The Best Gimbal For Panasonic G7 Cameras!

For today’s article, we are going to be taking a look at what we feel is the best gimbal for Panasonic G7 cameras currently available at the time of writing. Thankfully, all three of the gimbals we have chosen to feature are relatively new to the market so it is safe to assume that unless another brand releases something groundbreaking, these three gimbals will likely remain the top three for the G7 for many years to come yet.

That said, if a new gimbal is released onto the market that we feel deserves to be included in this list, we will update it and add a section for the new gimbal too. Now, as your Panasonic G7 is a very light mirrorless camera that only comes in at around 0.9 pounds, there are a number of different gimbals that you are able to mount it to. If you are planning on using a very light set of accessories with your G7, you may be able to get away with using the Feiyutech G6 handheld gimbal but we would recommend any of the featured gimbals below instead.

As usual, we have out comparison table that goes over the key points of each of the featured gimbals for your Panasonic G7 followed by a short overview of why we feel these gimbals are suitable. We will then be going into much more detail for each of the three gimbals below the comparison table section to offer as much information on them as possible.

Comparison Table

Last update on 2023-11-27 / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

As you can see, our table above shows the key featured of our three main gimbals and the Zhiyun Crane Plus comes out on top as our winner. If offers some of the best performance available at the time of writing, offers a great maximum load capacity, excellent battery life and has a very cheap price tag for what you are actually getting from the gimbal.

A very close second to the Crane Plus in our opinion is the DJI Ronin SC that really is an outstanding bit of kit for your Panasonic G7. We feel that the Zhiyun Crane Plus pulls out ahead due to the lower price point, higher payload, and longer battery life but the Ronin SC does have some advantages of its own in performance and build quality that we will cover below.

The final gimbal that we have featured for use with your G7 is the Feiyutech AK2000 and although the AK2000 is from the same generation of gimbals as the other two stabilizers and it did initially have a ton of potential, it does have a few issues. That said though, it is popular within the community and despite its issues, the reputation of the AK2000 is growing at a steady rate.

The Zhiyun Crane Plus

So lets take a closer look at the new Zhiyun Crane Plus, the latest offering from the Zhiyun range at the time of writing and the successor to the extremely popular Zhiyun Crane v2 that was the previous reigning champion of the mirrorless camera weight class gimbal range. The Crane Plus has been designed to continue to keep Zhiyun in the top spot when it comes to the mirrorless camera gimbal market and it improves on the Crane v2 in every way.

Although at the time of writing, the Crane Plus has only been available for a few months, it has managed to quickly dominate the market and establish the excellent reputation within the community that it enjoys today. Over the last few months, the reputation of the gimbal has continued to grow at a steady pace and we doubt that this is going to change anytime soon. We fully expect the Crane Plus to keep the top spot and to only become more and more popular over the coming months and years.

Performance And Functionality

As we touched on earlier at the start of the article, your Panasonic G7 is extremely lightweight coming in at only 0.9 pounds for the camera body. As the maximum load capacity of the Zhiyun Crane Plus is 5.5 pounds, this leaves you with 4.6 pounds of spare load capacity for your accessories. Now, off the top of our head, we are unable to think of any combination of practical lenses, video lights, external microphones, and other accessories that will come close to taking up this spare load capacity.

In addition to the generous payload capacity, the Zhiyun Crane Plus offers you, it also has an excellent battery life offering you a maximum of eighteen hours of battery life for each full charge! At the time of writing, there is no other gimbal designed for use with mirrorless cameras that has such a low price tag, a high load capacity, a long battery life, and the performance that the Crane Plus offers.

Although the officially listed battery life is between twelve and eighteen hours, with the Panasonic G7 being such a lightweight camera unit, we would expect you to get close to eighteen hours every charge unless you are really loading your G7 up with some heavy setup. When your Crane Plus does eventually run out of battery, the Zhiyun quick charge tech on the gimbal allows you to charge it back to full in only three hours!

The sample cinematic video footage shown in the clips above was recorded using the Panasonic G7 while mounted on a Zhiyun Crane Plus and as you can see, the handheld gimbal stabilizer makes easy work of balancing the G7. It easily provides plenty of image stabilization to provide very clean and smooth footage to help improve the overall image quality of the video too.

As Zhiyun has updated a bunch of features on the Crane Plus to ensure that it is at the cutting edge of the gimbals available on the market right now, the various modes the gimbal supports can help improve your image quality even further. The intelligent object tracking and memory motion systems on the Crane Plus are both excellent and the night lapse and point of view modes have been totally overhauled from previous generations of gimbal too.

In addition to this, both the gimbal motors and the gimbal balancing algorithm have been updated to improve performance and the image stabilization that the Crane Plus is able to provide for your Panasonic G7. All in all, this really is a great little 3-axis gimbal and its no surprise that it has proven to be so popular with the community.

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User Interface And Control System

One of the few things that Zhiyun have not chosen to totally overhaul or update much on the Crane Plus is the user interface and control system of the gimbal. As you can see in the image above, it is still very similar to many of the previous generations of Crane gimbal that has served Zhiyun so well over the years.

Not only is the control system very easy to pick up and use efficiently if this is your very first gimbal stabilizer but it also offers plenty of advanced customization for anyone who is more experienced with using gimbals too. We feel that this hits the perfect middle ground between entry-level and professional level gimbal users allowing one product to meet the needs of both groups when it comes to controlling the gimbal.

The Smartphone App

Although it is a pretty well-known fact that the Zhiyun smartphone app has its issues, there is meant to be an update being released soon that will totally overhaul it and fix the major bugs but at the time of writing, the Zhiyun app is one of the weakest of all the gimbal apps out there. Not only is it a total pain just to get your app to pair with your gimbal but the interface is also confusing and when you do try to save the new settings from your app to the gimbal, it will often just ignore the settings and keep its old setup.

As we said though, apparently Zhiyun has an update just around the corner that is intended to correct these issues and make the app more useful to users. If Zhiyun can correct the problems with their app and make its interface similar to the DJI smartphone app then we feel that it will be a great bit of kit.

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Build Quality And Design

Another area of the Crane Plus that Zhiyun has kept very similar to their previous generations of gimbals is their design and build quality. In all fairness though, we see no problem with this at all as Zhiyun have such a solid track record with their standard handheld gimbal design and build quality. That said, the recently released Zhiyun Crane 3 has a totally new design that could be a sign of things to come in the future.

Anyway, the build quality of the Crane Plus is solid and the materials that the gimbal is made from ensuring that the gimbal is both lightweight and robust at the same time. As the Panasonic G7 is a very popular vlogging camera, this makes the Crane Plus the ideal gimbal for any vlogger working in a travel-based niche or any videographer who knows they will be traveling around with work.

Our Verdict

We feel that Zhiyun has managed to do a great job with the Crane Plus and we can see why it has quickly established itself at the top of the mirrorless camera gimbal pyramid. It offers all you could ever want and more for your Panasonic G7 and we are not surprised that it managed to earn its excellent reputation so quickly.

We feel that it is safe to say that the Crane Plus will make a great addition to your collection of G7 camera accessories and improve the image quality of the video footage that you capture with ease. We also have a dedicated review of the Crane Plus online that goes into much more detail.

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The DJI Ronin SC

Our next featured gimbal for Panasonic G7 cameras on the market right now is the ]DJI Ronin SC that is only a few weeks old at the time of writing but has made a great impression with the community in such a short time period. The Ronin SC is essentially the little brother to the Ronin S that dominates the DSLR camera market.

With Zhiyun having dominated the mirrorless camera gimbal market for so long, DJI decided they wanted to throw their hat in the ring and the Ronin SC was the gimbal they produced for the challenge. There is absolutely no denying that the Ronin SC is one of the best gimbals ever made for the mirrorless camera market and it is a very close second to the Crane Plus covered above.

We feel that with the Crane Plus providing a very similar level of performance, being around $100 cheaper at the time of writing, supporting a larger load capacity as well as having a much longer maximum battery life, the Crane Plus will be a better choice for the majority of our readers when it comes to a gimbal for their Panasonic G7.

Performance And Functionality

DJI are well known for ensuring that their products offer the absolute best performance and functionality available and the Ronin SC is no different. It is an absolute pleasure to use and does a great job when it comes to providing your Panasonic G7 with image stabilization. The gimbal has a maximum load capacity of 4.4 pounds that we feel will be plenty for most of our readers and their G7 setups.

Additionally, the Ronin SC also provides a pretty steady battery life of eleven hours no matter what you mount on it. Although this is a fair bit shorter than the eighteen hours of battery life that the Crane Plus covered above is able to provide you, we feel that the majority of people will be able to record all the video footage they required within eleven hours with ease.

DJI have also been developing their own quick charge system over the last few years and the latest version of it on the Ronin SC will let you take it to fully charged from totally empty in only 2.5 hours. This minimizes any potential downtime that you may have and ensures that you are able to take advantage of any breaks in recording to charge up the gimbal as you go.

Although the cinematic video footage in the clip above was not recorded using the Panasonic G7, it was recorded with the camera mounted on a DJI Ronin SC and does a great job of showing off the potential of the 3 axis gimbal stabilizer and exactly what you can expect from it for your G7. As you can see, the video clips are perfectly smooth and the handheld gimbal performs perfectly helping to improve the overall image quality of the cinematic footage video its great image stabilization.

Just like the Zhiyun gimbal, DJI also has a bunch pop popular modes and features in the Ronin SC to help make your life as easy as possible when out and about recording video footage with your G7. Additionally, the intelligent tracking mode for the Ronin SC has just been updated again via a firmware patch and it is breathtakingly accurate now, even when tracking a fast-moving subject.

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User Interface And Control System

Similar to the Zhiyun gimbal above, DJI has also decided to keep the interface system on the Ronin SC as simple as possible as you can see in the image of the gimbals control system above. The system on the gimbal is pretty much the same setup as most of the other modern gimbal control systems as they are so easy to use. This ensures that anyone new to using gimbals or the DJI Ronin SC will be able to operate it very efficiently without needing much practice at all.

The Smartphone App

The DJI Smartphone app is shown in the image above and in our opinion, it is without a doubt the best gimbal smartphone app on the market right now. It is so easy to use and the navigation menu on it is simple and easy to understand. Additionally, it syncs up with your gimbal very quickly and doesn’t have the other issues that many other gimbal apps have right now. It is a great free gimbal accessory that you are able to use to your advantage and use it from some quick and easy wireless remote control functionality.

Build Quality And Design

The design of the Ronin SC is absolutely flawless in our opinion and the time and effort that DJI have put in really does show. In our opinion, it probably has the best design of all mirrorless camera gimbals as it not only looks and feels professional to use but its design is also highly functional too. A difficult blend to pull off and we feel that DJI has managed to nail it with minimal effort required on their part.

The build quality of the Ronin SC is where this excellent handheld gimbal really start to shine and some people may rate it higher than the Crane Plus and feel the additional $100 on its price tag is worth it due to how great its build quality is. The Ronin SC is extremely lightweight considering the performance of the gimbal as well as the maximum load capacity that it can support. If you have had issues with supporting the weight of the heavier gimbals with your Panasonic G7 rig mounted on it in the past then this is definatley the gimbal for you.

Our Verdict

As we mentioned at the start of the article, in our book, the DJI Ronin SC is a very close second just behind the Crane Plus when it comes to gimbals for your Panasonic G7. It offers some of the best performance and image stabilization going and we have no doubt that the Ronin SC can make an excellent addition to your G7 camera accessories and improve your image quality.

That said, you have to decide if it is really worth the additional $100 over the Zhiyun Crane Plus. Not only does the Crane Plus offer very similar levels of image stabilization, its cheaper, has a higher maximum load capacity, and a longer battery life. We feel this pushes it just ahead of the Ronin SC.

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The Feiyutech AK2000

The final gimbal stabilizer that we will be featuring in our article covering gimbals for the Panasonic G7 is the Feiyutech AK2000. Now, as we mentioned back at the start of the article, the AK2000 does have a number of issues with it and in all honesty, we would highly recommend that our readers choose either of the gimbals above over the AK2000 due to this reason.

That said though, this can be a great little handheld gimbal for your Panasonic G7 if you are able to avoid its issues and many people do choose to use the AK2000 as their go-to gimbal stabilizer of choice too. This has enabled the gimbal to earn itself a decent reputation within the community despite its problems. If this was not the case then there is no way that we would have the Feiyutech AK2000 coming in at third place and we would have chosen something like the Moza Air 3 instead.

Performance And Functionality

Now, for the first half of he performance section lets pretend that the Feiyutech AK2000 that you purchase for your Panasonic G7 is in good working order and then we will touch on the problems with performance that the gimbal has in the second half of this section.

The AK2000 is able to support a maximum of 6.17 pounds of payload ensuring that it has all the load capacity that you could ever require with such a lightweight camera like the Panasonic G7. You can pretty much mount all the accessories you could ever want on the gimbal and it will still stabilize without issue. Additionally, the AK2000 is able to provide you with between eight and twelve hours of battery life depending on how much of its maximum load capacity your G7 rig uses.

Now we know that the video above was not recorded using the Panasonic G7 but we chose it as it is without a doubt our favorite video that has been recorded using the Feiyutech AK2000 and we feel that it does a great job of showing off the AK2000 and its performance when at its best. It does a great job of showing exactly what this 3 axis gimbal stabilizer has the potential to provide you when working well.

Now, onto the two main problems with the performance of the gimbal. There is a known issue that has been confirmed by Feiyutech that causes the gimbal head on around twenty percent of all AK2000 gimbals to randomly vibrate and ruin your footage. Unfortunately, this is not a software issue so can’t be corrected via a firmware update.

Feiyutech were quick to find the issue with the hardware and publish a fix for the issue and upload a video showing the owners of the AK2000 exactly what needs to be done to correct the problem. That said, a small number of people have said this fix does not work for their gimbal with others saying they have do run their gimbal through the fix multiple times to keep it working. The majority of AK2000 owners do seem to confirm that the fix for the vibration issues does work for them though.

Now, the second issue with performance may not be an issue for you if you don’t plan to use your gimbal for time-lapses. There is a bug where the gimbal will slowly pan to the left when used in smooth mode ruining any timelapse footage that you try to record. There is no official confirmation from Feiyutech on this one but there are multiple videos and reports online showing it so it does not seem to be a one-off problem.

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User Interface And Control System

It is such a shame that the Ak2000 is let down by all these issues as the control system shown in the image above on the gimbal is excellent. It is based around what we feel will be the future of control systems for gimbals with a touchscreen and rotary wheel and it actually performs very well if your gimbal is not having issues.

The Feiyutech Smartphone App

The Feiyutech app has similar issues to the Zhiyun app where is can take ages just to sync up with your gimbal and once synced it may randomly drop its connection. Additionally, the interface is very confusing and sometimes the app will freeze and prevent you from using it once you manage to actually get it to sync with your gimbal.

There is no official word on an overhaul or update for the app but it will take a bunch of time, money, and effort before it is even close to being on par with the DJI smartphone app covered earlier in the article.

Build Quality And Design

The final issue with the Feiyutech AK2000 is that the grip on the handle of the gimbal can randomly slide up the handle during use and eventually get high enough to start pressing buttons on the control system and cause your gimbal to randomly tilt. The last thing the AK2000 needs is a build quality issue that has a direct effect on performance but here it is.

The potential saving grace for this issue when using the gimbal with your Panasonic G7 is that your G7 is probably too light to cause the issue even with heavy accessories mounted on it. The issue is more prevalent when using heavier mirrorless cameras and DSLR rigs on the gimbal due to the heavier weight forcing gravity to make the grip slide at a faster pace.

Our Verdict

In all honesty, we really struggle to see how the AK2000 is so popular within the community when there are much better options like the Zhiyun Crane Plus and DJI Ronin SC gimbals covered above. That said, the AK2000 does have a sizable customer base and many of them seem very happy with their purchase.

Additionally, we also have a dedicated review of the AK2000 online that goes into more detail on the gimbal as well as the issues that it has.

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Wrapping It Up

That brings our article on what we feel is the best gimbal for Panasonic G7 cameras to a close. We hope that our readers have enjoyed the article and found it helpful. We also hope that you understand why we made our decision to put the Zhiyun Crane Plus top and choose it as our primary gimbal for a G7.

Finally, we also have an article where we compare the five main mirrorless camera gimbals to each other and look for the ultimate gimbal for mirrorless cameras. It may be an interesting read as it also offers additional insight into two more suitable gimbals for your G7 too.