Zhiyun Smooth 4 – Smartphone Gimbal How To Guide

This is a guide to cover the operation of Zhiyun’s Smooth 4 Gimbal, from first opening the box onwards. If not the most popular, then certainly the Zhiyun Smooth 4 is one of the most popular smartphone gimbals. But the amount of features can be overwhelming, so here’s a guide to help you get started.

The cable in the top left of the box is a USB-C cable for charging the gimbal. Bottom left is a small, wide-base tripod which attaches to the bottom of the gimbal. Then there’s the gimbal itself in the middle.

Control Panel and Wheel

This is the control panel. There’s quite a few buttons, a switch and 2 control wheels. So plenty to get used to to operate the gimbal.

1. Place you Smartphone in the Gimbal

The gimbal grips your smartphone across the width of the phone. This is achieved with 2 elasticated clamps. Stretch the 2 clamps wide enough to slip your phone between them and release so that the clamps hold the phone in place.

2. Balance the Smartphone

Once the smartphone is in place, you will probably find is flops to one side when you try to place it horizontal. This is because the smartphone needs to be balanced.

Loosen the screw (in the image above). Move the arm in or out to adjust the length. Try to find the perfect length that will allow the smartphone to balance evenly and tighten the screw.

Now your smartphone should sit in the clamp level, as in the picture above.

Now turn on the gimbal, by pressing and holding the power button. This is the bottom button beneath the control panel. The motors now kick into action, and will hold the smartphone at this position.

You can now try this out by gripping the Zhiyun Smooth 4 handle and moving it around. The smartphone should be kept pointing in the same direction, no matter the angle of the handle.

You can actually use the gimbal this way, without any further knowledge of the gimbals controls. However, there are extra features and controls which can be used if you connect the gimbal to smartphone. This is achieved using the Zhiyun Play app.

3. Connect Gimbal to Smartphone

Turn on Bluetooth in your smartphone then open the app. Click “Connect Your Device” to connect the smartphone.

If the app does not connect to your smartphone automatically, then select your device manually.

Zhiyun Play App Screen

Using the Zhiyun Play app, as you can see below, the control of the gimbal gets a lot more complex.

Icons are:

Home (top left), then Bluetooth connection, Photo Mode, Flash (on or off), Timer, and HDR (on or off).

Top right: Phone Battery Level and Gimbal Battery Level.

Bottom left: Album button and Object Track button.

Bottom right: Filter indicator

Lower middle: manual camera controls, which includes shutter speed, ISO and white balance settings.

4. Recording

With your gimbal and smartphone connected, to start recording simply hit the red record button in the control panel. To stop recording, press the red record button again.

The button to the right of the record button (with the camera icon) takes a still photo.

5. Gimbal Modes

The Zhiyun Smooth 4 has FIVE gimbal modes.

1. Pan Follow Mode

By default, the gimbal boots up in Pan Follow mode. Notice the toggle switch above the power button, with PF at the top and L at the bottom.

The gimbal should unbox with the toggle set to PF (Pan Follow). In this mode you can pan left and right and the camera will turn left and right as you move.

2. Locked Off

Switch the toggle switch down to L and the gimbal will be in locked off mode. Now the gimbal will not follow your left and right movement. This is helpful for following shots along a straight path, as it will prevent the camera drifting to the side.

3. Follow

On the back of the Smooth 4 handle are 2 triggers.

Holding the bottom trigger puts the gimbal into Follow mode. You camera will now follow all your movements, either left-right or up-down.

By holding down on the bottom trigger, set your camera at the desired angle. Now release the trigger. The gimbal will keep the smartphone in the position as you released the trigger.

To reset the smartphone position, double tap the bottom trigger.

4. PhoneGo Mode

Hold the top trigger to place the gimbal into PhoneGo Mode. This allows you to move the gimbal quickly into position without the slow gimbal movement slowing it down.

5. Standby Mode

Standby mode keeps the phone locked in position while you do something else, take a call on your phone or whatever. Simply rotate the phone from horizontal to vertical where it clips into place.

6. Control Panel

Once you have your smartphone and gimbal connected, most things can be controlled using the control panel. This means you rarely have to touch the screen of your phone.

The Menu button brings up the menu of on the smartphone screen.

Notice that the central wheel also has 4 button functions. Press the wheel left, right, top or bottom to use as buttons. These buttons can be used to navigate through the icons on the screen. Use the central button to select a function once it is yellow.

The Menu button is also a Back button. To go back one step, simply press the menu button.

The target button, which is to the left of the record button on the control panel, switches between zoom or focus mode.

Focus & Zoom Wheel

Using the wheel on the left of the handle, you can adjust the zoom and focus. Toggle between the modes using the target button.

Flash

The central button inside the middle wheel with a flash icon can be used to select items in the menu. It can also be used to change the flash setting. Press and hold the flash button to turn on the smartphone’s flashlight.

Display

The display button on the top right of the control panel brings up the manual exposure settings of the smartphone camera. ISO, shutter speed and so on.

Wheel Buttons

The right wheel button opens up the general exposure compensation control. Once selected, use the wheel to darken or brighten the image.

The left wheel button toggles between front and rear facing cameras.

The bottom wheel button brings up the gallery of photos and videos taken with the app.

The top wheel button brings up the video resolution options. Use the wheel to navigate and the flash button to select the desired resolution.

7. Menu

Pressing the menu button in the control panel brings up the menu on the screen. Use the wheel to navigate the different icons.

Camera

Selecting the camera icon brings up different modes to choose from. These include panoramic, long exposure, slow motion, time lapse, motion time lapse, vertigo.

After selecting a mode, press the camera button on the control panel to activate the feature.

There’s a lot of modes to go through, and with some experimentation you should be able to work them out.

But just to note the Vertigo mode allows your camera to a shot made famous in the film Vertigo, as well as the film Jaws. First you will be prompted to input settings to control your vertigo mode shot.

Most of the other functions in the menu should be self-evident to anyone who has used a digital camera.

The flash icon gives you various flash settings including keeping the flash on continuously.

The timer icon allows you to set a delay up to 10 seconds before taking a photo.

The HDR icon toggle HDR on and off.

The WB icon allows you to set white balance.

The resolution icon brings up all the resolution options available to your smartphone.

The manual icon allows you to toggle between auto and manual control of your camera. Manual mode allows yout to set shutter speed, ISO and white balance.

The scene icon changes the responsiveness of the gimbal. Are you walking or moving fast. Selecting motion will set the gimbal to react quicker.

The filter icon allows you to shuffle through a set of Instagram-style pre-set colour filters.

The settings icon brings up a new menu which opens up even more settings to fine tune your gimbal.

One important setting here is then OIS/EIS toggle switch. This is to switch your smartphone’s inbuilt stabilization on and off.

Now, we often have problems when the phone and the gimbal’s stabilization are working at the same time. This can create all sorts of weird jerking and wobbling in the image. So it is often best to switch off the inbuilt stabilization.

8. Object Tracking

Remember that icon in the bottom left corner of the Zhiyun Play app screen? That is the toggle on-off Object Tracking button. When selected on, you need to draw a box around the object you want to track.

Now, if the object selected moves during the shot, the Zhiyun Smooth 4 will automatically follow them. This feature has limits – if you move too fast it won’t be able to keep up.

Find the Zhiyun Smooth 4 Smartphone Gimbal on Amazon.

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