How to Set Up and Use a Gimbal Head for Wildlife Photography
Ian PlantDescription
Professional wildlife photographer, Ian Plant, says, “If you are serious about wildlife photography, you will need a gimbal head.” In this video, he will explain the uses of the gimbal head.
The gimbal is a tripod head designed for fluid movement so you can easily track your wildlife subjects. It has a control knob that allows you to pan up down, another knob to pan left and right, and a third to control the tension of your motion. Ian recommends keeping the controls loose in order to follow wildlife movement whether a bird in flight or an animal on land.
Join pro shooter, Ian Plant, as he shows how the gimbal head will help you improve your wildlife photographs.
If you're really serious about wildlife photography. You're gonna wanna to get what is known as a Gimbal Style Head. This is a tripod head that's designed for fluid movement so you can easily track moving wildlife subjects. So the first thing you're gonna wanna do is you're gonna want to attach the tripod collar of your lens, the foot of the tripod collar into the clamp on the Gimbal Head. Now you wanna be careful to make sure that the center of weight of your camera is right over the tripod.
If you have the camera pushed too far forward in the clamp. For example, if I got it pushed here and I tighten the clamp, and then I let go with the Gimbal Head loose. You can see that the camera starts drifting down. And likewise, if I've got the camera too far back in the clamp, this way, it starts drifting back. So you wanna find that sweet spot, where the camera is perfectly centered in weight over the tripod.
As you can see here we have achieved that because the camera's not moving. So this allows you when you have all the controls on the Gimbal loosen to very fluidly pan up and down without having to fight gravity. Okay, so it makes it very easy, very fluid. Now your Gimbal Head's gonna have two primary controls. One is a knob that you can tighten or loosen here which controls this up or down panning motion.
So you can tighten it if you wanna keep the camera in one spot or loosen it to keep things fluid. The other knob allows you to pan left versus right. Some Gimbal Heads will have a third knob, which is a tension knob. So you can adjust the tension of your motion to your liking. So what I usually do when I'm photographing wildlife is I keep the controls loose so I can move and track my subjects.
If a subject isn't moving, I might then tighten things up to keep the camera focused on that non-moving subject, but more often than not I've got everything loose. Everything is fluid. And it's very easy for me to move around up and down and left and right, and track my moving subject whether it's a bird in flight or if it's an animal on the land. So with all of the controls loosen on everything you wanna do is loosen the tripod collar, so that you can easily switch between horizontal position and vertical position. Also, as you're panning left to right you might need to make slight adjustments to keep your horizon level.
So with the collar loosened, you can easily do that. So a Gimbal Head might look daunting at first but as you can see, it's actually quite easy to use.
How or Why is a Gimbal better than a Ball Head?
Nice video. FYI the up down motion is called a "Tilt" not a pan. A pan is side to side motion.
Hi Ian Love all you video's they are very helpful. Just a question in regards to the Gimabl head which I get conflicting answers on - I have one almost exactly the same. I shoot with two Canon 7D Mkii's - the one has the new Canon 70-200mm f2.8 IS ii lens, the other has the new Canon 100-400mm f4.5 L IS Mkii lens. My question - should one turn the image stabilisers off when shooting using the camera/lens attached to the gimbal head as I have been told that if the IS is left on then it adversely affects the images? I would like to hear your thoughts? Regards Dee
a good website to view different gimbals ? ty.
Umm, there is a huge vimeopro add in the middle of the video and I cannot see what you are showing. There is no X to close the add. I even logged in thinking it would disappear; but, it did not. Thanks.
I have a Wimberley and like it ... what is the make and model of the one you are using in this demo? Thank you, your tips are very useful.
Hi Ian What is a good gimbal head? Gino