Top Stabilizers for Action Cameras | Articles | Photo, video, optics

It is impos­si­ble to achieve a “cine-like” smooth pic­ture when shoot­ing a video “hand­held”. The per­son moves and breathes. And even a slight trem­bling in the hands is reflect­ed in the qual­i­ty of the shoot­ing. The way out is to use sta­bi­liz­ers.

Today there are not only large and heavy pro­fes­sion­al devices for large cam­eras, but also light, com­pact mod­els for action cam­eras. They will make the shoot­ing process eas­i­er and more con­ve­nient. With them, you won’t have to re-shoot dupli­cates spoiled by a trem­bling image.

We’ve put togeth­er a selec­tion of action cam­era sta­bilis­ers, which we think deserve your atten­tion.

With the help of a sta­bi­liz­er, you can shoot cool videos even with­out a pro­fes­sion­al cam­era. Pho­to: camera.ru

What was tak­en into account in the rat­ing
What to look for when buy­ing
Feiyu Vim­ble 2A
HOHEM iSteady Pro3
Feiyu WG2X
Feiyu FY-G6
Mod­el com­par­i­son
Out­come

What was taken into account in the rating

• Rel­e­vance. These sta­bi­liz­ers are suit­able for most mod­ern cam­eras.
• Size and weight. The larg­er and heav­ier the gad­get, the more dif­fi­cult it is to hold it in your hand for a long time.
• The max­i­mum weight the device can sup­port. The high­er this fig­ure, the more mas­sive the cam­era can be installed on the sta­bi­liz­er.
• Dura­tion of work on one charge. It depends on how long you can shoot con­tin­u­ous­ly and how many addi­tion­al bat­ter­ies you have to take with you on a trip.
• Com­pat­i­bil­i­ty. There are uni­ver­sal gad­gets, there are suit­able only for cer­tain cam­era mod­els. Uni­ver­sal is a good solu­tion, since when replac­ing an action cam­era, you do not have to change the sta­bi­liz­er along with it.

What to look for when buying

First of all, on the main char­ac­ter­is­tics that we took into account in the rat­ing.

In addi­tion, it is use­ful to read reviews and reviews on sta­bi­liz­ers for action cam­eras. The expe­ri­ence of oth­er buy­ers can be very valu­able. Our web­site has a sec­tion with reviews, where we talk about the fea­tures, advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages of gad­gets. From the cur­rent — a review of the bud­get sta­bi­liz­er for action cam­eras: Feiyu Tech G5.

Now let’s move on to our col­lec­tion.

All prices are at the time of pub­li­ca­tion of the arti­cle.

Feiyu Vimble 2A

Light tele­scop­ic mod­el (227 g) with excel­lent char­ac­ter­is­tics for 6,290 rubles. The 3‑axis sta­bi­liz­er is a prac­ti­cal black mod­el that folds eas­i­ly. For trans­porta­tion, you can use the case that comes with the kit. Does not take up much space — when fold­ed, 27.5 cm. Length with tele­scop­ic han­dle — 46 cm.

The Feiyu Vim­ble 2A sta­bi­liz­er is light and com­fort­able. Pho­to: camera.ru

Pecu­liar­i­ties:

• there is a frame for quick mount­ing of the cam­era;
• con­nec­tion to the cam­era via Wi-Fi. You can remote­ly con­trol it: enable and dis­able record­ing, change the shoot­ing mode;
• The device will remem­ber the Wi-Fi pass­word. Thanks to this, next time it will con­nect imme­di­ate­ly, quick­ly and auto­mat­i­cal­ly;
• quick switch­ing between modes (panoram­ic and por­trait);
• The han­dle is made of met­al, there is an over­lay made of TPU plas­tic. There­fore, it is con­ve­nient to hold the gad­get in your hand — it does not slip;
• there is a Feiyu ON app (for Android and iOS). It sup­ports many per­son­al­ized set­tings and time­lapse in motion. Time­lapse is shoot­ing with a gap between frames that are com­bined into one video. The result is an accel­er­at­ed video that shows what hap­pens in one loca­tion over a long peri­od of time.

HOHEM iSteady Pro3

This is a cool 3‑axis sta­bi­liz­er that can be used with most mod­ern action cam­eras. The price is 7,990 rubles.

This is the most load-bear­ing mod­el in our selec­tion — it can with­stand cam­eras up to 150 g.

Pecu­liar­i­ties:

• can work con­tin­u­ous­ly for 12 hours;
• con­nec­tion via Wi-Fi, you can con­trol GoPro Hero series cam­eras direct­ly from the sta­bi­liz­er;
• dust pro­tec­tion lev­el and types — IPX4. Not afraid of a large num­ber of drops from dif­fer­ent sides (rain, show­er). But you can’t shoot under­wa­ter with such a gad­get;
• iSteady 3.0 smart sta­bi­liza­tion method. It pro­vides pro­cess­ing of all move­ments of the gad­get, aligns the video along three axes. The result is high-qual­i­ty con­tent, regard­less of the shoot­ing con­di­tions. And dur­ing a slow walk, and with active move­ment, it will be pos­si­ble to shoot a smooth video;
• There is an ergonom­ic han­dle with con­trol but­tons.

HOHEM iSteady Pro3 is a mod­ern elec­tron­ic sta­bi­liz­er for action cam­eras. Pho­to: china-phone.info

The gad­get has 7 avail­able modes:

• Pan & Tilt Fol­low — moves both ver­ti­cal­ly and hor­i­zon­tal­ly;
• Lock Mode — fixed angle, the device does not move along the axes;
• Incep­tion — the cam­era rotates 600 degrees;
• Pan fol­low­ing — gad­get move­ment only hor­i­zon­tal­ly;
• Sport Mode — a spe­cial mode for shoot­ing fast mov­ing objects;
• POV — mov­ing the shoot­ing from the first per­son;
• Motion Time­lapse — for shoot­ing fast videos with mov­ing peo­ple, ani­mals, objects.

Feiyu WG2X

The small­est mod­el in our col­lec­tion. Size 103 x 78 x 89 mm, weight only 238 g. Price 10,990 rubles. The gad­get makes cam­era con­trol as com­fort­able as pos­si­ble. For quick access to the nec­es­sary func­tions, there are spe­cial but­tons on the han­dle. You can con­nect via WiFi to a smart­phone and start video shoot­ing from it.

This is an upgrad­ed 3‑axis gim­bal for action cam­eras. It allows real-time cal­i­bra­tion at speeds up to 2000/s and is high­ly sta­ble.

Feiyu WG2X is a com­pact and pow­er­ful 3‑axis gim­bal. Pho­to: gimbalgarage.com

This is a uni­ver­sal mod­el, com­pat­i­ble with most exist­ing action cam­eras. There is a 1/4″ thread­ed hole at the bot­tom of the han­dle.

The gad­get is designed to work in dif­fi­cult con­di­tions and under heavy load. There­fore, it uses high-qual­i­ty elec­tric motors with high torque. This pro­vides maneu­ver­abil­i­ty of move­ment, a smooth ride when work­ing with cam­eras of dif­fer­ent weights (max­i­mum — 135 g).

Feiyu FY-G6

This is an improved ver­sion of the Feiyu Tech G5. The three-axis sta­bi­liz­er has become an excel­lent exam­ple of a high-qual­i­ty gad­get with a strict and dis­creet design. You can buy for 10,990 rubles.

Inter­ac­tion with the cam­era is due to the con­nec­tion via Blue­tooth or Wi-Fi. There is a smart­phone con­nec­tion. Through the Feiyu ON app, you can remote­ly start and stop record­ing, con­trol the cam­era and change var­i­ous para­me­ters:

• sen­si­tiv­i­ty;
• tilt angle;
• sta­bi­liza­tion con­trol.

An impor­tant fea­ture of the gad­get is the pres­ence of an OLED dis­play. It is locat­ed on the han­dle. The screen shows:

• cur­rent oper­at­ing para­me­ters;
• mode used;
• bat­tery lev­el;
• con­nec­tion type (Blue­tooth or Wi-Fi), etc.

The device is pro­tect­ed from dust and mois­ture accord­ing to the IP67 stan­dard. This means that dust can­not get inside the case, the device is not afraid of splash­es. But under­wa­ter pho­tog­ra­phy is not pos­si­ble with it.

With Feiyu FY-G6, you can shoot per­fect video even when it rains. Pho­to: lightphotos.ru

There is a Time­Lapse mode — tak­ing pic­tures with a cer­tain inter­val between pic­tures, which are com­bined into one video. You can imme­di­ate­ly define the fol­low­ing shoot­ing para­me­ters:

• move­ment speed;
• time and angles of turns;
• way­points (start, end).

After that, the video can be shot with ready-made set­tings. There is no need to con­fig­ure any­thing dur­ing the process.

With Feiyu FY-G6, you can for­get about the com­plex incom­pre­hen­si­ble con­trols. Almost all basic actions can be per­formed with a sin­gle but­ton. It is locat­ed on the han­dle. With the but­ton you can:

• block the gad­get;
• enable pan­ning mode;
• lev­el the hori­zon
• per­form cal­i­bra­tion;
• enable auto­mat­ic turn along the select­ed route;
• rotate the gad­get for self­ie shoot­ing;
• enable video sequence smooth­ing with man­u­al con­trol of the rota­tion axis.

Model comparison

We chose the key fea­tures of the described sta­bi­liz­ers for the cam­era, brought them togeth­er in one table.

Outcome

Here are the rat­ings received by gad­gets on a five-point scale:

Feiyu Vim­ble 2A is a light­weight and com­fort­able mod­el for shoot­ing. You can quick­ly switch modes. The gad­get con­nects to the cam­era via WiFi. Bud­get option, com­pat­i­ble with many devices.

HOHEM iSteady Pro3 is a mod­el with a load capac­i­ty of up to 150 g. 7 oper­at­ing modes, a com­fort­able han­dle with con­trol but­tons, 12 hours of oper­a­tion on a sin­gle charge. Larg­er mod­el than oth­ers in this col­lec­tion.

The Feiyu WG2X is a light­weight and durable 3‑axis gim­bal that will help you make your shoot­ing more in con­trol. Uni­ver­sal mod­el that will fit most cam­eras.

Feiyu FY-G6 is a mod­el with a dis­play, secure mount­ing, upgrad­ed soft­ware and hard­ware. Almost uni­ver­sal mod­el with a wide range of fea­tures.