5 Reasons NOT To Shoot With A Gimbal

INTRODUCTION

Don’t get me wrong - the gimbal is an amazing tool that is perfectly suited to a number of different filmmaking situations. I use them all the time, which is why I made a video dedicated to five reasons why you should work with them. However, there are also quite a few instances where using a gimbal is less than desirable.

So, let’s flip the script this time and unpack five reasons or situations where you may not want to use a gimbal.

1 - PRECISION

The number one issue I run into when using gimbals - especially in more freeform documentary situations where characters aren’t blocked or given an agreed upon movement or positioning - is the lack of precision I have over framing the shot and moving the camera.

Those that have a preference for perfection over their frames may find gimbals a little frustrating. This comes down to how gimbals work. They are constructed with three motors that stabilise and control the horizontal, left to right movement of a camera (called pan), the vertical up and down motion (called tilt) and how the camera rolls from side to side. 

When operating these gimbals handheld and doing a movement on one of these axes there is no way for operators to precisely control exactly where the camera stops and at what speed it moves. The gimbal motors move the camera based on feel, or how much momentum the operator uses to angle the camera - which moves it along that line. 

Unlike other tools, such as a tripod head or operating the camera handheld, which can precisely control the speed of movement and exactly where the camera stops. Gimbals can feel a bit laggy - which means you have to try and anticipate stopping the camera with your own movement before the actual moment that it needs to stop. This means sometimes you land on the perfect frame and sometimes you don’t.

In filmmaking an extremely important component of cinematography is maintaining consistency across multiple takes, this applies not only to the lighting, but also to the camera moves and focus. 

If each take is repeated in a slightly different way due to the gimbal operator, at different speeds, with different framing and with different positioning and blocking it makes it a bit more difficult for other variables like lighting and accurate focus pulling to remain consistent. This may make it difficult to cut different parts of different takes together in a single scene. 

This isn’t to say that there aren’t some very good operators who can control gimbals with a high degree of precision, however, if you want to do a pinpoint pan or tilt move that end on a specific frame, there are other tools that can do this much more consistently and easily. 

A work around is for one operator to move the camera while another operator uses wheels to wirelessly control the camera's movement like a remote head - but this isn’t possible for solo operators.    

2 - BALANCING

Like most rigs designed to carry a camera, gimbals have a payload - a maximum weight limit that they can carry before they start to malfunction. Unlike mechanical production tripod heads that can easily carry the full weight of big production cameras and cinema lenses, gimbals have a much lower weight tolerance that will start to strain the motors.

How the camera is built and how that weight is distributed across the gimbal is also very important. For a gimbal to work efficiently it needs to be balanced so that the weight of the camera is evenly positioned across each axes.

This means adjusting the camera’s position left and right and up and down until it remains level once you release it. If the camera drops forward, for example, it indicates the gimbal is front heavy and that the tilt motor will need to strain to keep it even.

The disadvantage that this has is twofold. One, because gimbals have a lower payload it means that only certain camera and lens combinations will be able to balance. This may mean that cinematographers may not be able to choose certain large anamorphic lenses, long zooms, or shoot on a big production camera with a heavy body.

The second disadvantage is that each time anything needs to be added or removed from the camera build the gimbal will need to be rebalanced to adjust for the change in weight. So every time a lens is changed, a few extra minutes will need to be added between setups. This doesn’t sound like a lot, but if you’re shooting over the course of a day, all these combined rebalancing moments can slow down the pace of shooting a fair amount.

And, as we know, time on a set is money.

3 - MOVEMENT

The smooth, floating camera motion that you can get with a gimbal is desirable for many reasons, but may not be the right stylistic choice for certain filmmakers in certain situations.

Perhaps it's useful to highlight what kind of moves gimbals are good at doing and what situations they aren’t suited to. I think gimbals are at their strongest when used for tracking the organic motions of characters in a relatively straight, predictable line at a moderate speed. For example when following a character from behind or in front. 

Gimbals run into problems as soon as they stop moving. Because they are operated by a person - who cannot hold their muscles completely still for an extended period of time - you inevitably get drift - when trying to compose static shots or movements that begin or end with a static frame on a gimbal. 

These little drifting motions that come from the operator not being able to hold the gimbal in 100% the same position can, for me, feel a little bit distracting, artificial or unintentional in certain situations - compared to a more stable shot from a tripod or dolly that remains solidly locked off.

The same applies to very slow, creeping camera moves. It’s much easier to maintain a consistent line, speed and frame when pushing in on a dolly or a slider than it is to do so on a gimbal. Where, again, as soon as you begin slowing down motion significantly these same, small, off course drifting motions will be felt.

From slow movement to fast, another potential problem from an operator’s perspective is the lack of reactivity that a gimbal has. If you want to do things like lightening fast whip pans, or film quick, choppy, spontaneous moves - the motors on the gimbal may not be able to move the camera quickly enough and come to abrupt, hard stops without drifting.

This is why shooting with a fluid head is great for precise, whipping motion, while a handheld camera can inject scenes with a frenetic feeling that is also accurate and reactive to the movement and actions of the characters.

4 - RELIABILITY

Although gimbal technology in filmmaking has rapidly improved from the earlier days - these machines still occasionally suffer from technical glitches. For example, motors vibrating, rigs becoming unbalanced, or motors giving up during an oddly angled shot.

Because these rigs rely on electrical components - rather than other rigs like tripod heads which are purely mechanical - they are more prone to malfunctioning and also to wear and tear over time.

When you pan a tripod there is no doubt it will pan, however when using a gimbal to pan there is a larger chance that there may be a snag and the shot will have to be reset.

Another aspect of reliability and ease of use also applies to weather. If you need a tracking shot done outside in the rain, you can easily set up a dolly, put a rain cover over the camera on the tripod head and shoot the shot. 

However, due to their electronics, most gimbals will not be able to run in the rain, nor is it recommended to cover a gimbal with a rain cover as the extra weight may both alter the balance of the gimbal, make it difficult to properly operate or overheat the motors.

Therefore, purely mechanical grip rigs are almost always going to offer more reliability than their electronic friends.   

5 -  REBUILDING

A final reason why gimbals can be more time consuming to work with over other rigs comes down to their larger set up time when rebuilding the camera between a gimbal rig and another configuration like a tripod.

If you're working with a high end cinema camera like an Alexa Mini for example, the body will have to be stripped down of excess weight, the eyepiece removed, accessories repositioned and the correct plate for the gimbal attached. Typically rebuilding a production camera into gimbal mode will take around 10 minutes. 

Again, this may not seem like a lot, but if you are constantly changing between gimbal and tripod throughout the day, this rebuilding time quickly accumulates into a lot of lost shooting time.

If instead filmmakers chose to work with traditional rigs like a dolly, a tripod and shooting handheld - it is incredibly quick to change between these shooting modes without needing to significantly rebuild the camera each time.

So, time saving on a gimbal is a double edged sword. If you shoot almost every shot on a gimbal with a short zoom lens, where you don’t need to rebuild it and don’t need to do lens changes and rebalance - you can save lots of set up time.

However, if you need to constantly change between gimbal builds and a studio camera build, and work with prime lenses of different weights and sizes, then you’ll end up adding a greater amount of set up time to the schedule.