Hello, I am a brand-new Ronin-S owner and user. I have a specific task for which I'd appreciate any advice or suggestions.

First, the telephoto on my Canon 7D is zoomed all the way in, so any minor camera movements are exaggerated.

My goal: I want to walk along a sidewalk, pointing the camera at an object across the street to my right (or left), keeping the object centered and as still as possible in the frame. The object might be a tree, a fire hydrant, a door, etc.


I am not sure what settings in the gimbel will best help me with this.

I have figured out that adjusting the pan speed slow enough to match my walking speed allows me to pan to the right very slowly as I walk. However, as the distance between me and the object changes as I approach and then walk away from the object, the panning speed must change as well. This is not the same as circling around an object, where the distance between the camera and the object remains constant.

Also, because I'm zoomed in so tightly, slight jarring movements as I walk are magnified - up and down as well as left and right. Are there settings I can make to minimize that as well?

Finally (a different question), I have seen some videos where the camera is moving in a circle around an object, keepig it exactly centered the whole time. I haven't found any instructions on how to do this either. Any suggestions? Again, something with setting the pan speed?

Thank you for any advice.
Scott

Howdy Slugger,   
Hopefully someone in this forum has some good tips for you to set the various parameters.  I don't have enough experience with my Ronin-s yet, but I do have 22 years of professional videography experience, so hopefully some of what I am sharing below can also help you.

Regarding stabilized motion,
Well, the big problem is that you are zoomed in.  There is a limitation with what anyone can expect if you are shooting with a long lens.  For example, I have a $5,000 computer controlled motorized slider that is exceptional.  But if I have anything longer than a 150mm lens on it, the slider is useless because the entire image vibrates.  The tiny imperfections in the pretty dang perfect slider transmit into motion that is clearly visible under the critical eye of a zoomed lens.  So I think that you are asking too much from yourself and a handheld gimbal.   

A few options you can try:
Does your camera and/or your lens have built-in image stabilization?  If so, you might want to turn those on.  Depending on the camera and the type of motion, using built-in image stabilization can sometimes make the problems worse when using a gimbal, or a tripod, etc.  But it might also do the trick.  worth a try.
  
Alternatively, if you don't mind shooting in 1080P, then editing in 720P,  you can do image stabilization in post production.  Just be sure to shoot at a high enough shutter speed that you don't get motion blur, otherwise your final video will have the odd effect of randomly blurring for no apparent reason. (Since the correlated motion that caused the blur is no longer seen, the clip will be confusing in that it will appear to randomly blur (in those spots where your hand motion caused a blur).

Regarding Panning speed on something you are walking past,
This one comes down to practice practice practice.  The joystick on the Ronin s is pretty good.  The farther you push it to the side, the faster the motion.  So you need to find the speed (for panning) that works best at the speed you walk, then you need to practice because (as you said), the panning motion is slow as your approach, then fast as you pass by, then slow as the object falls farther behind you.  This one is all on you to control the speed changes.  Just set the panning speed to the maximum you need, then do the feathering yourself as you walk by.  You might want to consider making a custom set (and saving as 1,2, or 3) where you kill the tilt motion of the gimbal so that when you are panning with the joystick, you don't accidentally give a little bit of a command to the tilt motor too.  SUPER easy to make that mistake, but if you basically kill the tilt command from the joystick, you will just have a panning machine.  Probably for the sake of actually using the gimbal, maybe you just make the deadband on the joystick tilt super high so it takes a bit more work to accidentally input a tilt command via the joystick.  But you can still have a tilt command on the joystick to make it easy to frame your shot before you give it a go.  (it would be annoying to not have a tilt ability to frame your shot).
One final thought about panning,
Panning on a long lens (or even a short lens) obviously creates a lot of motion in the frame.  When you are trying to do a 180 degree pan while walking, that is a lot of motion created by relatively small amount of motion from a joystick.  This is a tall order to try to get right.  If I were doing what you are trying to accomplish, I would probably do the panning motion with my body rather than with the joystick.  So as you approach the object, you will gradually walk more and more sideways, then as you are at the object, your body is at a full 90 degree turn (compared to the direction you are walking and you are basically walking sideways), and as you pass the object you are now walking backwards for a short time.

All the best,
Matt

Mabou2 Posted at 2018-9-27 03:26
Howdy Slugger,   
Hopefully someone in this forum has some good tips for you to set the various parameters.  I don't have enough experience with my Ronin-s yet, but I do have 22 years of professional videography experience, so hopefully some of what I am sharing below can also help you.

Hi Matt, thanks for these excellent suggestions! I appreciate it. Yes I know that zooming in is part of the problem. Practice practice practice is the best advice, and good to know I'm probably doing it right.

Actually, in my testing, the image is surprisingly steady as I walk, very impressive. The one thing I'm not sure how to deal with: When I first touch the joystick to the right, there is a slight "lag" before it actually starts to move, and then it "overshoots" a little bit, continuing to move after I release it, thereby pointing a little too far to the right.

Is there an adjustment you know of that would minimize this "lag" and "overshoot"? I think I'm getting really close otherwise.

Part of my problem as a complete newbie is the user manual lists many many settings with very little explanation of what they do or why you'd want to use them; it seems to assume you know a lot about this already. Deadband, smoothing, stiffness, etc. all rather overwhelming. Even "channels" are not well explained. (ok end of rant.)

I'm wondering if there are some good tutorial videos. (The ones on the DJI site are mostly just promos.)The best thing I've found is the S9 one, though it's more of a review than a tutorial ().

Anyway Thanks so much for your tips and suggestions, it really does help.
Scott

Hi Slugger, yep, google things like "Best settings for Ronin-S' or maybe Best Cinematic settings for Ronin-s".  You will find plenty of videos.  Basically, you need to lower the "Dead-end" in the joystick controls on your phone.  This will make the gimbal move more immediately when you touch the stick.  Also in the joystick settings, reduce the number on the "Smoothing" control.  Smoothing makes your gimbal ramp up slowly before it hits full speed and makes it slow down more gradually when you put the stick back to center.  The overshoot you talked about is because of smoothing.

Good luck buddy,
Matt