The Best Gimbal For Nikon D3300 Cameras!

In our opinion, the Nikon d3300 is one of the most popular entry-level DSLR camera bodies on the market right now and it has one of the largest customer bases going. As you would expect from such a popular camera, its large number of users often have questions on how they are able to get the best out of their new gadget. Now, after a decent camera lens, we feel the next best accessory to help improve your image quality for videography is a decent gimbal.

In addition to this, we have seen a few people reaching out each month about what the best gimbal for Nikon d3300 cameras currently available on the market right now is so we have decided to publish this article. We hope that our article will help our readers get the best possible gimbal stabilizer for their d3300 as we have seen so many articles from other blogs recommending old gimbals as the articles have not been updated to keep with the times.

Now, although the d3300 is a DSLR camera, it is a very light DSLR camera and in fact, there are actually a fair few mirrorless camera bodies that weight more than your d3300. The d3300 comes in at almost exactly one point of body weight meaning that you can easily get away with using a mirrorless camera gimbal with it provided you are only planning on using some lightweight accessories with your camera.

We have our comparison table below followed by a short overview of each of the gimbals and then below that, we will do a deep dive for each of the gimbals that we have featured for use with the Nikon d3300. This way you can quickly look over the comparison table and short breakdown if you don’t have much free time right now or you can read our full article where we deep dive each gimbal if you have the time available.

Comparison Table

Last update on 2022-05-29 / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

Now, it should be no surprise that our number one recommendation for the Nikon d3300 is the DJI Ronin S. It is without a doubt one of the best handheld gimbal stabilizers on the market right now and although many competing gimbals have tried to knock it off the top spot, they have all failed. We feel that the DJI Ronin S is a great investment as it can easily support the weight of your d3300, even with a large number of heavy accessories while also future-proofing you against any future heavy DSLR cameras that you may purchase.

If you know for a fact that you will only ever be using your d3300 and not upgrading to a heavier camera body in the future and that you will be using lightweight accessories, you may get away with the little brother of the Ronin S, the DJI Ronin SC. Another excellent gimbal that has a great reputation but it is primarily designed for lightweight mirrorless camera setups.

The second gimbal that we would recommend for use with the Nikon d3300 is the Zhiyun Crane Plus. Just like the DJI Ronin SC mentioned above, it is primarily designed for use with the lighter weight mirrorless camera range. Unlike the Ronin SC though, the Crane Plus has a large payload capacity making it a breeze for the gimbal to support the weight of some lightweight DSLR camera setups making it a great budget-friendly Nikon d3300 gimbal.

Finally, and without a doubt, the least chosen gimbal for the Nikon d3300 is the Moza Air 2. Now, although it is probably the least chosen out of the three gimbals that we are featuring, this is due to it having a very specific use that rarely occurs with the d3300. Essentially, the Air 2 is only used for the super heavy payload setups of the d3300 when the DJI Ronin S is unable to meet your payload requirements.

As the d3300 is such a lightweight DSLR camera with very lightweight camera accessories, it is very rare that the Ronin S will not be able to provide you with everything you need, even if you do us a camera cage and battery grip and other heavy accessories with your camera.

The DJI Ronin S

Like we said earlier, the DJI Ronin S is pretty much the accepted king of DSLR gimbals at the time of writing and pretty much every other gimbal brand on the market have released their challenger to try to take the title but the Ronin S has managed to see them all off. This just goes to show why the gimbal is so popular within the community and its not surprising that it has earned one of the best reputations for itself since it was released.

As the Nikon d3300 is an entry-level DSLR camera, there is a good chance that you will upgrade to an intermediate or professional level DSLR in the future. The Ronin S is a great gimbal to future proof yourself for this situation as it can easily take the weight of your d3300 as well as the vast majority of other popular DSLR camera setups too.

This ensures that you don’t have to go out and purchase another gimbal in the future if you do choose to upgrade to a new camera body that is much heavier than your d3300.

Performance And Functionality

Although we usually recommend the DJI Ronin S as more of a general-purpose gimbal, its 7.94 maximum load capacity put it on the lower border of the heavy lifting gimbals ensuring that it will be able to take the vast majority of payloads you mount to it. This ensures that you are always able to mount everything you need to your d3300 to get the best image quality possible for your session without exceeding the payload limit of the gimbal and your image stabilization suffering.

We are confident that when using a Nikon d3300 with the Ronin S, you will get as close to the advertised twelve hours of maximum battery life as possible due to the gimbal not requiring much power for its motors to stabilize such a light load. This should ensure that you have plenty of juice available to get out there and capture all the video footage that you could ever need.

When you do run dry, the Ronin S is easy to charge and you just plug it into a mains power outlet and it will recharge back to full power in as little as two hours fifteen minutes. Additionally, there are a few modern power banks that you are able to pick up that are strong enough to allow you to recharge your Ronin S while you are out and about with the gimbal away from a regular power outlet.

Now, our regular readers may have seen the clips in the video above before as we love it and share it pretty much every time we talk about the Ronin S. We feel it does a great job of showing exactly what the 3-axis gimbal can provide for you and how it is able to help improve your image quality. As you can see, the clips in the video as smooth and clean due to the excellent image stabilization that the handheld gimbal stabilizer is providing for the camera rig.

The various gimbal modes on the DJI Ronin S also make it as easy as possible for you to get the most out of it while putting as little effort in as possible. The point of view mode is excellent and can help you get that natural-looking image stabilization while the intelligent object tracking system is second to none.

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User Interface And Control System

Now, as we mentioned, the d3300 is an entry-level DSLR camera and although the Ronin S is not an entry-level gimbal, its control system has been designed to be as easy as possible to operate. This can make it the ideal choice for anyone who is considering the Ronin S as their first-ever gimbal as it really is easy to use and doesn’t take much to get the most out of it either.

The joystick seen in the image above is very responsive allowing you to quickly and easily control the gimbal in manual mode as required and anyone who does purchase the Ronin S as their very first gimbal will be able to learn on the go with it. Additionally, the smartphone app allows the professional level videographers to tweak the gimbal as required to get everything they need out of it too making it the ideal gimbal for both entry-level and professional level videographers.

The DJI Smartphone App

DJI put a ton of time and effort into their smartphone app and it is easily the best app available at the time of writing from all the gimbal brands. Everything is so easy to use from the syncing system to the navigation menu, to the way you tweak your gimbals settings. Once you have a new profile set as you like, you can quickly and easily push it to your live config for your gimbal within seconds too.

It is a great little free gimbal accessory that is well worth downloading. In addition to allowing you to tweak key settings on your gimbal, it can also provide you with some great wireless remote control functionality.

Build Quality And Design

When the Ronin S was first released onto the market, it won its fair share of awards due to its excellent design and build quality. The DJI engineers and design team really have produced a top-class gimbal and the time and effort that they have put in really shows. You can tell that the gimbal has been designed with care to ensure that you, the end-user gets the absolute best product possible.

The build quality of the gimbal has also been made to be both robust and lightweight and although the Ronin S is pretty large, it is actually lighter than a fair few of the smaller gimbals designed for mirrorless cameras that support a much lower payload than the Ronin S can. With its lightweight and comfortable handle grip, we have no doubt that you will be able to mount your Nikon d3300 to the gimbal and hold it for longer recording sessions without having any problems with your hands aching or anything too.

Our Verdict

We often see people calling us fanboys of the Ronin S and although we do love the gimbal and recommend it a whole bunch, you can read independent reviews from external owners and see that its great reputation is pretty universal. It will be a great addition to your Nikon d3300 camera accessories and help you record the absolute best image quality possible during your sessions.

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The Zhiyun Crane Plus

Next up we have the Zhiyun Crane Plus and like we mentioned at the start of the article, this gimbal was actually designed to be used with mirrorless cameras and low payload DSLR cameras. As we keep saying, with your Nikon d3300 being such a lightweight DSLR, using a gimbal primarily designed for use with lighter camera rigs can present a bargian for you.

That said though, we would only recommend that you go with such a gimbal for your d3300 if you know for a fact you have no plans to upgrade to a heavier DSLR in the near future and that you will only ever be using a lightweight rig with it. The performance and build quality of the Crane Plus are excellent for the price and it is not surprising that it has managed to earn an excellent reputation within the community.

Although the little brother to the Ronin S covered above, the DJI Ronin SC is also in this same category of light payload gimbal, we recommend the Crane Plus most of the time. Although the Ronin SC is excellent, the Crane Plus costs less, can support large payloads, and has a longer battery life so its usually the better gimbal.

Performance And Functionality

The Zhiyun Crane Plus is able to support a maximum load capacity of 5.5 pounds meaning after mounting your Nikon d3300 to the gimbal, you have around 4.5 pounds of load capacity left for your camera accessories. As we doubt many of our readers will be using the heavier bits of kit like a battery grip or a camera cage, we are pretty confident in saying that it can support most d3300 rigs you will use.

That said, the Crane Plus does not offer much in the way of future protection so say you upgrade to an intermediate or professional level DSLR camera in the future, chance are, you will have to upgrade your gimbal too.

Now, then you are out and about on your videography sessions, the Crane Plus is able to offer up to eighteen hours of battery life per full charge! This is absolutely massive and to our knowledge, it is the highest battery life of any handheld gimbal stabilizer on the market right now and by a fair few hours too! Once your Crane Plus does end up running dry, you are able to charge it back to full in around three hours ensuring that you have minimal downtime when working and capturing your footage.

Although the cinematic video above was not recorded using a Nikon d3300, it was using the Crane Plus and it really shows off the excellent potential of this 3-axis gimbal and exactly what it can offer you for your videography. You can see how smooth the video footage is and better yet, how effortless it is for the gimbal to stabilize the camera rig and provide the great image stabilization.

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User Interface And Control System

Similar to DJI, Zhiyun has been in the game long enough to know that you can add all the fancy geat to your gimbals control system as you like but if it is difficult to use and take a bunch of time to learn, people will just go with another option. Time is money so, like most other gimbal brands, Zhiyun prefers to use a simplistic approach that is as easy to use as possible for new gimbal owners but also offers all the customization required for the professional level photographers too.

The Zhiyun Smartphone App

Unfortunately, when it comes to smartphone apps, Zhiyun really are lagging well behind what the DJI smartphone app has to offer and in all honesty, they are not even close at this point. The app can be a total pain to sync with your gimbal and the navigation menu is difficult to learn too. Although smartphone apps for gimbals are not used much, they are seeing a distinct pickup in usage so Zhiyun really need to get on top of this in our opinion.

Build Quality And Design

The Crane Plus is based on a very similar designed to the older tried and tested Zhiyun Crane gimbals that have always remained a dominant force within the industry. This has pretty much ensured that all of the feedback and design tweaks in the Zhiyun range over the last decade have all been compounded into the design of the Crane Plus providing the best gimbal possible for the price.

We have seen a few people criticizing Zhiyun for having some plastic in the build of the Crane Plus but it is clear to see that this is not there to keep costs down and cut corners. The plastic is high quality and robust but lighter weight than most metals would be so we feel it is pretty obvious that the plastic is just a robust lightweight material to keep the weight down.

We see no problem with this as if you are doing the videography gig for a long job like a wedding then you can really start to feel the strain in your muscles after a few hours. In our opinion, anything to keep the weight of your gimbal down and as low as possible is well with it.

Our Verdict

Well, as we said at the start of this section, we would only recommend the Zhiyun Crane Plus for use with your Nikon d3300 if you know for a fact that you will only be using the lighter setups with the gimbal and that you will not be upgrading to a heavier DSLR camera anytime soon. If you can tick both of these boxes then the Crane Plus can be a great addition to your d3300 camera accessories while also saving you some cash.

We also have a longer more in-depth Crane Plus Review online where we really deep dive what the gimbal can offer you and how well it is able to perform.

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The Moza Air 2

 

The final gimbal that we are featuring for use with Nikon d3300 cameras is the Moza Air 2 and as we mentioned, the other two gimbals covered above are much better options for use with a d3300 as you will rarely need the increase load capacity of the Air 2 with such a lightweight camera. Due to this, we are going to be brushing over this section of the article as quickly as possible to try and save you some time.

Although this is not a primary recommendation for use with the Nikon d3300, the Air 2 is still a solid little gimbal stabilizer that is very popular and has a well deserved reputation within the community. On top of this, the higher payload of the Air 2 also offers you some future-proofing on the off chance you do pick up a heavier DSLR camera body in the future.

Performance And Functionality

Now, at the time of writing, the Moza Air 2 is probably the most cost-efficient gimbal stabilizer with a high load capacity. The gimbal is able to support a load of up to nine pounds making it ideal if you are planning to use a heavy lens, with an external microphone, a heavy video light, a battery grip, and a camera cage. Realistically though, with an entry-level DSLR camera like the d3300, it is unlikely that you will be recording with setups like this anyway.

The battery life of the Moza Air 2 is solid and can provide you with up to sixteen hours of battery life for your videography sessions and with a lighter setup, chances are, you will get close to sixteen hours each time too. Once you are dry, you can charge the gimbal back to full in as little as four hours too.

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User Interface And Control System

Our regular readers will probably know that we are big fans of the control system on the Moza Air 2 and were a little disappointed when Moza changed it for the Air 3. The control system is easy to understand and we are confident that any first-time gimbal buyer will be able to get the most out of the gimbal without having to put much time or effort into learning what they are doing.

The Moza Smartphone App

Although DJI lead the pack when it comes to smartphone apps and by a long shot too, Moza are currently in second place with a solid little smartphone app. The app works well and connects to your gimbal easily and quickly, the navigation menu of the gimbal is also easy to pick up too.

Build Quality And Design

The Moza Air 2 is very similar to the other two featured gimbals as all three are based around the 3 axis gimbal concept. The build quality of the gimbal is decent but as the Air 2 is from an older generation of gimbals, it does not have the latest alloys and plastics to help keep its weight down and its toughness up.

Our Verdict

Like we said, the DJI Ronin S and the Zhiyun Crane Plus or even the DJI Ronin SC are probably better options for your Nikon d3300 than the Air 2 but it does have its niche.

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Wrapping It Up

That brings our article on the best gimbal for Nikon d3300 cameras to an end. If you are still curious about other gimbal stabilizers for your d3300 then our article on the ultimate DSLR gimbal may be useful. In that article we put five gimbals head to head rather than just the three in this article.