What They Say
“World’s first rainproof 3-axis gimbal made for GoPro cameras – REMOVU S1 is a 3-axis gimbal for GoPro camera. The S1 can be mounted anywhere a GoPro can be mounted. Mount it to your body, a bike, a helmet, wherever you can mount a GoPro. The S1 also comes with a detachable hand grip that is equipped with a wireless joystick remote, which will allow you to control your gimbal from a distance. REMOVU S1 is simply the best gimbal that anyone could ask for.”
What We Say
Straight out the box the S1 is pretty simple to set up. Pop a GoPro into the housing (there’s separate boxes for the HERO 5 and younger models, as well as a mount for the Session) and twist it into the gimbal, easy. There’s a grip that slots into the bottom if you want to take it handheld, as well as a standard GoPro clip to attach it to any existing mount. The grip has a thumb-operated stick that makes switching between modes a little easier, and it also acts as a controller for panning and tilting the gimbal wirelessly. Now, I’ve had issues with wireless devices on shoots pairing before, but the remote connects automatically, instantly and without fuss. Amazing.
- Price: £349
- Weight: 411 grams (with GoPro 4)
- Battery life: They say 3-5 hours
- Website: removu.com
The build quality is good – it feels solid in your hand without being too heavy, and even with a mix of plastic and metal materials it seems pretty robust. REMOVU reckon that it’s rainproof and waterproof – we didn’t test the former but the fields we naughtily ran through caked it with dust and pollen with no discernable effect on the gadget. Compared to the piece-of-shit Feiyu G4 gimbal I once owned – and was forced to chuck in the bin after two goes – this thing is bombproof.
It comes equipped with three modes: lock, where the camera stays pointing in one set direction; pan, where it follows the direction you’re pointing but won’t tilt up or down, and follow, which lets it point in any direction, but stable. It’s easy to cycle between modes either directly on the gimbal or via the remote.
“The build quality is good – it feels solid in your hand without being too heavy”
But does it stabilise though? For the money they’re asking you’d hope it would – it’s £60 more that the equivalent Karma Grip which will connect directly with your GoPro. We gave it a few tests involving walking and running over rough terrain capturing scenics as well as tracking a fast-moving Australian Shepherd. It’s good, though not perfectly smooth, but you should know if you’re planning on buying a piece of kit like this nothing this small will be – there’s simply not enough weight. That’s a good thing for action sports as it means you’ll be carrying less, but you shouldn’t be expecting cinema grade shots out of the camera.
Does that even matter though? In short, no. Look at the shots right at the end of the video above – when it’s tracking something interesting you focus on that dynamic subject. Look past that and yes, the horizon is wobbling a bit, but no one will notice or care. The same will go for snowboarding footage if it’s exciting enough, if it’s not you’ve got more problems than just kit. It does a good enough job that if you really are after a perfectly stable horizon for scenic shots, a little bit of warp stabilisation in post production (10% in Adobe Premiere Pro) works pretty well. Again I’ve demonstrated this in the video.
