What is a Gimbal?

Gimbals are for all types of cameras

Is it worth it?

I have been wanting to get into Vlogging. I recently heard about a device called a Gimbal and wondered… What is a Gimbal?

I have been a Blogger for more than 20 years already. I was blogging before the word “blogging” even existed. Over the past 5 years or so, I have made several attempts to be a Vlogger too. A vlogger is basically a blogger who makes videos instead of writing words.

My attempts at vlogging have basically crashed and burned. I think there are several reasons for that:

• I chose the wrong niche
• I knew nothing about videography
• I did not have the right equipment

So, what about this Gimbal?

I teased you and asked the question, what is a gimbal? Well, a gimbal is a device that I would say is somewhat similar to a “selfie stick” or a “monopod”. However, the main purpose of a gimbal and the big difference is image stabilization. What is a Gimbal? It is a device that stabilizes the videos!

My recent purchase

As I started hearing about gimbals lately, I became more curious. I first saw such a device in use just a few months ago. There is a video guy that I follow named Steve Dotto, and he had a video about a gimbal, although I don’t recall if he used the name.

I liked what I saw, and I wanted one. The model he used was about $200 as I recall, though, and I did not want to spend that much money. I also did not really have any plan on starting vlogging, or should I say attempting vlogging, again.

In the past month or so, though, I have had a plan come to me, and one of my blogs where I think a video would be an excellent addition, so I am going for it.

I recently bought a budget Gimbal, a device called a Vimble 2 Gimbal. I received it earlier today. You can bet I started playing around with it as soon as I had it charged up!

Have a look and see what you think

I made a kind of “test video” shooting video footage with four different methods:

• Held the camera (I shot on my cell phone, a Huawei P9 Plus) by hand
• I used a traditional selfie-stick
• I used my new gimbal in standard mode
• I used the new gimbal in the extended “selfie-stick” mode.

The video is at the top of this blog post. You probably already watched it.

So, what do you think? is it worth it to get a gimbal if you are serious about blogging or doing a video for some other purpose? I paid less than $100 for the device. In my opinion, it seems like it will be a great tool, and well worth the price!