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DJI RS3 Mini - Impressive results for a beginner!! // Unboxing, setup, test shots and initial review
The DJI RS3 Mini is my first ever camera gimbal! Follow me as I unbox the gimbal, set it up and go out to take some test shots using the DJI RS3 Mini and the 7 shot sequence template. I conclude with a quick initial review!
🔗 Sony 7 IV in Chamonix https://youtu.be/54Ym0qk8mIc
🔗 7 shot sequence https://youtu.be/VTOC-cLsGA8
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#djirs3mini #dji #gimbal
► CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
00:16 Why I bought the DJI RS3 Mini
00:52 Unboxing the DJI RS3 Mini
01:32 DJI RS3 Mini initial setup
03:18 Test Footage (B-Roll) at the Cherry Blossom
03:55 The 7 Shot Sequence
06:34 7 Shot Sequence B-Roll Results - Test Footage
07:18 DJI RS3 Mini Vlogging Test
08:35 Hiking B-Roll (Test Footage)
09:23 My Favorite Feature of the DJI RS3 Mini
09:41 More Hiking B-Roll (Test Footage)
10:55 Final Thought & Initial Review
13:38 Bloopers!
► MY MUSIC
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- 0:00 Introduction
- 0:16 Why I bought the DJI RS3 Mini
- 0:52 Unboxing the DJI RS3 Mini
- 1:32 DJI RS3 Mini initial setup
- 3:18 Test Footage (B-Roll) at the Cherry Blossom
- 3:55 The 7 Shot Sequence
- 6:34 7 Shot Sequence B-Roll Results - Test Footage
- 7:18 DJI RS3 Mini Vlogging Test
- 8:35 Hiking B-Roll (Test Footage)
- 9:23 My Favorite Feature of the DJI RS3 Mini
- 9:41 More Hiking B-Roll (Test Footage)
- 10:55 Final Thought & Initial Review
- 13:38 Bloopers!
okay I just came back from work so I could unbox this DJ RS3 mini it's the first ever gimbal I bought for my mirrorless or DSLR camera so I'm super excited about it but let's get started by Rolling the intro for those of you whose Channel I'm linked by Alford and I'm photography internet on the journey became better at this side the reason I'm so excited to have a camera gimbal is actually that I'm going on a trip in Iceland in just a few weeks and we wanted to make sure that I could get some buttery smooth footage while I'm being there if you watched my recent review of the Sony a74 after using it for over a year you might know that one of the downsides of this camera is actually a stabilization is not that good one of the problems with most of the gimbals I saw before they were just too big too complex to use but I think this one is actually going to fix most of those problems so let's get started here by unboxing I had the gimbal here [Music] okay here we go so there is the gimbal right here let's look at what's inside of the other box right here so we have I think this is an empty box there's nothing inside of here and this second box right here you have a few accessories so charging cables here we have some attachments here we have the little foot right here okay so here we're simply going to screw in the legs I could and this is going to allow me to put this up there's the little plate right here I'm gonna have to go and install it on my camera but I'm gonna head right away back to work and then go to the cherry blossoms at University of Washington to film some test footage using this gimbal okay so I kind of forgot here that I actually had to stabilize all of this before I could go out and start shooting okay so this actually ended up being a lot harder than expected after passing about 30 minutes trying to figure it out by myself I went online and watched a YouTube video on how to set up and then took about 5-10 minutes to set up so it wasn't that bad and now if we take the gimbal here and I try and place the camera it holds more or less the position here so this is looking pretty good the next step is going to be opening it up and sending all the features here and also tuning it before I can actually use it for the first time so let's go do that okay so sending this gimbal actually took a lot more time than I expected it took about an hour until in the end but part of this is my fault I should have installed the app right away because the app actually explains to you how to set everything up so we have much quicker if I did use that once the app was installed I was actually able to set up everything yeah so I set up the Bluetooth connecting to my camera this works perfectly I can use the power button right here to start power but I mean the record button to be able to start and stop recording on my camera but then I came and tried to do a few test shots just to see how I was reacting with it and it was actually really weird because it would be very jerky it would move around in a really weird way and I was a little bit scared that was a problem but I actually only had to go on the Gimbal and use the auto calibrate option and this fixed the problem right away so it wasn't a big issue at the end I just make sure that once you set up your camera and make sure everything is right that you set up this so you can get super smooth movement so now if I can move it with the joystick here or if I move it using the handle here it's perfect and it works really well it's super responsive so I'm really excited to finally go to University of Washington and test this right there using this DJ RS3 mini for the very first time [Music] foreign [Music] it's been about two weeks since I last filmed this part of this video and I decided that while we're doing this hike it's a perfect moment to test out this Gimbal and really put it to the test [Music] it's for my Iceland trip I'm going to be using the seven shot sequence from Becky and Chris this can allow me to get some more interesting shot and to really challenge myself I'm going to be doing all the shots using my gimbal right here to get some movements inside of them if you're wondering what is a seven shot sequence it's basically seven types of different shots that you can get and put them together to get some more interesting sequences when you're in a location where you're not 100 sure how to plan it or how to get the shot so this is really great when you're traveling for the first shot here we're going to do what is called an establishing shot most of the time this is an ultra wide shot or a drone shot to set the mood of where you are and what story you're going to be telling so here I'm going to be telling the story of us getting ready to go on the hike this first shot is gonna be an ultra wide shot where I get closer to the car but on a wide angle lens so you can get the nice scene with the car and my friend getting out of the car and also showing that we're going on a hike right here for the next four shots here we're going to get a mix of medium wide shots and also some close-ups and mix them all together to really tell the story that we're trying to show you so here it's my friend getting his stuff out and starting his hike the fresh off we're gonna get right here is on the side of the car I'm going to move back while my friend is opening the trunk of the car okay so for the next shot right here we're gonna go with a close-up following the hand of my friend Nicholas right here picking up his bag inside of the car let's film it okay so next shot right here is gonna be a very simple one it's simply going to be my friend here in the back uh Prime medium white shot here he's gonna have his backpack on close the door and then walk away uh we're just gonna be moving slowly on the back here with the gimbal while he's doing that the little trick here when you have to turn it around the gimbal put it on fpv so you can easily move it around okay so for the next one here it's gonna be a very simple shot it's the classic shot following defeats of Nicholas walking so I'm simply going to go low to the ground part of what he's doing if his feet nice and close Okay so the next one here we're gonna do what is called an unexpected shot for this one you just want to be as creative as possible so for here what I thought is part following my friend from underneath the cars but from the other sides of the car so we're only gonna see his feet on the other side crossing here I don't know how it's looking to look but I'm pretty sure it's going to be an interesting shot okay so last shot we're gonna get right here is going to be a knife stock shot and for this one I thought that we're gonna put this plant here in focus and move the camera up a little bit and get my friend Nicholas walking in the background but completely really out of focus I hope it's gonna look good [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] one of the most important tests I wanted to do with the DJI RS3 mini is to see how good it is for some vlogging shots I'm currently using my Sony a74 and have it with the active sterilization mode but still pretty shaky actually when I did my trip in France I had to post stabilize almost all of the vlogging shots because they were kind of usable and were hard to watch so I really do hope that putting the gimbal on is going to help them be a lot more stable and also have a wider field of view let's put the camera on the gimbal I now have my Sony a74 on my DJI RS3 mini and I'm only holding it with one hand how does it look is it more stable does it look better from the test I did before I'm pretty sure it is the case but let me know in the comments down below I wanted to quickly talk now about why the seven shot sequence is so important for me and is that when I go on trips I usually get to location quickly try taking as many shots as possible take some videos and also take some time just to enjoy the place I am but this means that when I get back in Chinese in some videos it's actually a lot of times really hard this is really a problem in my French trip and also a problem when I went on the west coast because it takes forever to create some better videos because I don't also have the shots that I want so using this seven shot sequence technique allows me to get enough shots for everything that I need to get some cool sequences in the end for my b-roll instead of my videos [Music] thank you [Music] do you know what's my favorite feature no it's not a great stabilization it's not a small size eater come closer it's actually that this plate works with my Peak design clip right here and you cannot know how great this is because I can still use the accessories I already have with this new Gimbal and it makes everything much simpler to use [Music] [Music] . [Music] foreign [Music] but here's my first initial review of the DJI RS3 mini I love this size it's super easy to put on my side pocket it doesn't fold down completely which is kind of a problem but the half bolt is actually good enough to slide on their pocket and it holds there perfectly the initial setup was kind of long it took me over an hour to get it set up but now I added some tapes all around taken in really quickly I folded it completely and unfolded afterwards if needed it's also pretty easy to adjust afterwards when you know how to do it properly so I've downsize the housing with this thimble is actually not sure how good the battery is going to be so for today I'm still around 70 and use it a lot it last three hours which is not too bad but I don't know if it's in the last of all day or not and this might be a problem if it's actually a huge battery to charge and takes quite some time the second issue I have with it is simply a weight is actually quite heavy and I think it's time on top of it just makes the setup a lot heavier it's not a huge issue but it has to wait inside America my bike it also adds weight when I'm operating the camera camera so well it just makes the whole process a little bit harder to use finally the last point I'm really scared about is how it's going to resist to rain so because I cannot hold it down completely and put inside of my bag I actually have to keep it outside of my bag and this might be a huge issue when I would be nice and wouldn't be raining all the time I don't know if the motors are probably covered or things like that so I'm a little bit scared about that point with the gimbal welcoming through some of the footage I actually realized that some of the shots of my friends got were actually very impressive so they didn't know how to use a gimbal they didn't know what were your settings they just went out and started shooting some shots just for fun so one of them is my friend Trevor following my other friend and he's running like crazy and the image comes out super smooth which is very impressive the other one is while skiing my friend Jay went down and it's actually really impressive here that it gets super stable shots because if you ever tried taking some videos while skiing you know how hard it is to get some stable shots let's go back to the video now I have an important question to answer should we buy this DJI RS3 GM ball the answer is yes but only if you know why you're buying it at 369 dollars it's actually pretty affordable and definitely will allowed to get some more creative shots but there's also some issues and the main one is that it really does slow down the process because you always have to take it out recalibrate it get started each time it's just slower to use it overall I do think it's gonna be a really good tool when I'm gonna go nice and allow me get some more creative and smoother shots in the end but that's being said I know I'm not going to be using it for every single video so I definitely have to buy it with this specific use cases in the end like I like saying this is a tool so if you know exactly when and how you can use it definitely get it in that case if you enjoyed this video please let me know by hitting like button below and definitely subscribe for more content on photographing filmmaking see in the next one do you know what's my favorite feature here foreign what the heck is this film a car video how does it look s perfect try it again I'm gonna have to complain about the Sony touch screen yeah usually it's not that bad being dizzy there is a trigger what is that oh the vlogger yeah yeah happy no what a vlogger you're a true YouTuber here [Laughter] what an amateur YouTuber doesn't know how to use his own gimbal stuck in vlogging mode she's being feeling tired you're being filmed you might be in the next YouTube video here as he does the [Laughter] um I know I missed it I missed it no I believe I missed this get it no I missed it because it was the camera was moving all over no it's not it's ever you're too lucky [Music] thank you
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What is this video about?
I just picked up my first ever camera gimbal—the DJI RS3 Mini—and I'm genuinely excited about it. I'm heading to Iceland in a few weeks, and I wanted to get smooth, stable footage while I'm there. My Sony a7IV is great, but the in-body stabilization leaves something to be desired, so a dedicated gimbal seemed like the right move. In this video, I walk through the entire process: unboxing, setup, calibration, and then taking it out for real-world test shots.
The unboxing and initial setup took longer than I expected—about an hour total—but that was partly because I didn't open the app right away. Once I installed it and worked through the calibration (including the auto-calibrate feature to smooth out jerky movement), things came together quickly. I headed to the University of Washington to film some test footage at the cherry blossoms, and then later took the gimbal on a hiking trip to really put it through its paces.
For that hike, I used the seven-shot sequence framework—a technique that helped me structure my shots: an establishing wide shot, medium-wide shots, close-ups, an unexpected creative angle, and a rack-focus shot. This gave me enough material to tell a cohesive story instead of scrambling to piece things together later. I also tested the gimbal for vlogging, which is where I hope it'll shine most, and I was pleasantly surprised by how stable the footage came out, even when I was shooting handheld with just one hand.
After a couple of weeks of using it, here's what I think: The DJI RS3 Mini is genuinely impressive for the price ($369), but it's not a tool for every shot. The setup and calibration take time, and the weight adds up when you're carrying everything on a hike. Battery life got me about three hours with moderate use, and I'm still not sure how it'll handle rain since it doesn't fold completely into a protective bag. That said, if you know when and how you want to use a gimbal—travel, hiking, sequences where you want smooth, creative movement—it absolutely delivers. My friends who grabbed shots without much gimbal experience came away with surprisingly polished footage, which says a lot about how well it performs once it's dialed in.