StabiLens Starter Kit

The StabiLens Starter Kit features everything you would need to pre-balance a single lens for your motorized handheld gimbal. With one lens pre-balanced, and a second lens balanced as a reference lens without any Stabilens attached to it, you can be shoot-ready with a total of two lenses. The kit includes one StabiLens rubber lens ring, 10 tungsten weights that are 12g each, 10 steel weights at 5g each, a counterweight clamp for the gimbal motor arm, and four counterweights for the clamp. All this comes in a compact hard case that has a cloth exterior and two zippered pockets inside where you can keep the counterweights. The case will fit an additional rubber ring and more counterweights if you choose to get these separately later.

The StabiLens system is designed to let you balance a lens in advance of a shoot so that during the shoot you can just swap the lens in and begin shooting. The pre-balancing is done with a rubber ring that attaches to your lens or lens hood, and with small counterweights that you insert into slots that are all along the round ring. Depending on the size and weight of your lens, you decide which of these slots you should insert the weights into. In some cases, you may need just a few on one side, while in others you may need some on a different side or even all sides.

To begin the balancing process, generally you would insert one to a few weights in one section of the rubber ring, and then enter some more on the side that you see needs to be counterbalanced. For some lenses, especially larger ones, you may also need an additional clamp to secure to the gimbal's motor arm to complete the balancing process. The Starter Kit includes this clamp in addition to the main components.

The rubber ring is sturdily designed and stretchable to fit lenses (or lens hoods) 58 to 100mm in diameter. The ring can be fit anywhere on the lens where there's space for it. Wherever possible, attaching it to a lens hood instead of a lens is the ideal way, because you'll be able to just pop the hood onto the lens when the time comes to use that lens. In this way, you won't have to keep anything attached to the lens itself and can use that lens in other applications. But in the pre-balancing process, you would need to have the hood attached to the specific lens as you try to balance it with the counterweights. After you find the right balance, just keep the rubber ring with counterweights in all the right spots secured on the hood.

The StabiLens system has been successfully tested with a number of DSLR and mirrorless cameras, lenses, and gimbals without the need for the additional motor arm clamp.