for this mannequin is the addition of a fill gentle, located on the rear of the smartphone clamp. This has an adjustable brightness, managed by a wheel on the entrance of the gimbal, and it will get surprisingly vivid. It is a heck of loads brighter than the LED unit in your telephone, and it additionally has significantly better diffusion, so shadows aren’t fairly as harsh.
The drawback of this design is that it solely works with the rear digicam. Nonetheless, you possibly can add extra magnetic lights that clip onto the highest and backside of the clamp, and they are often positioned backwards for selfie taking pictures – or to complement the primary gentle with extra lumens.
You get considered one of these magnetic lights should you go for the combo pack, which additionally comes with a pleasant carrying case, or they are often bought on their very own for about $30 every.
One factor that is value noting with these lights, is that the built-in fill gentle will all the time be lively once they’re in use. The dimming controls are common, so regardless of which method they’re oriented, all connected lights will shine on the identical brightness.
Efficiency
- Max payload: 280 grams
- 360-degree panning, 259-degree roll, 209-degree tilt
The design of the Clean 5S signifies that it wants balancing earlier than use, and when you’ve got a bigger telephone, you may possible must redo this each time you unlock the arms. That is because of the method that the arms fold into one another, if that you must lengthen previous the two.5 marker, then the horizontal arm will hit the pan motor, so you may want to slip it again to a shorter setting.
Fortunately, balancing is a reasonably painless course of, you solely actually need to fiddle with a single adjustment level, fairly than the three-point system discovered on some skilled mirrorless gimbals.
After you have the steadiness level discovered, it is merely a case of remembering the place it wants locking on the numbered slider, after which you can set it up pretty shortly every time you utilize it.
What’s extra of a ache, is that you simply additionally must rebalance when switching from horizontal to vertical recording. That is one thing that may be achieved with a few button faucets on competing gimbals, and right here it is rather more of an concerned course of.
Nonetheless, whereas that is all a little bit of faff, particularly in comparison with clip-and-go options just like the DJI Osmo Cellular 6, it may yield higher outcomes. That is very true when you’ve got an unusually weighted telephone, just like the top-heavy Vivo X90 Professional that we examined with, or should you like to make use of clip-on lens adapters.
We discovered that we received considerably smoother outcomes with the Clean 5S, and we suspect that loads of that is right down to the balancing. The DJI possibility presents principally no changes, so the motors should work a lot tougher to maintain issues secure – though there’s loads to be mentioned for its comfort.
One other issue that helps out loads is the wide selection of movement on all axes. This implies which you can go from excessive to low angles seamlessly and easily, whereas gimbals with a extra restricted vary are inclined to hit their limiter, leading to a pointy judder in your footage.
The pan axis can spin infinitely, which makes the “vortex” mode work particularly nicely. And whereas it is not a characteristic that we have a tendency to make use of fairly often, its implementation right here might be one of the best we have seen on any smartphone gimbal. It additionally signifies that topic monitoring is rather more versatile, however extra on that later.
Software program and options
- 2 hours PD quick charging, as much as 24 hours runtime
- ZY Cami and StaCam for iOS and Android
The Zhiyun Clean 5S’s battery seemingly lasts perpetually, we have had our pattern unit for some time now, it is solely been charged as soon as, and it is exhibiting no indicators of needing a top-up.
Zhiyun says you possibly can count on as much as 24 hours of runtime on a cost, and when you think about that almost all steady photographs are a couple of minutes at most, these 24 hours go a really good distance. This mammoth runtime might additionally make it a sensible choice for movement timelapses over prolonged intervals – if that is your type of factor.
When it comes time to cost, it is achieved so by way of a USB-C port on the deal with, which is roofed by a rubber bung. The Clean 5S utilises fast-charging USB-C PD tech, which signifies that with the suitable charger, it will go from flat to full in round 2 hours.
There’s additionally a USB-C output discovered close to the telephone clamp, which you should use to cost your telephone from the gimbal’s battery. Nonetheless, the design of the clamp signifies that it is troublesome to take action. You may want a right-angled USB-C/Lightning cable, and you then’ll should hope that it would not make your telephone stick out too far to steadiness correctly. That is positively a characteristic that might be improved.
Zhiyun has two separate apps that work with the Clean 5S. There’s ZY Cami, which is a general-purpose app that is aimed on the mass market, and StaCam, which is a extra skilled providing, permitting entry to extra guide controls and superior options.
We will see the logic right here, Zhiyun desires to maintain ZY Cami accessible and easy for the common consumer, whereas nonetheless making extra skilled instruments obtainable in StaCam. The best way that it is achieved is fairly clumsy and unintuitive, although.
To us, it makes extra sense to have a single skilled app for the Clean 5S. Nothing else about this gimbal is focused towards the common shopper, so why would the app should be?
What’s extra irritating is that a number of the superior options like the flexibility to make use of LUTs and focus peaking are locked behind a paywall. You may want Zhiyun’s Prime+ subscription to entry them which can value you a further $24.99 / £22.49 per 12 months, or $2.49/ £2.29 monthly.
You additionally should exit the StaCam app and go to the ZY Cami app to be able to subscribe to options which are solely obtainable in StaCam, which is bizarre. There is a free trial to Zhiyun Prime included within the field, however to not Prime+, so it is all horrendously complicated and pointless – particularly since we do not suppose that these options ought to value additional.
Rant apart, the apps do their respective jobs fairly nicely and do not require any of the sideloading malarkey that DJI requires on Android gadgets. In them, you may discover the entire normal gimbal options like the flexibility to report movement timelapses, hyperlapses, panoramas and the like, in addition to complete beautification options, if that floats your boat.
Some of the necessary app options, in our view, is topic monitoring. That is current within the ZY Cami app, however not StaCam (for some motive). It really works nicely with human topics, however it’s not fairly on par with DJI’s system and is extra positively extra simply confused when there is a lack of distinction.
Verdict
The Zhiyun Clean 5S is a distinct segment product that is designed for critical filmmaking with a smartphone. It forgoes comfort and portability in favour of high quality and tactility.
In some ways, it achieves what it units out to, the {hardware} is great, the soundness is prime notch and the compatibility is unparalleled.
The software program is a particular ache level although, it is complicated and it desires extra of your hard-earned money. That mentioned, each characteristic that we would have liked was obtainable totally free, and nearly all of the time we are inclined to shoot with the telephone’s native digicam app for the optimum high quality anyway.
The Clean 5S additionally works with Filmic Professional, should you use that, however this wasn’t one thing we have been in a position to take a look at.
Should you’re trying to take your smartphone filmmaking to the subsequent stage, and do not thoughts carrying round some cumbersome tools to take action, then we expect the Zhiyun Clean 5S is a wonderful possibility.