The Zhiyun Smooth 5S is a ‘professional’ smartphone gimbal, says Zhiyun. And so it might be. I’m sure its newly updated motor control is great and its phone clamp does indeed handle the latest bigger-than-ever smartphones. It’s also designed to stay out of the way of ultra-wide phone lenses, which is also great since I love ultra-wide angles of view.
But my problem with the Smooth 5S is simple. To balance the phone, you inevitably push the phone right up against the tilt motor, and this blocks the phone’s mic input. That’s not a problem if you don’t use an external mic, but for more professional audio you almost certainly will.
I’m using an iPhone 13 Pro Max, and there’s no way I can attach my mic of choice, which is a RODE VideoMic Me-L. For those who don’t know, this is a shotgun mic that plugs straight into the iPhone’s Lightning port. It’s perfect, because it points where the phone is pointing and you don’t need any other clamps and cables. Except that there’s no way I can use it with the Zhiyun Smooth 5S.
OK, so what I could do is work out some way of clamping a mic to the gimbal instead (I do have other mics, not just this one) and then feeding a cable to the phone. But that means buying an extra mic clamp and a cable, and working out if I can shift the phone far enough from the tilt motor to squeeze in a cable connector.
Can I be bothered? No.
So I am annoyed at Zhiyun for not allowing for the possibility that pro users might want to connect an external mic. Heck, not even pro users – this is something that amateur videographers and newbie influencers will want to do too.
I’ll concede that designing a smartphone gimbal that can accommodate external mics – or external mic connections – may not be straightforward, but I think for Zhiyun to describe this as a ‘professional’ gimbal and then not even address this shortcoming is a bit rich.