Lanziphotography's Blog

There is an ever growing amount of Brushless Gimbals for UAVs getting onto the market.

Most of them are 3 Axis Gimbals these days aiming at carrying a GoPro or GoPro like Camera.

The majority of these Gimbals can only be installed hanging down like the DJI Zenmuse (meaning yaw motor is up) and some can be installed inverted like the Feiyu-Tech Mini 3D (meaning yaw motor is down). Only an handful of these 3 Axis Gimbals can easily be mounted facing forward (meaning the yaw motor becomes the roll motor and the roll motor becomes the yaw motor). One of these few gimbals that can master this task successfully is the Zhiyun Z1-Tiny2 Brushless Gimbal. This Gimbal excites me since I first read about it and especially the feature of being mounted facing forward. This is one big criteria for me since my Quadcopter platform of choice is the Lumenier QAV400. I like it because of the slim profile and I always wanted to use a 3 Axis Gimbal with it that can be mounted facing forward keeping all propellers out of sight and giving a unobstructed view forward and downwards.

The Zhiyun Z1-Tiny2 turns out to be the perfect 3 Axis Gimbal to match the QAV400 (and QAV500). What makes this Gimbal so good?

1. Built Quality. Everything is built to fit neatly and tight. No wiggling or shaking. No wires flapping around. It feels really solid and crafted with quality components.

2. Ease of use. The Tiny2 is super easy to setup. Pretty much works out of the box and results can improved even more by calibrating the Gimbal. One connector for the wire harness guarantees a super clean build.

3. Easy to set up with existing flight controller for Mode-Changes, Pitch and Roll Control.

4. Great flexibility in how you can mount the Gimbal. Hanging, Inverted or Facing Forward. All without changing any settings. Just power up the Gimbal in the desired position and wait for it to initialise.

5. Absolute stunning stabilisation performance and no jello with GoPros thanks to the very good dampening system. In the brightest daylight forcing the GoPro into very high Shutter Speeds absolutely no rolling shutter effect (jello) was noticeable. Even without ND Filter.

6. The Zhiyun perfectly locks onto the horizon.

7. The Tiny2 was tested in Wellington conditions which are known for very high and gusty winds. The Tiny2 mastered the high winds without any problems.

8. Given the quality build and the size of the Brushless Motors the Gimbal is extremely light. This is especially important when mounting the Gimbal facing forward. The light weight of the Gimbal does not affect the Centre of Gravity to much on the QAV400 and it can easily be balanced out by moving the Lipo further back as a counter weight to keep the QAV perfectly balanced.

9. The Tiny2 is very energy efficient not affecting the flight time too much. Powering it directly from the PDB of the QAV400 via 4S Lipo shortened the flight time by 40 seconds.

10. 5V output to power a receiver if necessary.

11. Powers the GoPro and charges it as well via Flight Battery.

Overall the Zhiyun Z1 Tiny2 is my weapon of choice when it comes to 3-Axis Brushless Gimbals for GoPro Cameras and similar ones that have the same dimensions. The simplicity as well as the built quality are unrivalled and the footage the Tiny2 produces is outstanding.

Zhiyun just did a great job with Z1 Tiny2.

It was a pleasure to review and test this 3-Axis Brushless Gimbal.

Below is a series of Test Videos entirely shot with a GoPro Hero 3 Black Edition in 60 FPS mounted on a Zhiyun Z-1 Tiny2 Brushless Gimbal which again was mounted facing forward onto a Lumenier QAV400. The Tiny2 was powered by the 4S flight Lipo. Also the Tiny2 was calibrated first thing after it got installed onto the QAV400.

Tested Gear:

Zhiyun Z1-Tiny2 3-Axis Brushless Aerial Gimbal

http://www.zhiyun-tech.com/

UAV Test Platform:

Lumenier QAV400

3DR Pixhawk

Lumenier 2216-9 1100KV V2

Lumenier 30 AMP SimonK

Graupner Sport Prop 8×4.5

Lumenier 3300 mAh 4s 35C

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Youtube Videos

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Zhiyun Z1-Tiny2 3-Axis Brushless Aerial Gimbal – Review

Zhiyun Z1-Tiny2 3-Axis Brushless Aerial Gimbal – High Wind Test Flight

Zhiyun Z1-Tiny2 3-Axis Brushless Aerial Gimbal – Overtuned PID Test Flight

Zhiyun Z1-Tiny2 3-Axis Brushless Aerial Gimbal – No Wind Test Flight

Zhiyun Z1-Tiny2 3-Axis Brushless Aerial Gimbal – Always a perfect Horizon

Zhiyun Z1-Tiny2 3-Axis Brushless Aerial Gimbal – Always perfectly balanced

Thanks heaps to a couple of folks who made this test possible. You know who I mean!

In an upcoming review I will test and review the Zhiyun Smooth-C 3-Axis Brushless Gimbal for Smartphones.

Shooting with the new Olympus OM-D E-M5 for a little more than three weeks now, I can only say that the camera is a pretty capable tool from the perspective of
an aviation enthusiast and photographer. The camera is fast, responsive and probably the most important thing for aviation photography, the focus tracking system, is a treat!
I can’t say more. Usually shooting with a 1Ds Mark III I was more than positively surprised when I saw how capable the E-M5 behaves when tracking arriving and departing planes.
Also the very good viewfinder and the 4 FPS (with focus tracking) do their part for making this a great tool for aviation enthusiasts.
The camera is super sturdy and the weather sealing is living up to the promises Olympus made when announcing the OM-D E-M5.
I just put the weather sealing to a test when shooting a series of images of a United States Coast Guard Gulfstream 5 here in Wellington during a fierce southerly spiced up with heavy rain. Me and the camera were drenched.
When it comes to the viewfinder I especially like the response of the updating viewfinder image between 4FPS burst exposures while still maintaining Autofocus. That makes it super easy to follow fast moving objects.
Enough has been said and written about this camera. The only point I want to state here is the fact that the E-M5 is an almost perfect tool for aviation photography.
The only drawback so far is the lack of native long and fast glass. That’s not a flaw of the camera itself though but rather an issue of the micro four thirds format.