DJI RS4 Pro Review - New LiDAR, HUB, Focus Motors & Focus Pro Hand Unit
DJI RS4 Pro Introduction
This is the DJI RS4 Pro, there are a lot of new features to cover like the new joystick functions, native vertical shooting, the entire DJI Focus Pro system with lidar and transmission, stronger motors and new accessories to name a few, so let’s get right into it.
DJI sent me this to test, and I’ve been using it for about 3 weeks now. I’ll have more in-depth video about this gimbal in the future, but for now, this is my first impressions review of the DJI RS4 Pro.
Whats New on the RS4 Pro vs RS3 Pro
First off, whats new over the RS3 Pro?
Native Vertical Shooting
First thing, native vertical shooting. You don’t have to remove your camera from the plate to switch from horizontal to vertical shooting anymore. Now you can detatch the plate itself, and reinstall vertically. It’s as simple as loosening the lever, pinch to release the locks, turn the camera and plate, and tighten the knob. Very easy. Huge time saver if you shoot social media content. Even though video should be horizontal.
More Powerful Motors
The load capacity of the RS4 is 10 lbs, just like the RS3 Pro, but the motors have 20% more torque. Can fly the FX6, with a cinema lens and the screen. The screen is a tight fit depending on where you put it, putting it farther forward works better.
What Can Balance on the RS4 Pro?
Whenever I hear 20% more torque on a gimbal, I’m always curious where that 20% is. So I tested out my Sony FX3 and FX6 build with all the accessories I could put on the camera, and here were the results.
Sony FX3
On the DJI RS4 Pro, I was able to get my FX3, with vespid, athena or Irix lenses to balance on the gimbal, and adding the LiDar, Focus Motors and Transmission, I was still able to get the camera to balance and calibrate just fine on both gimbals.
Sony FX6
Things got a little more interesting when it came to the FX6 though. I was able to get it to balance with my the Athena and PL adapter or my 24-70 GM II, and my monitor.
When I was using the Athena, PL adapter, monitor, focus motor, rod, DJI transmitter and the LiDAR with the FX6, the gimbal was able to balance, but if I was to move the gimbal quickly the motors tilt and pan motors were approaching their max capacity.
New Zoom/Gimbal Control Switch
The new joystick switch allows you to toggle between zoom and gimbal control, so you can now control zoom and focus on the gimbal, but also switch to gimbal control if needed.
If you bluetooth pair your Sony camera, this zoom can also control the power zoom on the lens, or clear image zoom on your camera. Pretty cool.
The other side of the screen still has the gimbal follow mode as well, just like the RS3 had. Love that feature.
New position for the USBC ports on the gimbal
Another new update for the DJI RS4 Pro, is that the USBC connections on the front have moved around a bit. The camera control cable port is now on the back, and there are only two ports on the front of the gimbal, so it’s a little easier to remember which port does what. The top port is for the focus motors. The bottom port is for the image transmitter or LiDAR.
Multiple Motors
You can now also tell the gimbal what the motor is adjusting, either focus, iris, or zoom. With the RS3 Pro, if you were using a motor for focus and a motor for iris, you’d have to use both ports on the gimbal to do this, but couldn’t use LiDAR then, but now you can use both motor, or even three FIZ motors and the LiDAR together at the same time.
Brand new Focus Pro System
There is a whole ecosystem of focus and transmission accessories with the DJI RS4 Pro.
The Lidar now has more points and can focus out to 20 meters while using active track pro.
The new Focus Pro motors are 30% stronger and you can daisy chain them together to support focus iris and zoom.
There is an updated wireless FIZ hand unit.
And the new Focus Pro LiDAR to transmission cable hub. There’s a lot there, more on this later.
Bigger Battery Available
There is also a new BY70 battery grip that has up to 29 hours of battery life and can be used as a power bank. This is great if you’re powering the gimbal, lidar, motors and transmission system off of the battery grip.
Auto Locks
The DJI RS4 Pro also has the auto axis locks like the RS3 Pro had, but you now have the option to fully fold and lock the gimbal.
Car mount stabilization mode
There is also a new car mount stabilization mode. This allows you to calibrate your gimbal for car mounts to help smooth out more vibrations. Big fan of using the car mount and this gimbal. I have more on this later, this might actually be it’s own video.
Autofocus Lens vs Manual Focus & Rig Setups
For solo shooters, it doesnt get easier than putting a camera with autofocus lenses on the gimbal for a fast and lightweight setup. This is how I mostly film when shooting weddings, or portrait-style videos. But if you have manual lenses or a team to pull focus for you, there are a lot of ways to use the DJI focus pro kit to help you out here.
Focus Pro
The DJI Focus Pro system offers a lot of different ways to use your camera with the DJI RS4 Pro, let’s jump into those now.
DJI LiDAR
The new lidar system is increased from a little over 43,000 to 76,800 ranging points and can focus up to 20m away. There are two autofocus modes, wide and flex spot. Wide can track people and vehicles, while spot can track anything you draw a box around.
When it comes to using the LiDar autofocus with manual focus lenses, it’s actually amazing what this range finder is capable of doing. I love the look of cinema lenses, but keeping your subjects in focus is almost impossible, while managing your camera settings, framing and juggling everything else on your shoot.
I have a lot of opinions and things I’ve learned using this LiDAR range finder, so I’m probably going to make an entire video going over this, but once you set it up, it’s really simple to use.
There are three presets you can store on the LiDAR. You can manually setup the lens yourself, or you can use a preset if you use the app. I’ve been using the Vespid 35mm preset, and it makes getting up and running very quick with a preset. You have to use the DJI Ronin app to use the presets.
Adding a lens profile to the LiDAR is pretty easy, and you don’t need the app to do this.
With the LiDAR and Focus Pro motor on, go to the LiDar screen and add a new lens. This is easier if you have a person and use wide mode, because the LiDAR is great at detecting faces, but you have to be in wide mode, Flex Spot mode can work, but wide is a lot stickier when it comes to faces. Move from 1 meter, to 4 meters away. Then add the distance from your sensor to the LiDAR range finder and your good to go. If you use this same setup, but mount the LiDAR in a different place, make sure to update the positioning of the LiDAR for the most accurate results.
LiDAR: Getting the Best Results
I find that the lidar rangefinder does best when the subject is 1 to 10 meters away. It is possible to trick the range finder if things are too close to the lens, and the rangefinder has a different field of view than your lens. For close up shots, get the rangefinder as close to the lens as possible.
The LiDAR rangefinder and activetrack does do a great job keeping faces in focus, but again getting too close to the camera can have the view points be off and the framing of the active track to not exactly match the camera view.
It’s not a perfect set-it-and-forget-it solution, but after setting it up and learning its limitations, the only way I can describe this device is magic. It brings the precision of autofocus and even activetrack, to manual cinema lenses - which is something I never thought I’d see.
Subscribe and check back for my more in-depth LiDAR video in the future. It’s way too much to go over in one video, but once you get it set up properly, it’s magic.
Focus Pro Hand Unit
Another update is the DJI Focus Pro Hand Unit. This is a wireless follow focus that most first AC’s are familiar with. This has the focusing wheel, zoom rocker and iris adjustments that can wirelessly control the motors.
You can also initiate a motor calibration from the hand wheel, adjust the tension of the focus wheel, set A and B points, and start/stop recording if your motors are connected to the gimbal and camera.
This works with the DJI Focus Pro Motors, and can be used without the gimbal. If you have a team, or don’t have the DJI transmission with handles and want to control your motors wirelessly, this wireless follow focus works really well.
If you do have the DJI transmission, there is an included bracket that connects to the high-bright monitor to the hand unit to use them together, or you can use them separately.
DJI Focus Pro Motors
Which brings us to the new DJI Focus Pro Motors, this is an All-new motor design over the previous motors, with a 30% increase in motor speed. The motors had no problem using the Vespids, Athenas and even the stiffer Irix lenses on the normal motor torque setting. There is a high and low setting if you want to adjust this further.
You can use these with the front focus dial and zoom dials on the joystick at the same time. You can daisy chain multiple motors together, so if your using Focus and Iris control, you can use one USBC to power, then daisy chain the power to the next motor.
They work wirelessly, so you can also use a D-tap to USBC cable to the motor to power it this way too, and not use the RS4 Pro at all. or use the USB-C to power things like the RavenEye or DJI Transmitter even. There are a lot of different ways to use these motors.
And they use 15mm rods! The previous motors used 12mm, and you had to get a 15 to 12mm adapter if you were using a cage. It was another thing you had to have, but not anymore.
DJI Transmission & Raven Eye
There are two different image transmission options for the DJI RS4 Pro. The first, and more affordable is using the RavenEye to transmit an image to the mobile app. If you buy the Pro version of the gimbal, you’ll have the RavenEye already - it’s great for one man bands or small teams that just want to see an image, adjust a few camera settings, reposition the gimbal and start active track.
I used the RavenEye on a recent shoot and was able to see a feed and control the gimbal from the backseat of the car while the actors were driving. It was quick and convenient, but if I wasnt in the backseat, it would have been out of range for the RavenEye. I have lots of other videos going over the raveneye that I’ll leave in the playlist below this video.
If you need a stronger connection, more control options and a dedicated monitor, the DJI transmission is a big upgrade, but it is fantastic. On the DJI RS4 Pro, the transmitter attaches to the bottom of the gimbal just like the RavenEye would, but transmits the signal to receivers or the DJI monitor. You can also control the menus on some cameras with the virtual keyboard, which is a whole video on it’s own. But it works via HDMI. I’ll leave the compatibility list below.
The signal of the transmitter can transmit up to 7km away, and full gives gimbal control, focus motor adjustments, lidar depth map, lidar view, and a clear image.
With the high-bright monitor and handles, I could have been down the street and still adjusting the gimbal, seeing a live feed of the camera, and been able to adjust focus if needed. I couldn’t adjust focus with the RavenEye here, so I had to set focus before I we started rolling and get out of the car to adjust focus if we repositioned the camera.
The high-bright monitor can also send out a signal to a directors monitor, but you’ll have to purchase the expansion plate to do so. You’ll get a clean HDMI and SDI out as well as DC in to power the monitor.
DJI Transmission, Lidar, and Focus Pro Motors
Bringing all of these together with the Transmission, LiDAR and Focus Pro Motors on the DJI RS4 Pro is the cable hub. You can also use this entire setup handheld without the DJI RS4 Pro, more on that in another video, but this setup unlocks the full potential of this gimbal.
This setup allows you to use the gimbal to control focus and zoom motors.
The DJI monitor has access to all of the LiDAR settings, including the waveform view for focusing, which is insanely helpful for manually nailing focus.
You can use the handles on the monitor to control the gimbal and focus the motors.
If you have a first AC, they can also use the wireless follow focus to adjust the motors.
You still have the option of using autofocus on manual cinema lenses. This is quite a setup, but it’s exciting to see what is possible, especially for small teams or solo operators.
Other thoughts
Weight
I love the customizability of this gimbal and how you can really tailor it to fit the needs of your shoots, but rigging this gimbal up with a camera, cinema lens, lidar, transmission, and focus motors gets heavy for long shoots. I would definitely recommend using the briefcase handle in the RS4 Pro kit or, even better, the twist grip handles. Having more holding points makes holding this gimbal for long periods of time easier, and you can even mount a strap or EasyRig quick-release plate to the bottom of the twist grip handles if you need more support.
Conclusion
The improvements to the DJI RS4 Pro make it a great upgrade if you’re using manual lenses, especially for focus and iris control while using LiDAR and the transmission.
Even if you’re using a camera with autofocus lenses, the stronger motors, zoom option and smaller quality of life updates are nice additions.
The real benefits start when you start adding the Focus Pro motors and wireless focus methods to the RS4 Pro. It’s great to have the option for a 1st AC to start/stop recording, pull focus and adjust zoom and iris if needed.
This has been what I’ve discovered while using the DJI RS4 Pro over the past few weeks. There is so much more to cover with this gimbal, I feel like this video have been long already and I still have a lot to say about this. I’ll be releasing a tip and shortcuts video soon that goes over more details about what I learned using this gimbal and all of these accessories over the past few weeks, so be sure to sub and check out those videos soon.
What do you guys think for the RS4 Pro? Let me know in the comments on YouTube!