Not long ago, Zhiyun launched 3 handheld gimbal products in one go: Yunhe M3, SMOOTH-5, SMOOTH-X2. In addition to the difference in product form, they all have a common feature: they come with a new fill light function. Is it difficult to be a place where the product form can not be optimized, and the handheld gimbal industry will also fall into the rhythm of crazy "inner volume"?
Handheld gimbal adds the function of filling light, is it the industry's "inner volume"?
Let's answer this question first: the handheld gimbal adds a light filling function, not the industry's "inner volume", but a further improvement of the product function. As we all know, photography itself is an art of light, in the shooting environment with poor light conditions, the light filling function can effectively brighten the subject, or create a better shooting atmosphere to improve the quality of the shooting picture.
Taking Yunhe M3 as an example, it is embedded in the pitch axis with a patented brightness doubling technology of the fill light, the original size of the phone can achieve the heat dissipation and light fill brightness integrated on the nail cover of the small components, 2c ㎡ light source can emit an average of up to 800 lumens of light, to meet the lighting needs of 20 square meters, and support the handle control light wave wheel to adjust the color temperature and brightness of the fill light, with the standard multi-color filter, the low light environment can also shoot a low sensitivity of pure pictures.
Seeing this, it is estimated that there will be some "small experts who raise the bar" to begin to refute: Listen to what you said, the light filling function is indeed a bit useful, but my mobile phone and camera support the stabilization function, why buy a separate gimbal to stabilize it?
I have to admit that this is actually a good question to the point. For most users, the stabilization function of the device itself or the lens when taking pictures, as well as the electronic image stabilization mechanism, have indeed been able to cover most of the scene shooting needs.
However, when we advanced the range of demand from taking pictures to video shooting, the stabilization mechanism of the product itself began to appear a little stretched, and the "mirror" that is crucial for image shooting, which reflects the language of the mobile lens, cannot be achieved by the stabilization of ordinary equipment itself. It is precisely because of the pursuit of stable video pictures that PTZ products have come into being and are also accepted by the majority of video creation users.
Where does the handheld gimbal product come from, and what is the principle of stabilization?
Steadicam, the "originator" of gimbal products, was born in the early 1970s, and the domestic film and television industry also jokingly called it "four dishes and one soup", which was invented by a cameraman named Galet Brown in Hollywood.
Steadicam uses a mechanically constructed counterweight balancing system, which is mainly composed of three parts: shock absorber arm, balance group and shock absorbing vest. Its appearance has solved the problem of shaking the picture that was easy to appear in the past with a shoulder-shoulder camera, which can be called a huge revolution in the effect of film pictures. Many of the silky smooth images we see in movies today are due to the invention of this great product.
In the film industry, Steadicam's powerful stabilization performance is impeccable. However, if it is to be widely popularized as a civilian device, it is somewhat not in line with the standard. The reason is simple: under the niche market demand, the professional grade Steadicam price is generally not cheap, what, you are not bad money? That also has to see if the waist force can do it, the weight of professional-grade Steadicam generally ranges from 20 pounds to 50 pounds, we only have the "power of the flood" is not enough, but also need a lot of time to learn the operation skills, not everyone can easily get started.
Although there are also improved "small handheld Steadicam" products in the future, the spring of the consumer-grade handheld gimbal will start from nearly a decade. In 2012, portable mobile photography and video equipment such as drones set off a market boom, and handheld gimbals derived from drone technology began to appear; since 2016, the scale of the domestic short video market has ushered in explosive growth. At the same time, domestic manufacturers represented by technological progress such as Zhiyun and DJI are also promoting the overall development of the handheld gimbal industry.
However, the gold diggers who can dig up gold during the market outbreak period are after all a minority. For consumers, the price of handheld gimbal is already close enough, but for manufacturers, the technology of handheld gimbal is not easy to eat. It is understood that Zhiyun had developed drone products in the early days, but in view of the lack of norms and uneven quality in the market at that time, it did not continue to deepen. However, the early experience in the development of drones and stabilization technology has helped Zhiyun open up the market for handheld stabilizers. It is precisely because of contact with drones that Zhiyun has become the first stabilizer enterprise with a closed-source algorithm, leading the attitude algorithm capabilities of its peers, which also makes Zhiyun's products have smooth control and stronger stability.
Unlike the bulky Steadicam of the past, today's handheld gimbals are more lightweight and intelligent in the way they work. From the working principle, it is similar to the previous very hot chicken head stabilization effect, no matter how the part below the chicken head moves, the chicken head itself will maintain a stable state to the greatest extent, always ensuring that the head is forward.
In the handheld gimbal system, it is mainly composed of two parts: detection and control. The gimbal part carrying the photographic camera equipment is equivalent to the "chicken head", with the help of the brain (sensor, gyroscope) to conduct comprehensive analysis (stability control algorithm) judgment, send instructions, and then through the trunk (multi-motor, pitch axis, rolling shaft, heading axis, etc.) adjustment to achieve a stable working state.
In order to provide more sufficient power during work, the motor material of the handheld gimbal has undergone the evolution of injection molded motors to ordinary motors and then to magnet motors. The magnet motor used by Zhiyun is the representative technology of the current gimbal industry, the motor strength is greater, the stability is more advantageous, of course, the cost is also higher.
It can be said that the arrival of the handheld gimbal has greatly reduced the anti-shake threshold when creating videos. Whether the shooting equipment we use is a mobile phone or a camera, we only need a matching stabilizer to get the stabilization experience that was only available in the past on film industry-grade products, which is a complete industrial progress and consumption upgrade.
However, for handheld gimbal users using camera equipment, even if it has simplified the operation process much more than Steadicam, the manual leveling process of the use process still seems to be a little more frequent and complicated. Can't the handheld gimbal solve this problem with automatic leveling technology?
After in-depth communication with the technical staff of Zhiyun, we have the answer in mind: from the perspective of product function design, the automatic leveling of the handheld gimbal is not a particularly difficult thing in itself. However, in the automatic leveling state, the gimbal motor not only has to share the state of physical imbalance, but also uses the algorithm to provide stabilization performance, and the long-term continuous working state will damage the service life of the motor. Without changing the balance state of the shaft arm and the camera lens, Zhiyun's Yunhe M3 series does not require secondary leveling through the quick-release board installation, and aims to reduce the operational leveling step through structural design, which is currently a coordinated scheme that is close to complete leveling.
In addition to providing stable video shooting results, handheld gimbals can provide professional-grade mirror handling techniques. Take Hitchcock zoom, a classic shooting technique used in the movie "Ecstasy", which can provide users with a special vertigo effect of "the size of the lens subject does not change, but the size of the background changes". In the past, it was not easy to achieve this effect, it required experienced professional shooters and designated focus followers to stabilize the moving shooting equipment while maintaining a uniform zoom state.
In Zhiyun's handheld camera and mobile phone gimbal product series, the dual Hitchcock gameplay of double focus handwheel + auto zoom has been realized, which greatly simplifies the difficulty of this mirror operation. Users can easily shoot tall, cinematic lenses based on ZY Cami's built-in Hitchcock zoom operating guidelines and auto-compositing features. In addition, Zhiyun's gimbal products also generally support a variety of professional techniques such as mad dog mode, intelligent tracking, three-dimensional dreams, magic doppelgangers, and time-lapse photography, and the upgrade of software functions has brought rich playability.
How does Zhiyun deeply cultivate the handheld gimbal market?
Handheld gimbal belongs to the technology-based products of hardware manufacturing, with the accumulated technical advantages, strong patent system and leading product applications, Zhiyun has become the leading player in the industry. Since the launch of the first one-arm stabilizer Yunhe generation on the market in 2016, zhiyun product update rhythm has been very powerful, every year there will be 3-4 new products on the market, strong product replacement ability, I have to say that zhiyun is forcing itself to create new products every year, giving the market new functional characteristics. At the same time, the Zhiyun camera gimbal technology that has been precipitated for several years is also gradually being decentralized to the consumer market, radiating more mobile phone gimbal fields with camera stabilization and control technology, and the product line covers multiple groups.
Through the continuous iterative upgrading of products and in-depth insight into the consumer market, the layout of Zhiyun's handheld gimbal products is also clearer. We can simply summarize it as follows: product segmentation, product lightweighting, product function improvement, product modularization, and technical strategy.
In terms of product segmentation, Zhiyun's product line is mainly divided into consumer level and professional level. The consumer product camp for smartphones is composed of the current SMOOTH digital flagship series, SMOOTH X series and SMOOTH Q series, while the professional product camp for cameras is composed of the current CRANE digital flagship series, CRANE M series and WEEBLII (weibi) series.
In terms of product lightweight design, The latest 3 handheld gimbal products released by Zhiyun - Yunhe M3, SMOOTH-5, AND SMOOTH-X2 have different degrees of "weight reduction" compared with the previous generation of products. I personally think that this is a design optimization that meets the needs of users - without losing the stabilization performance, the lightweight design of the handheld gimbal meets the needs of most users, just as the emergence of SMOOTH-X has indeed rewritten people's definition of lightness and compactness, the weight of a mobile phone will hardly feel that the sense of existence is too strong, but the function is still rich, the user's simplest threshold can experience the video stabilization effect, and the portable mobile phone cloud typhoon tide has been set off. You know, the products that users are willing to take out are good products.
In terms of product function improvement, today's handheld gimbal is not just an auxiliary device that simply provides anti-shake performance, zhiyun has its own unique insights in product functions and user experience. Its first pot handle design, double-layer quick release structure, follow-up roller, double-sided magnetic fill light function (support color temperature or brightness adjustment), wireless image transmission and control, etc., help users solve many pain points in the actual shooting scene. The intransigence in design has also made Zhiyun gain a series of internationally renowned design awards and authoritative institutions.
In terms of product modularity, the Yunhe 3S released in February 2020 first added the modular design concept, and subsequent products have also followed this style. Users can choose a variety of modular devices such as modular handles, modular shaft arms, image transmitters, microphones, focus followers, and quick-install components according to the usage scenario. These modular components also adopt the industry's unified standards, with wide compatibility, eliminating the cost and threshold for users to purchase additional equipment, and can give users more choices for use scenarios.
Zhiyun did not choose to manufacture a handheld gimbal with all the perfect functions, but through the modularization of functional components, it realized the perfect experience of the handheld gimbal under different use scenarios. The phrase "dare to be the first, innovation leads the development of enterprises" is Zhiyun's own product development concept. We have reason to believe that Zhiyun's future product line will add more products like Yunhe M3 fill light dissipation technology and future light filling accessories, audio and video products, and may even enter the field of professional camera shake stabilization gimbal, which is also the last position of traditional Steadicam.
In terms of product replacement strategy, Zhiyun is also the first to transplant the camera gimbal technology into the mobile phone gimbal, the "Hitchcock" lens mentioned earlier, thanks to the use of the Yunhe series for camera zoom technology, the mobile phone gimbal can also fully use the zoom function of a single lens or even multiple lenses, and now not only can manual Hitchcock, in the consumer product line, Zhiyun also added a simple automatic Hitchcock effect to the APP ecology; this time for the application of fill lights, Zhiyun has also begun to be familiar with it from practice to mastery, Both camera gimbal and mobile phone gimbal are adapted.
Adhering to the concept of "growing with users", Zhiyun also pays attention to the support of creator enthusiasm. The Global Short Video Competition hosted by Zhiyun, a short film creation competition covering short video lovers and film and television creators around the world, has attracted the participation of many film and television creators, and the cumulative exposure of the activities in 2020 has reached 28 million; the 36-hour time-limited creation activities launched by Zhiyun and camera manufacturers and platforms have brought creators a broader imagination space by providing portable and efficient new technology products.
In its own Laita application, Zhiyun will also often publish instructional videos on product use, and regularly hold user-oriented work competitions, on the one hand, to help users establish a platform for self-expression and learning and exchange, on the other hand, to be close to users and listen to their valuable opinions in product use in a timely manner. Moreover, in the process of new product research and development, Zhiyun will often go deep into the "Leta Society" to listen to users' opinions and suggestions on product iteration. The precipitation of a field often needs to be clearly developed and found in repeated communication with users, so as not to deviate from the route, at present, in the field of handheld gimbal, community culture play and activity integration, Zhiyun is also doing quite well.
summary
Just as digital cameras replaced film cameras, the era of video creation has become a difficult part of our lives to ignore, and advances in technology have inspired people to create more creative imaginations. Driven by a variety of favorable factors, the handheld gimbal market is accelerating towards a mature stage, and the Matthew effect is beginning to appear. The domestic handheld gimbal manufacturers represented by Zhiyun will further promote the future development of the industry by virtue of the dual advantages of technology precipitation + market share.
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