(upbeat music) - Hey, how's it goin'? Parker Walbeck with FullTimeFilmmaker.com, and today we are taking a look at the brand new DJI Ronin-SC. DJI was kind enough to
send us out this new gimbal to test out and review,
but just like always this review is completely unbiased, I am not being paid by
DJI to do this review. Now at first glance, this
gimbal looks almost identical to its big brother, the Ronin-S. Basically it's just a lot smaller and a lot lighter to
accommodate some of the newer, smaller mirrorless
cameras, but they did also pack this gimbal full
of a ton of new features that we honestly didn't expect. So in this video I'll be going over some of those features to help you decide if this is a good fit for
you and your current setup, and how it compares to
the original Ronin-S. Now as far as design goes, this gimbal is built for smaller mirrorless cameras like the Canon EOS R, the Sony a7 series, the Nikon Z Series, and so on. So keep that in mind before picking one of these up, because
the max payload capacity for the Ronin-SC is two
kilograms, or 4.5 pounds, whereas the Ronin-S is almost
double at 3.6 kilograms, or eight pounds. And a few minor cons that I want to get out of the way have to do
with this smaller form factor. If you plan on sticking with
a small mirrorless camera, as well as relatively small lenses, you should have no
problem using this gimbal. But while testing I
noticed that the majority of my lenses wouldn't
actually be able to work with this setup, simply because
they cause my camera setup to be too front heavy, making
it a lot more difficult to balance, so I think that some people may end up outgrowing this
system pretty quickly, and in that case, the larger
Ronin-S may be a better option. As for the overall
design and build quality on the Ronin-SC, it's nearly identical to the Ronin-S, but we
do see a bit more plastic being used, probably
just to make it lighter. But it still feels high quality and sturdy like the Ronin-S, so there's
really not much drawback there. And the SC comes in
weighing at only 2.4 pounds, compared to 4.7 pounds on the S, so about half as light. When filming with the 1DX on the Ronin-S, my arms usually get exhausted
after a full day of filming, but I was pleasantly surprised
with how light this feels. It almost feels like a toy in my hand compared to this guy,
and just makes filming all day long a lot easier. So that was kind of the
main purpose, I think, for them making this smaller version is allowing people who
maybe aren't as strong, or who don't want to have to carry that much weight around all day, giving them a smaller, lighter option. And so they definitely succeeded at that, making this much lighter. As far as battery life goes,
the SC has 11 hour battery life versus 12 hour battery life on the S, so not much of a drawback there. Something new though that
the Ronin-S doesn't have that we saw with the Zhiyun Crane 3 are the mechanical locks
that allow you to lock in every individual arm,
which makes it really nice for traveling, and also makes it easier to balance each arm individually. So I'm super glad they added that, great new feature. Also they gave us a new and smaller quick release plate, it's not
a standard Manfrotto plate like on the Ronin-S, so
that's kind of a bummer as you can't switch
out between your gimbal and tripod very quickly. But the new plate is smaller and lighter, and comes with a positioning block that you can tighten and
place so you can mark the position of your release plate and more quickly mount your camera because you don't have to
fidget with the positioning. Now as for the performance and stability, the Ronin-SC feels and
functions just like the Ronin-S, but just smaller and lighter. Sometimes with cheaper, smaller gimbals, the motors aren't gonna be as powerful, and therefore don't yield
as smooth of results. But we found the Ronin-SC
to give us almost the same level of smoothness
as his older brother. Generally though, having
an overall lighter setup will mean that walking
or running movements will show up more easily in your footage, and that is still the
case with the Ronin-SC, so just something to be aware of there. Also we mentioned
earlier that DJI includes several software updates that
really set this gimbal apart, and we're gonna go over
a few of those right now and show you some sample footage from each of these features. The first feature is Active Track. This is the newest, and
possibly our favorite feature that DJI has included in the
Ronin-SC is Active Track 3.0. Just like we've seen
in DJI's newest drones like the Mavic Pro 2, this technology is now available for your gimbal. I'm always a little bit
leery of these auto features and usually don't recommend them, and I'd still be careful to
trust an auto tracking system in every situation, but
I was actually amazed at how well this one performed. Included in the box is a phone mount with a hotshoe connection
so you can attach your phone to the top of the camera, launch the Ronin app, hit
create, and then active track. And by using the camera on your phone, you can actually select
any object in the frame and your gimbal will keep it directly in the center. So you don't have to
worry about the subject getting cut off. And you can also move
the joystick and place your subject in a specific
part of the frame, and it will remember your selection and keep it there, so you can also do a rule of thirds framing, as well as a center framing. We tested this feature out
in a few different scenarios and it honestly worked very well, so I could actually see myself using this professional in certain situations. But as we'll show in a future test, I still think that
learning how to manually steer your gimbal is going to be a better, more professional look than
using these auto features. Another new feature from
DJI that we explored also involved your cell phone, which basically turns it into a wireless gyroscope remote control for your gimbal. It's very similar to
Freefly MoVI's MIMIC system, except this doesn't broadcast the image on the phone, so you
have to be right behind the camera to see what you're filming. So it's a cool idea, but
not completely useful. And the way that you access
this mode is you go into your Ronin app, select
create, and then force mobile, and then turn it on, and the
Ronin-SC will automatically start mimicking the movements that you're making with your phone. If you're a one man
show, this probably won't be super useful to you,
but for a small team shooting a video that involves
complicated camera movements, this feature could come in handy. It worked pretty well when I was walking behind the camera, but when I tried using it out of a car, it was too hard to use because I couldn't rotate my entire body while sitting in the
car, so I can't really picture myself using
this feature a whole lot. Maybe if I could see
the image from my phone, but still a cool little
feature they've included that some people might find useful. The next cool feature is called FPV mode, which basically gives you a POV mode where you can move the gimbal in virtually any direction and get a more intimate look to your shots. This kinda mimics the
moves that you would see from an FPV drone, so it's also a fun little feature to have as well. And to set that up, all you have to do is launch the Ronin app, hit user profile, choose which profile you wanna change, and then tap FPV. Also something to be aware of is that DJI changed the app layout. I imagine it'll be
updated with both Ronins, but I'm not for sure. But in this new app,
there's certain settings that we couldn't find, like
motor strength settings, and so we found it a little bit harder to dial in the exact motor settings that we wanted. So whether it's just a
beta version of the app, or if they're going to
improve upon it, I don't know, but we did feel like we
had less overall control with the new app. But after getting it all
balanced and fine tuning the settings in the
app, here's a few tests we ran to show you how
this gimbal performs in some common shooting scenarios. First is just your standard lock mode, where the camera stays perfectly straight, looking in one direction, and we hold down the front trigger to lock it in, and just like the Ronin-S,
this performed super smooth. Not much difference there. Then next we went onto a running test, where I ran directly behind a subject as fast as I could, and
overall it did perform well, I would say not quite
as good as the Ronin-S, mostly because it's a lighter setup, so it's going to be more susceptible to some of those up and
down movements of running. But it still did a pretty good job. And then next up was the low
mode, or underslung mode, and just like the Ronin-S,
all you have to do is hold the trigger, and
then sling your camera under until it gets into the low mode. And again, I'd say this did just as well as the Ronin-S. Next we tried out the parallax shot, this is where we orbit around a subject, and again, I thought
this was super smooth, although this does take some
motor setting adjustments and a bit of practice to
get it down perfectly. But if you aren't very
practiced, you can now use that Active Track 3.0,
like we showed you earlier, and literally turn the handle
in any direction you want and it will always keep
your subject in the center. So again, this is probably
the biggest standout feature of this new
gimbal is that it makes it super beginner friendly to have that Active Track in there. Either way though, I thought
the SC did just as good of a job doing the
parallax as the Ronin-S. I did notice though when
using the Active Track 3.0 if a subject is moving too fast, like a passing car, it's a
little bit too slow to track, so as long as the subject
isn't moving too fast, it should do a pretty good job in the automatic tracking mode. Moving on to our last
test was the sports mode. Although this feature is more common among three-axis gimbals today, I think the Ronin-S is still
the best at the sports mode, and I thought the Ronin-SC
would work just as well in sports mode, and it almost did. But we tried all kinds
of different settings and couldn't quite get it
as good as the Ronin-S. As you can see by this example, it does a great job, but it was just a little bit harder to control. And to activate sports
mode, you can hold down the M button until the
indicator light turns yellow, or press and hold the M
button and then double tap the front trigger to lock it in place. So there you have a quick
look at the all-new Ronin-SC. My overall thoughts, I think
it's a great new gimbal that I would highly recommend to anyone with a smaller setup. But again, the biggest con is simply that it can't hold as much weight, which means I personally
wouldn't have much use for it because I don't own very many setups that are this small. I even recently picked up a Canon EOS R that only weighs about a pound and a half, and with a lens that weighs about a pound and a half as well,
which is under the weight capacity limit of 4.5 pounds. It was super front heavy,
so you have to slide the camera all the way to the back, which bumps it into the back motor, which will ruin your footage. So just be aware that even though it says a capacity of 4.5 pounds,
you have to factor in the form factor of your setup as well, and the weight distribution
in order to fit it in the space provided. So the only setup that
I own that I was able to fit on here was the Sony
A7III with the Tamron 28-75, which comes in at about two pounds total. And even then, I had to
take off the eyepiece so that it wouldn't bump
into the back motor. So if you had a G Master lens on here, I doubt that it would balance, so just something to be aware of that with your setup, both camera and lens need to be super light,
otherwise you're going to want to get the larger Ronin-S. As for price, the Ronin-SC
comes in as expected, just under the Ronin-S, starting at $450, so you'll also save some cash by going with the smaller version as well. But that's it for my thoughts, guys. Links are in the description on where you can pick either one of these up, and if you'd like to see more gear reviews and comparisons like this,
along with the tutorials on my favorite Ronin-S settings, as well as other tutorials
for how to become a master at achieving cinematic shots, and how to run your own
video production business, you can join our online film school at FullTimeFilmmaker.com,
or to see a preview of what the course is
like, you can sign up for my free one hour filmmaking training by clicking over here. But that's it, thanks for tuning in. Hopefully this helps you
make an educated decision on which of these tools is right for you. Don't forget to subscribe, and if you have any further questions, please let me know.
