Just like any other gimbal, it's not plug and play. I've found that it's important to recalibrate, auto-tune stability, etc. before every shoot. But the app makes all this fairly easy.

When this first came out I was quite exited and ready to give them my money. After hearing about one or two mishaps about it, I decided to hold off a lil.

Last weekend I rented one to use on a live event with a GH4 and I have mix feeling about the Ronin-M. It's not very reliable at least with my experience. It works, easy to balance at least with the GH4 and the lumix 12-35mm lens. Even after doing the auto calibrate, every now and then it will fail and the motors will go crazy and the thing will be all over the place.

The other thing that bugged me a lot was that after balancing it quite well and doing the auto calibration, the gimbal will not stay perfectly horizontal. It will be find just right after I do the calibration but after I start using using it, the front will slightly point up at like a 2-5 degrees inclined. I had to use remote to get it back straight. People who have used or own this, have you guys had similar problems?

All in all it does work when conditions are right (and I don't know what makes it work just right) but if you plan on using this for live events, I strongly suggest to bring a back up solution.

I picked up a Ronin-M and I really like it. It's easy to setup, easy to balance and the calibration and wireless control system is extremely intuitive. I only needed the manual at one point during the entire process.

It's vital that you get the camera and lens setup balanced perfectly before doing anything with the motors. If you're not balanced, you're not going to get the best results and that's true on any gimbal system so do your homework and get it dialed in.

The footage looks great, much better than what you can get with a traditional glidecam style stabilizer but not quite as good as a Movi (but hey it's a hell of a lot cheaper than a Movi)

The only issued I've encountered so far is that my particular unit has a tendency to roll off the horizontal alignment in certain situations. It wasn't a major problem, just kind of a nuisance having to reset the roll adjustment every once and awhile. And this was with auto-roll off completely, so it should have been staying perfectly level. Maybe it's a calibration issue or a firmware issue http://forum.dji.com/thread-3811-1-1.html but I'll have to do a little more digging to know for sure.

But everything else is working like a charm. Auto pan and tilt work exactly as you'd expect and I haven't run into any issues with the motors freaking out but again, some of those problems might be due to improper balancing. The more those motors have to fight to compensate for improper weight distribution, the more likely you are to run into problems.

It can be especially easy to throw off the balance with cameras like the GH4 because even if you balance it perfectly and tune the motors just right, if you have the Ronin-M powered on and you flip out the LCD or pop in an SD card, or take off a UV filter or lens hood, you've thrown it off balance but the motors will still fight to keep it level so it might not be obvious that there's a balance issue.

You've always got to check that balance before powering on the motors to make sure you're using it under optimal settings.

So far I think the Ronin-M is a great value and definitely worth the reasonable price.

@Xenocide38

Thanks for the conformation. I knew something was wrong with the horizontal axis. I guess I should have checked dji. But I also think using a light camera like the GH4 with the 12-35 lens is a problem. I know balanced mind very very well and nothing was taking off or added after balancing and doing all the auto calibrations and stuff, it will occasionally just go into la la land. It might have being the horizontal axis problem or software issue but the problem was there.

But even after all the problems I had, it worked quite while when it work and produced some exceptional footage. I am still gonna buy a 3-axis gimbal because they truly are invaluable tools especially if you do event shooting.

The roll issues are fixed with a firmware update, make sure you update it. I assumed mine was updated and that new updates would appear through the app, but in reality I had to download the Mac or PC software and update that way, made a big difference.

I like it...most of my problems with it are Gimbal related in general, learning to walk correctly or smooth out the bounce, not relying on turning every shot into a long moving take, etc. I'm not totally sold on the aesthetic. I bought it because I was going to be filming from boats, and it works nicely for that. It is creeping into every other aspect of my work as well, due to its ease and flexibility of use, but I am trying to be cautious about an aesthetic that doesn't quite move me...yet. Examples soon.

@kellar42 you talking about Firmware 3.0? In dji forum I just read about causing problems.

@Xenocide38

Did you update to latest ronin-m version? Did you lose smoothness? Did the roll axis issue has been fixed?

Yeah, would be good to have your Feedback.

@alexuwa After upgrading the firmware and shooting for 3 hours today, everything looks good. The roll shift is gone and everything stayed level for the entire duration of filming.

If you have a Ronin-M, you should definitely take the time and update your firmware.

After upgrading the firmware and shooting for 3 hours today, everything looks good. The roll shift is gone and everything stayed level for the entire duration of filming.

If you have a Ronin-M, you should definitely take the time and update your firmware

@Xenocide38, is there a way to check which firmware the ronin-m is running? The new firmware that's posted on 2015-08-06 on dji download page, is that the latest one or where is the new firmware? I am getting a rental unit and I wanna make sure I am not gonna have same problems again.

Also with the unit I had last time after doing a really good balance, a couple of times the motors in unit went to "la la land". The gimbal became shaky and I had to power it off and put it aside. Did you or anyone else ever experienced this? I still wanna own one, just wanna make sure.

I've found that doing a "Calibrate System" can really help, especially when changing environments (going outside to inside, etc.) Humidity, temperature, etc. seem to throw it off sometimes, so if I can, I turn it on and let it acclimate on the stand near where I'm going to shoot. Then I calibrate and auto-tune.

According to the specs on BH the URSA mini should fit on this... am I nuts?