The Best Gimbal For Canon G5X Cameras!

With the recent release of the new version of the Canon G5X compact camera we have seen a rise in the number of people reaching out and asking for advice on what we feel is the best gimbal for Canon G5X cameras on the market right now. Thankfully, due to the G5X being a small, lightweight compact camera there are some solid gimbal options that can serve you well without breaking the bank. Being only 0.83 pounds with a fixed lens, you can also go with a specialist gimbal stabilizer rather than a generic one too.

We know that small, easy to travel with cameras like the Canon G5X are becoming more and more popular, particularly in the vlogging space so we hope that our article will be able to help any of our readers in this situation. We know that there are an absolute ton of gimbals on the market right now but many of them are either starting to show their age or are low quality and a poor investment.

Due to this, we would say that the Zhiyun Crane M2 is without a doubt the best gimbal available right now for the G5X camera range. Additionally, the Crane M2 has only been available on the market for a few months at the time of writing and comes with all of the latest Zhiyun technology to ensure that the gimbal is able to provide you with the best image stabilization possible. Since its release, the Crane M2 has managed to earn itself a a great reputation amongst the community and with the level of performance the gimbal offers for its price, this really is not surprising.

As we mentioned, due to the Canon G5X being a small compact camera with a fixed lens, you don’t need a heavy lifting gimbal like the DJI Ronin S as you won’t be adding many camera accessories to the G5X and its center of gravity will always be relatively similar no matter how you are using the camera. This means that the Crane M2 that has been designed for use with super small, lightweight point and shoot cameras is the obvious option.

Performance And Functionality

As we mentioned, the Zhiyun Crane M2 is the latest gimbal release from Zhiyun and has all of their latest technology as well as all of their experience that they have managed to build up over the last decade being a dominant brand in the gimbal space. This ensures that you are able to get the absolute best performance possible for your Canon G5X from the gimbal to capture the best image quality possible.

The gimbal has a maximum load capacity of 1.58 pounds meaning that the 0.83-pound payload weight of your G5X is easily supported. Although you are limited in the camera accessories that you can mount to a compact camera like the G5X, you do have a fair amount of supported load capacity free to anything you want to mount to your camera when recording too.

When it comes to battery life, the Crane M2 supports a maximum of seven hours of power per charge of the gimbals battery. Now, you may be thinking that this is pretty short by modern gimbal standards and in all fairness, we totally agree but there are reasons for this. Firstly, the Crane M2 has been designed to be a small, super lightweight gimbal stabilizer that is as easy to travel with as possible. Having a smaller battery helps to keep the gimbals size small as well as its weight down making the Crane M2 ideal for anything involving travel.

Additionally, more and more videographers and vloggers are starting to purchase USB power banks to allow them to top up their electronic devices on the move. This is an increasing trend that has saw exponential growth over the last year or two with much of the feedback from the community to gimbal brands being based around putting less of a priority on battery life in favor of size, weight, and performance.

A decent, high capacity USB power bank can help top your gimbals power-up, recharge your Canon G5X, charge your smartphone as well as any other devices that you may have with you while you are out and about capturing your video footage. Although we would have liked to see closer to the twelve hours of battery life mark on the gimbal, we love the small size and lightweight of the gimbal.

All of the clips in the cinematic YouTube video embedded above have all been recorded with a camera mounted to a Zhiyun Crane M2. We feel that the video does a great job of showcasing how good the image stabilization from the M2 actually is as well as shows you the performance that it is able to offer your Canon G5X. The gimbal handles the payload of the camera with ease and ensures that the user gets butter-smooth image stabilization for the best image quality possible.

As we mentioned, the Crane M2 also comes with the latest Zhiyun balancing algorithm and in our opinion, alongside the DJI algorithm, we feel it is tied top of all gimbal brands right now. This ensures that even the slightest movement is detected extremely quickly and the next generation, high torque gimbal motors on the M2 is then able to correct the movement to keep your G5X stable.

Being a modern handheld gimbal stabilizer, the M2 also supports a number of popular gimbal modes to make your life as easy as possible. The pan, follow, and lock modes are probably the main three that people will use but there are also a number of other niche modes that you may find useful too.

Zhiyun really has managed to outdo themselves with the Crane M2 and it is easy to see how it has managed to quickly establish itself as the dominant gimbal in the point and shoot and compact camera weight class so quickly. Judging by its reputation as well as the independent reviews that the community has posted for the Crane M2, we doubt that it will lose the top spot any time soon either.

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User Interface And Control System

The control system that the Crane M2 uses is very similar to the system on the vast majority of other handheld gimbal stabilizers on the market right now and is based around an LCD panel, a joystick, and a few buttons. This ensures that you are able to quickly get to grips with the system due to its extreme simplicity and get what you need out of the M2 without having to invest much time into learning it.

The actual joystick on the M2 is extremely responsive offering superior control over your gimbal head while you have your camera mounted. If you are using the gimbal in manual mode or wanting to use its point of view mode to capture some natural-looking image stabilization then this level of responsiveness is exactly what you need. There are countless gimbals on the market that have poor sensitivity but we are pleased to say than the M2 is not one of them.

Although the new version of the G5X comes with a pretty high price tag, we have seen a large number of vloggers say that it is their first camera after upgrading from their smartphone. If this is the case for you then there is a high chance that you have never owned or used a gimbal before either. If this is the case then the ease of use of the control interface on the Crane M2 is ideal. It is so simple to use and very user-friendly that we would imagine the vast majority of our readers would be able to use it without issue.

Smartphone App

Zhiyun were essentially forced to overhaul their smartphone app prior to the release of their new  Zhiyun Crane 3 and Zhiyun Weebill Lab due to both gimbals having additional functionality supplied via the app. The overhaul not only cleaned up the navigation system on the app making it easier to follow but also corrected the issues with the connectivity between the app and the Zhiyun gimbal range too.

This is good news for anyone who is thinking of purchasing the Crane M2 as the app is in an excellent spot and the moment and is well worth downloading. It offers you some wireless remote control functionality as well as quick and easy access to the gimbals settings to make and tweaks you need too. Although you can change some gimbal settings via the physical control system on the gimbal, it can take a few minutes to navigate around the menu but the smartphone app lets you do it in seconds.

That said though, Zhiyun has always done an excellent job of shipping a great gimbal config with their products and the default config on the Crane M2 should be fine for the Canon G5X for most of our readers. All in all, the app is a solid gimbal accessory and considering it is free, we feel that it is well worth downloading to your smartphone.

Balancing

There is no doubt in our mind that the vast majority of worries that we see from people who are purchasing their first gimbal is about the balancing procedure. Thankfully, although balancing a gimbal could be a total pain a few years back, brands like Zhiyun, DJI, Moza, and Evo have all massively upped their game and make the balancing procedures on their gimbals as quick and easy as possible.

On top of this, the Zhiyun Crane M2 also has high torque gimbal motors and your Canon G5X is very lightweight so even if you don’t get the balancing procedure perfect, the gimbal can still correct movements to provide you with smooth video footage. The user manual with the gimbal goes over the process and there are also a number of tutorials on YouTube that go over it but we doubt anyone is going to struggle with the Zhiyun balancing process.

Build Quality And Design

With Zhiyun being one of the top two gimbal brands in the world and with them having held that position for almost a decade now, it is not surprising that the Crane M2 has one of the best build qualities of any gimbal that we have seen. It uses all of the latest polymers to ensure that the gimbal is not only as lightweight as possible but also as tough and robust as possible too.

Although the Crane M2 does have a large target audience working in a number of niches, the original Crane M was particularly popular with travel vloggers. With its small size and lightweight making it the perfect gimbal for traveling, it is also nice to know that the gimbal is also tough enough to take any bumps coming it’s way. Unlike professional videographers who usually have protective cases for their gear, travel vloggers usually just have to put their camera accessories in their regular bags meaning they are open to higher levels of punishment.

Another great feature of the Crane M2 is that Zhiyun has done everything possible to ensure that the actual handle on the gimbal is as comfortable as possible during use. Although the Canon G5X is a very lightweight camera, holding the gimbal with your G5X mounted to it for a long period of time puts a strain on your arm and hand. The comfortable handle minimizes the chance of your hand getting cramps and allowing you to capture all the footage that you need.

When it comes to design, the M2 pretty much follows the same design as the vast majority of other modern handheld gimbal stabilizers with a larger emphasis being on keeping the gimbal as small as possible. In all honesty, we see no issue with this and although both the Zhiyun Crane 3 and Zhiyun Weebill Lab did have some innovation with their design, we would rather the M2 be as small and light as it is and offer its excellent performance.

Our Verdict

That brings us to the end of our article and we hope that we have done a good job of explaining why we feel that the Crane M2 is the best gimbal for Canon G5X cameras on the market right now. In all honesty, DJI have not released a dedicated gimbal for the point and shoot or compact camera spaces yet and the products from compeating brands don’t even come close to what the Crane M2 offers.

We feel it will make an excellent addition to your collection of G5X camera accessories and ensure you can get the best possible image quality from it via its excellent image stabilization. Additionally, there are also a number of independent reviews of the gimbal online that you can read too. If you have a few minutes spare, quickly skimming over a few of them offer an excellent insight into what the gimbal is able to offer you.