Has anyone used one of these Circa £150 gimbals?

I do a lot of video work with dogs, long story, however, the videography part is a hobby type spinoff from the fact that when I am well enough, I look after "End of Life" dogs that are not wanted anymore, either because they are seriously ill and need daily attention right up to the "I am not a puppy anymore, see how big I have grown and how much I eat" type of dog that is left tied up to a lamppost somewhere and ends up either with the Dogs Trust or the National Animal Welfare Trust, just the two I work with out of the hundreds of animal rescue charities out there!

As some of you may know, running and videoing at the same time is hard to do, especially if you want a watchable end product, particularly if it is for general internet publication.

One of the solutions we worked with for a while was a drone.
The trouble being with drones are mainly two-fold:

Either the dog thinks it's a toy and chases after it, which does make for some great video, however, we then have the problem of separating the two before the dog demolishes the drone on its return to the ground if you are not quick enough, either with the dog or the drone.

The second problem is obvious from the start with some dogs, they are just plain terrified of the thing which means they won't play, won't even look or play, and at worse, want to go back and be locked up again in their safe cell!
Which is such a no-no, as to make us very wary of even starting the drone up sometimes as the majority of these dogs are traumatised in one way or another before they are in our care and the last thing we want to do is make things worse, we want them re-homed!

So I am thinking of getting a gimbal. Looking at the adverts that go with these things it would appear to be the ideal item to buy.

However, I am always sceptical about such things, especially when I see the prices that used to be in the high hundreds dropping to sub one hundred in the space of a year!

Anyone with any advice, either about videoing dogs in particular whilst running or the use of gimbals would be very much appreciated.

It should be noted that we are using reasonable phones to video, mines is a windows phone, someone else's is a Huawei P smart and someone has an iPhone, so we have all three platforms available to us. All record in genuine HD landscape which is the highest we need to go for our purposes.

Even down to different settings for my camera etc.
All useful tips accepted!
Thank you in advance

Edited by TrevorSP (Mon 12-Oct-20 15:05:53)

phones are not heavy, so the motors of those gimbals do not have to be powerful, but they still need the processing power to cope. The better ones are the DJI osmos, around £90 on Amazon at the moment,

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07RHJ7LWH?linkCode=gs2&...

Have a look on you Tube. for reviews.

It is the larger gimbals that are more expensive, you are looking at around £250 or more .


I have never used a Gimbal myself and I have never videoed dogs, sorry, i am thinking of getting the DJi Osmo pocket, which is a small 4K camera

Just having a look at it now, seems incredibly good for the price.
Wonder if it really can do all that, presumably the answer is yes!

Thank you,