The popularity of short videos has changed the way people obtain information and enriched people’s lives. In this era when everyone can be a video creator, shooting high-quality videos is the pursuit of more and more users. Sports shooting and aerial photography have gradually adopted, and tripod head has been given new definitions and needs. When the camera is moving, a problem that needs to be solved is how to maintain the stability of the picture and eliminate low-frequency jitter. At this time, the fixed tripod head could not meet the demand, and the motorized camera tripod for stabilization immersed, which can also be called stable tripod head or stabilized tripod head.
Want to be your own director? Apart from acting strength, you should have command of shooting skills as well. Some users have tried to combine virtual reality (VR) and 360-degree panoramic (around view) shooting in aerial photography. However, the 360-degree aerial image will shake during the flight, and the video quality is unsatisfactory. To improve the situation, Shenzhen ZHAOWEI Machinery & Electronics Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “ZHAOWEI“) has designed and developed a motorized pan-tilt head gear motor. The transmission drive system has a built-in three-axis mechanical pan/tilt, which not only provides shock absorption for panoramic views shooting, and can also be installed on aerial cameras or electric vehicles, or even used for hand-held shooting. It can be described as one machine with three functions!
With the increasingly stringent requirements for image stability in film and television shooting, the tripod head is constantly evolving. Mobile photography under the influence of artificial intelligence will be purer, and even the video shot by the mobile phone can have the texture of a blockbuster. The unsatisfactory thing is that the picture occasionally deforms due to jitter. For ordinary people shooting with a mobile phone, the difficult thing to overcome is the jitter caused by heartbeat, breathing, and road vibration. The emergence of a hand-held tripod head breaks the limitations of the laws of physics and viewing angle problems. ZHAOWEI provides geared tripod head transmission solutions for cameras and mobile phones. With the motorized camera tripod drive, the tripod head can rotate horizontally and vertically, so that the camera can be focused and capture the desired observation target in a wide range. The micro-drive control system can control the tripod head to rotate left & right and up & down to make the camera quickly and efficiently achieve “panoramic” shooting.
According to the survey, the product appeals of the core consumer groups of motorized tripod heads have been affected by the two types of consumption motives: career development and hobbies. They have two characteristics: deep specialization and geek entertainment. Professional consumers are more concerned about the pivot angle, endurance, price, adaptation effect, stabilization effect. While others have more concerns about the “troublesome debugging process”. Both groups of people have a higher degree of concern about the “insufficient pivot angle”.
The motorized pan-tilt head itself is a digital product with multiple electronic components, which requires companies’ strong industrial design capabilities and integration, and a stable supply chain is required to improve the quality of parts and stable production capacity to maintain market competitiveness. The two aspects together constitute competition barriers in the hand-held tripod head industry. At present, the companies in this industry, such as Zhiyun and DJI, already have software and hardware design and a strong industrial design capability of full-chain supply management.
The load-bearing capacity of the tripod head should be different for different cameras and protective covers. The internal space of the tripod head is limited. In order to realize the small size and high torque transmission requirements of geared tripod head, ZHAOWEI uses the gearbox design platform to carry out a reasonable distribution of the modification coefficient and optimize the calculation of the meshing angle, slip rate, and coincidence degree. Thus, it improves the efficiency, noise, service life, and degree of the gear motor for the tripod head.
The drive equipment for adjusting the camera position needs to meet specific requirements. The ideal drive must provide high performance with minimal space. Since the ideal shooting angle of view requires free movement, the drive needs a high degree of efficiency to utilize the limited capacity of the lithium-ion battery. The accurate correlation between the control command parameters and the actual movement of the drive mechanism is essential for precise positioning. In this way, the motor with an integrated encoder can bring a better field signal. Last but not least, all actions must be performed in the same way, regardless of weight and installation mode. It is not easy to manufacture the camera tripod head transmission system. The camera tripod head gear motor needs to have two characteristics: stability and long service life. These two points actually test not only the R&D strength but also the precision of the miniature gearbox manufacturing and the yield of the motor combination. In recent years, many PTZ cameras have adopted DC motors, which have low operating noise and are relatively balanced, but the production cost is high and the control system is relatively complex, and the service life is short. Therefore, we adopt a “planetary gear three-stage transmission structure” combined with a stepper motor to drive. The stepping motor has the characteristics of low manufacturing cost, accurate positioning control, and long service life. The multi-stage planetary gearheads structure reduced the speed of rotation, increases the output torque, and at the same time increases the resolution of the encoder on the output shaft of the reducer, reduces the image jitter in the low speed and high magnification state. Its variable speed rotation can capture the moving target; automatic rotation solves the loss of the problem of losing moving targets below.
The technological innovation of motorized tripod head requires an overall view of the market, a sense of responsibility to consumers, and the support of systematic capabilities. The future of 5G technology will undoubtedly provide a burst for short videos, and at the same time provide a broader platform and more substantial dividends for motorized tripod head manufacturers. With the continuous development of the miniature transmission system and precision gear components, the parameters, functions and components of the motorized tripod head will be continuously adjusted and optimized. The motorized tripod head industry will become more and more mature. We will wait and see how the motorized tripod head industry will develop in the future, and how ZHAOWEI intelligent transmission systems for motorized tripod head will move forward after the mature stage.
