FeiyuTechSCORP-Mini 2 KIT Camera Stabilizer with AI Tracking/Fill Light, 3-Axis Gimbal Stabilizer for Mirrorless Camera,Compact Cameras,Action Camera,Smartphone,Max Payload 2.65 Ib

This SCORP Mini 2 from FeiyuTech is often compared alongside the HOHEM iSTEADY MT2 and the Zhiyun Crane M3S and there are quite a few videos on YouTube that compare all three gimbals side by side.I’ve never tried either of the other gimbals so can’t compare them, however I’ve previously owned the HOHEM iSTEADY, which was specifically for my GoPro Hero 4 and the Zhiyun Weebill S, which took my then Canon 80D.Already familiar with FeiyuTech, having previously bought some great quality drone accessories from them, I had high expectations for this gimbal.I’ve been using it for almost 3 weeks now and I’m glad I’ve held off reviewing it as it’s grown on me over that time after what was initially a bit of a bumpy start.First of all, if you’ve never balanced a camera on a gimbal before, please take my advice and completely ignore the included instructions as they’re terrible.I suggest downloading the app(s) – Feiyu SCORP for cameras and Feiyu ON for mobile phones, watching a YouTube video to get you in the ball park and then firing up the app relevant to the device you’re using. The app will then fine tune the motors and in the case of the SCORP app, provide you with visual animations that clearly show what you need to adjust and how you adjust it.The ON app is more simplified than the SCORP and not as feature rich but it’s a lot easier and quicker to get up and running with it, probably as most mobile phones these days are roughly the same size with similar weight distribution.Using a mobile phone with this gimbal is completely different from a camera and is almost plug and play. You basically just centre your phone in the holder and mount it to the gimbal as centrally as possible with no need for any fine manual tuning.The ON app then takes care of auto tuning the motors and it’s all done by a single screen tap on the app. (you can auto tune the motors from the gimbal LCD too).The phone holder is designed so as not to press any of the phone’s buttons, therefore it doesn’t matter if when mounting the phone centrally a clamp lines up with your POWER button etc.FeiyuTech states this gimbal has a payload capacity of 1.2kg, however the small print states that anything around that weight must be really well balanced and from what I found this claim of a 1.2kg payload was a little bit optimistic, unless the camera is stationary on a table and is not being worked too hard.Without being too technical, I was able to balance and use the following setups handheld, although they didn’t all perform as well as I’d hoped: -Canon EOS R & 35mm lens - 1033 gramsCanon EOS R5 & 35mm lens - 1067 gramsCanon Powershot G7X mkIII - 336 gramsGoPro Hero 8 Black & shotgun mic. - 259 gramsOneplus 8 Pro Mobile Phone (with included LED light) - 269 gramsOut of those setups my favourite to use by far was my Canon G7X, however there were issues with that setup and to be honest there were little issues with all of the setups that created some challenges during my early days of use.My Canon EOS R & 35mm is listed by FeiyuTech as being a compatible combination for this gimbal and it did balance well and the camera communicated flawlessly with the gimbal controls using the included USB cable.Unfortunately, this setup was just a bit too heavy when shooting hand held, although the camera wasn’t impeded in any way and had complete manoeuvrability using the joystick and front multifunction wheel.It was just when you pushed it a little too much the motors got really hot and the gimbal shuddered violently before throwing up a vibration warning and inviting you to re-calibrate again.It was quite a regular occurrence with me so realistically you don’t have full hand-held use with this gimbal and any setup over 1kg, unless you’re being careful with your movements.This was the same story for my Canon R5 which was a little bit heavier than my R, but to be honest I wouldn’t use either of those cameras on this gimbal for two main reasons.First, I can only use the lightest RF lens that Canon makes with both these bodies, which is the 35mm prime. My EOS-R has a 4k crop factor to consider so that lens really becomes a fixed 56mm lens on that body which just isn’t wide enough.If I’m filming on either my R or my R5 I’m looking for the best possible picture quality AND I want the best possible sound too, however there’s nowhere to mount an external microphone? More on that a little later.My Canon G7X ended up being my favourite setup, however it very nearly never happened as you can’t reliably connect the camera by cable, despite being another model listed as fully compatible. With the cable connected, every time I pressed the record button on the gimbal the camera displayed the Image Library on the back of my camera screen and then froze.I switched over to Bluetooth connection, but found that really clunky to start off with too and nearly gave up, although through trial and error and a little patience, I appear to have now resolved those issues.My GoPro Hero 8 Black was my second favourite setup and I could actually mount a shotgun mic. and use the gimbal as normal, provided I made sure this really tall setup didn’t come into contact with the gimbal arm when shooting low down… I did miss the tiltable screen of my G7X though.Despite me having the ability to connect the GoPro to the gimbal via cable it’s not compatible and needs to be connected via Bluetooth, which was another clunky affair as you need to pair/connect when in PHOTO mode and if you don’t the GoPro freezes up, much like the G7X.I found Bluetooth was generally a bit tedious for me and initially I was having to unpair and re-pair each camera whenever I wanted to use it. I couldn’t just tap a camera on the gimbals LCD and connect to it… the cameras wouldn’t work.It would actually appear that you can only have one camera paired to the gimbal via Bluetooth at any one time as when I unpaired both cameras and started fresh, but only with the G7X, things improved dramatically.My G7X now connected flawlessly every time I turned it on, with me only having to pair camera and gimbal once. Even when I powered off the gimbal or changed the camera battery it connected automatically again at startup and was good to go straight away.It’s just a pity the cable didn’t work as ideally, I would have liked to have been able to use my G7X with the USB-C cable AND my GoPro using the Bluetooth connection, so I could jump between both setups.Unfortunately, it’s just too much of a faff for me to unpair and then re-pair the cameras every time I want to use them and given the choice of using just one it would always be my G7X over my GoPro, at least for what I shoot at the moment.You can jump between using a mobile phone and camera much easier though as you use different apps for each device so there’s no Bluetooth conflict.I added a spare tripod quick release plate (not included) to the gimbal quick release plate as my G7X is carried in a jacket pocket every other day and I want to be able to hot swap it to the gimbal without having to rebalance it every time.This setup also means I can very quickly slide the whole G7X rig off and do a straight swap with the mobile phone holder or I can quickly release the G7X from the tripod QR plate and use it hand held or unscrew the tripod QR mount completely to carry it in my pocket if I have to.I can use my G7X when I want and my daughters can easily use their phones for TikTok or whatever else they do. It’s really quick and easy to jump back and forth and I only need to remember one of the axis settings so it encourages the gimbal to be used by everyone in the house and not just me which is great.So, what did I like?Quite a lot actually although this gimbal does have its limitations and there are a couple of things I would’ve liked to have seen that weren’t there.Although smaller, this gimbal is almost identical in design to my old Weebill S so I was familiar with how it would handle and it didn’t disappoint, providing you were sensible with the payload.I really liked the customizable multifunction wheel, which I set to tilt. It was just so smooth and provided much, much better control than the joystick ever could. It was lovely to use and much smoother than I ever remember my Weebill S being.Although great to use I did notice a strange electrical interference noise that came from the gimbals LCD screen every time I turned this multifunction wheel? It was very subtle and I could only ever hear it in a silent environment, but it was definitely there?The Ai camera worked pretty well for me, although I found you needed decent light for your gestures to be recognised and for the gimbal to reliably track you.Having been used to the old tracking method where the camera tracks you, this little Ai module was a breath of fresh air and I was surprised at how well it worked.I can see a lot of scenarios where it would be really useful and can’t wait to see what my daughters do with it, although it’s not really a feature I would use myself.I just played around with it, using it for some WhatsApp video calls when ‘multitasking’ in the kitchen and under those bright, open conditions it worked absolutely flawlessly. Those who witnessed it in action were very impressed.The carbon extension pole you get is simply beautiful and is as light as feather while feeling really strong at the same time. Absolutely nothing negative to say about it… love it!The gimbal itself performed very well… at least with my G7X, Hero 8 Black & my OnePlus mobile phone, which despite being on the large side was able to move freely in portrait orientation without striking any part of the gimbal, even when shooting low down which was very impressive.Having the little joystick controlling the pan and the multifunction wheel controlling the tilt was all I really needed from this gimbal and all three of my lighter ‘cameras’ performed really well with it.I admit that I’ll probably never use most of the features offered by the SCORP Mini 2 as it’s never been the way I’ve shot video, but I’m really hoping my daughters get quite creative with their WhatsApp updates and TikToks as this gimbal should do all they could ever want it to (and more), should they decide to use it?What did I not like?First of all, I very quickly stripped the hex tightener on the quick release plate screw and I only ever used the supplied Allen key to tighten and loosen this screw.I think it only lasted a couple of camera swaps and I didn’t overtighten it at any time so I now have to rely on using a coin or similar to attach and remove this plate.Fortunately, the addition of my tripod quick release plate has overcome this and I no longer need to touch the gimbal plate and damaged screw as they’re constantly attached to my tripod plate now, which has a much better quick release system.There’s no cold shoe mount… anywhere. You have a screw thread above the Ai camera that I tried to adapt to take a cold shoe mount, but it upset the balance of the gimbal and put too much strain on the motors, despite the mic being pretty light.As my G7X relies on a separate bracket to mount a mic. I tried to use this bracket but as the mic attaches to the side of the G7X, again it put everything off balance and the gimbal kept giving up.I could attach a mic to the top of my GoPro cage, however the additional height meant I couldn’t fully use the gimbal and had to be careful not to let the mic strike the gimbal arm when I was shooting low level shots.I also thought the LED was a bit of an afterthought and not much thought really went into it. Despite having magnetic sides it’s really just designed to be attached to the mobile phone holder via a small magnetic rectangular mount.I think FeiyuTech missed a trick with this LED as the bespoke rectangular mount could’ve been reshaped slightly to be cold shoe compatible too?Had it been and had the screw mount above the Ai camera been a cold shoe mount I would’ve probably used this light a lot more.In addition to possibly assisting with Ai gesture recognition and tracking in low light, I could’ve used the light with my G7X or even mounted it directly to the top of my GoPro cage in place of my mic?You’re just restricted in what you can use the LED with which is a pity as it gives off a decent amount of fill light for its small size and light weight.I also didn’t like the two gimbal adjustments for the roll and pan. They’re textured aluminium wheels that felt like they were grinding every time you turned them and neither felt very fluid or smooth.Adjusting the quick release plate and the fixed plate was the same and when trying to balance my EOS R and R5 I found myself having to take the strain off any metal parts that were touching before I could move anything, purely due to the load weight.Even my little G7X had to be lifted and slid when being manually balanced on the gimbal and again it didn’t feel very smooth. It also made little micro adjustments difficult as the metal parts you need to move would stick and then suddenly release, resulting in you regularly going beyond your intended adjustment point.I could still balance what I wanted to but it wasn’t that enjoyable, at least with a slightly heavier payload.All that aside this is still a very good gimbal that can give fantastic, professional results, although I’ll never use half the features it offers.Had it been able to accommodate a small external mic and communicate via cable to my G7X it would have been the perfect setup for my ‘run and gun’ needs.Going forward I’ll keep the gimbals quick release plate attached to my own tripod quick release so the gimbal can transition very quickly between camera and mobile.Unfortunately, the lack of any mic mounting solution means I see my daughters using this gimbal with their phones and the Ai tracking module a lot more than I ever will with my G7X or GoPro and I think this is the market this gimbal is aimed at.Personally, if I’m filming on a gimbal, I’m not doing any fancy ‘Inception’ type shots and I’m simply looking for the smoothest, highest quality footage possible so I’m using my R5 with either my RF 24-105 f4 or my RF 50mm f1.2 as well as my Shure VP-83 shotgun mic.These setups are clearly well beyond the payload capacity for this particular gimbal and it simply couldn’t cope, so for me the Mini 2’s big brother would be a more attractive option.However, anyone shooting with a mobile phone, Go-Pro or a small crop sensor mirrorless camera who doesn’t require an external mic and doesn’t need to hot swap cameras that connect only via Bluetooth should this find this gimbal serves them very well.If I was purely a mobile phone shooter I would be delighted with this kit as it pairs really well with any mobile phone, irrespective of the phones weight or dimension. The included accessories are clearly aimed at the mobile phone user and the Bluetooth connection worked much better when swapping out different handsets with none of the re-pairing nonsense I had to do with my cameras.For anyone intending to use a setup over 1kg I would suggest looking at alternatives as the 1.2kg capacity for this SCORP 2 Mini only appears to be useable on a flat surface or with very careful and controlled handheld use.As mentioned, everything I’ve previously bought from FeiyuTech has been pretty good and this is no exception.I’m grateful to have had the opportunity of reviewing it and while it will probably be used more by my daughters than me, that’s not a reflection on the quality or performance of this gimbal, which is very good, providing you use it under the right conditions and with the right setup.I’m hoping as it’s relatively new to market, the connection issues I experienced with both my GoPro & G7X will be addressed in a future firmware update and maybe a future SCORP Mini 3 will come with a cold shoe mount somewhere… please?