What Gimbal brand/model to buy?

[SkaterFan]

Hallo all,

I am looking for a Gimbal (head) to buy.

I see that there are many brands (Wimberly, Jobu, Sirui, Sevenoak to name only a few) and models.

Every model has a pretty high pricetag. Much too high to "give it a go" and let's try it.

Therefore my question: can anybody give me advise which brand/model to buy?

Thanks in advance

Hen

 

[CameraCarl]

Wimberley used to offer a free trial period after which you could keep it or return it. I love both my Wimberley heads and personally would never consider another.

 

[Cornersruns]

Lots of people recommend Lens master

High quality with a more reasonable price than the Winberlys et al

This will be the one I buy this year.

 

[NancyP]

There are lightweight gimbals for lighter lenses and heavy duty gimbals for "any" weight lenses. I personally have a side-mount "half gimbal" (Custom Brackets, and I am happy with it - however, most people use Wimberley Sidekick, the first "half gimbal" marketed) that attaches to the clamp of a heavy duty high quality ball head with base pan (ArcaSwiss Z1, in my case - any good head 45mm to 58mm diameter ball would work). However, I am using this for 400 f/5.6 lens with or without extender, on a consumer body, a combo weighing 2 kg total, which is easy to mount to the gimbal. I'd pick a cradle gimbal if I ever wanted to use a 400 f/2.8 and pro body at about 5 kg. It is way easier to set the lens foot Arca-style mount on a horizontal clamp than putz with a vertical-oriented clamp.

Rent or borrow gimbal mount to see if you like it?

 

[Stuart Carlton]

Another vote for Lensmaster. Very robust, perhaps not as 'sophisticated' as Wimberley but I have been using one for over a year with 7d2 and 500mm f4 without any problem. Price alon makes it 'worth a go''!

 

[SkaterFan]

Thank you all for your thoughts, it really helps me on my search.

LensMaster is a new name for me and it looks promising. Certainly the price is right for an amateur photographer.

I don't like to "buy and return things" but in the Netherlands we have a few big stores which I am sure will sell this brand.

Thanks again for all your trouble

Hein

 

[calson]

Wimberley and similar gimbals work very well and are a safe buy. I have owned and used the Wimberley and also the Custom Brackets gimbal head. The Custom Brackets with its quick lock mechanism had been my preferred gimbal head up until quite recently.

I learned of the fluid gimbal head that Gizto released a few months ago and decided to give it a try to have a combination gimbal head and fluid head so I could use it for both still photography and for video. The Gitzo Gimbal has a fluid resistance mechanism and it works exceedingly well. The head includes a detachable pan handle so the gimbal head doubles as a fluid head for video.

The fluid resistance makes it easier to control the movement of the gimbal head even without the pan handle attached. There is no need to try to set the resistance to have the lens not in free fall but also not so tight as to make movement difficult.

RRS makes a fluid gimbal head but the design is nowhere near as elegant as the Gitzo design where clearly the Gitzo people started with a clean sheet of paper and did not do what RRS did and cobble something together from existing parts.

Strongly suggest buying the Gitzo and getting it from a place like B&H so if you decide you do not like it there is zero difficulty in returning it to them.

 

[Stuart Carlton]

I'm not sure if the Lensmaster is available in stores but they are very responsive to email queries in my experience.

 

[nuke12]

Thank you all for your thoughts, it really helps me on my search.

LensMaster is a new name for me and it looks promising. Certainly the price is right for an amateur photographer.

I don't like to "buy and return things" but in the Netherlands we have a few big stores which I am sure will sell this brand.

Thanks again for all your trouble

Hein

I've never used the LensMaster but I have read a lot reports of happy users. It's also one of the most reasonably priced gimbals on the market. The OP hasn't stated what lens(es) they plan to use but I have one comment. The LensMaster full gimbal has one difference from the expensive ones. There is no way to balance the lens in the vertical plane. Will this make a difference? I'm not sure but my guess is it might come into play with the bigger heavier lenses. This might be a non-issue for the OP but I thought a comment should be made.

 

[IainD]

Wimberley for me, first second and third.

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