Freevision Vilta-G GoPro Gimbal Review

Freevision Vilta-G GoPro Gimbal Review

Freevision impressed me with their Vilta-M gimbal for smartphones. It featured premium build quality at a really reasonable price point. The Freevison Vilta-G may be a 3-axis motorized gimbal for GoPro/action camera gimbal and I’ve had the prospect to check it out.

First Impressions

The Freevision Vilta-G comes packed during a semi-hard shell case which also includes a micro-USB charging cable and strap.

Like the Vilta-M, the Vilta-G feels well-built. The front and back rubber grips that line the handle make it very comfortable to carry within the hands.

As with just about the other GoPro gimbal, the Vilta-G features a metal, universal quarter-inch thread needle to attach it to varied poles or tripods. A pleasant surprise is that the addition of a rosette mount on the side of the gimbal that gives compatibility with even more accessories like custom DJI Osmo Mobile accessories.

The mounting procedure is extremely simple and easy. The Vilta-G’s frame housing is move fit the GoPro HERO5/6/7, making it an easy case of sliding the GoPro in. The included GoPro HERO3/4 frame housing must be used if you’re using an older GoPro model.

Using the Vilta-G as A Wearable Gimbal

One of the Vilta-G’s unique features is that it are often used as either handheld gimbal or a wearable gimbal. This is often achieved by simply pressing the ‘PUSH’ button which releases the gimbal from its handgrip, leaving a wearable gimbal that's compatible with the GoPro mounting ecosystem.

This isn’t the primary GoPro gimbal to try to to this, since the Removu S1 and (with some fiddling) GoPro Karma Grip also can be utilized in two alternative ways.

The Vilta-G is probably a superior 2-in-1 setup to the GoPro Karma Grip, but doesn’t execute things quite also because the Removu S1. Firstly, detaching the handgrip on the Vilta-G leaves you with just a 350mAh battery which doesn’t last very long. Secondly, the shape factor of the gimbal in its wearable form may be a tall and not as well-suited to mounting as ‘true’ wearable gimbals just like the Feiyu WG2X wearable gimbal.

With all that said, I can’t deny that the Vilta-G features a serious dress up its sleeve by having the ability to function as both a handheld and wearable gimbal. If you would like to record video together with your GoPro both in your hands and worn, the Vilta-G is one among the only a few options thereupon capability.

Controls

The Vilta-G is fairly simple to regulate. Apart from the facility button, the most button you’ll be using is that the trigger button at the rear of the grip which cycles through gimbal shooting modes.

The following mode locks the GoPro’s roll axis, meaning it'll follow your movements within the pan and tilt axis while ensuring the footage is smoothed out. Meanwhile, the locked mode will lock the GoPro in its current orientation, meaning it'll counteract movement’s altogether axes and stay locked on the target.

While you’ll typically be pointing the camera around using your hand, the Vilta-G features a joystick which will electronically adjust the pan and tilt. This is often useful if you would like to form super-steady pan and tilt motions and don’t have much faith in your own hands to stay things steady.

The Vilta-G features a 360-degree range of motion within the pan axis and a tilt axis of -45° to 100°. This makes it superior to much of its competition during this respect, beating out the likes of the GoPro Karma Grip and Removu S1.

Performance

Stabilization performance is certainly one among the Freevision Vilta-G’s strong points. Comparing footage with other highly-rated gimbals just like the GoPro Karma Grip and Feiyu G6, there's almost no difference.

Only when I compared footage to the GoPro Karma Grip when zoomed in at 20x could I notice a big difference between the 2. The GoPro Karma Grip remains the king of stabilization performance, but the Vilta-G is certainly one among the simplest performers out there among third-party gimbals.

Freevision App

While the GoPro has its companion smartphone app, to vary various settings on the Vilta-G or control it remotely, you’ll want to download the Freevision gimbal app.

As with many other gimbal apps, the Freevision app is sort of disappointing, with poor translations from Chinese and a poor user experience. I found it quite difficult to pair the app with the GoPro, but it magically started working after a couple of failed attempts.

Since Freevision gimbals aren’t as popular as gimbals from bigger third-party gimbal manufacturers like EVO or Feiyu, I wouldn’t calculate the smartphone app seeing any considerable improvement.

Verdict

The Freevision Vilta-G may be a great GoPro gimbal that performs well in every aspect. The very fact that it's the flexibility to be used as a wearable also as handheld gimbal is that the icing on the cake.

Unfortunately, it’s difficult to ascertain which target Freevision are targeting given the Vilta-G’s price.

It doesn’t offer an equivalent value proposition because the cheaper Feiyu G6 and is priced much closer to GoPro’s very own Karma Grip. While the Vilta-G does have superior battery life and is easier to use as a wearable gimbal, the Karma Grip offers superior support, is a component of the official GoPro ecosystem and has superior stabilization performance.

The Freevision Vilta-M had an enormous price cutting, and if the Vilta-G is priced comparably to the Feiyu G6 I can confidently recommend the Vilta-G as a solid purchase. However, at its current price of $239.99, it feels a touch overpriced.

Rating: 3.5/5