I recently took a gamble on the Gymbl and got great results! (say THAT 5 times fast). What were the results? Amazing panoramas and proof that the Gymbl is a sturdy bit of kit. Let’s take a closer look with The Beginners Lens Gymbl Tripod Review…
[imageeffect type="frame" align="aligncenter" width="550" height="247"  alt="Paris in October - With the Gymbl - Perfect Panorama!" url="http://thebeginnerslens.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/gymbl-no-kinks.jpg"  titleoverlay="yes"]
I've been putting in quite a bit of time in using the Gymbl, a tripod made specifically for iPhone panoramas, and let me tell you it’s been a real treat to use. Let me be frank, I’m a self-professed iPhoneography nut and I can’t resist a good Panorama. My favorite app for stitching panoramas together has got to be Autostitch, and I’ve been using it since it was released…but I’ve always had several issues with taking Panoramas on the iPhone - blown out skies, ghosting of moving subjects, unaligned photos, etc. But if I had to name the biggest issue I’ve had, it’s gotta be the fact that its very difficult to get good panoramic photos with a good foreground (in comparison to the rest of the photo). I like to compose panoramas with a nice, large foreground because it gives depth, perspective and a bit of oomph to the photo. But I found that was virtually impossible on the iPhone... until the Gymbl.

To explain that a little bit further, and be warned this gets a little bit technical but for those of you having the same problem you can relate! When you try to get a panorama with a large foreground, handheld or with a regular tripod, you invariably end up with ghosting and kinks on your photo. This is a parallax issue...put simply, a parallax is a displacement or distortion of the appearance of objects along the horizon or sight line. Parallax defects always appear in panoramas when the subject is too close to the camera (and that could be ranging from a few inches to a few meters, depending on the size of the subject).
Enter the Gymbl. It's been engineered to help you get amazing panoramic shots without having to invite ghosts to your party. It’s not Halloween yet...  The Gymbl is simple to use whatever type of panorama you’re shooting, and in combination with any panorama apps, it just works. The Gymbl comes in 2 flavors: the regular Gymbl and the Gymbl Pro. The pro version gives you an additional panoramic head, which you can use with any tripod. The spare head is quite useful when you have nowhere to set up your small Gymbl tripod and you do not want to crouch in the street to take your shots! Just put the Gymbl head on a regular tripod, leveled up or down, compose and shoot. Simplicity at it’s best. 

Lets check out the results! Take a look at the photo comparison. The first shot above was with the Gymbl, and the second shot below was handheld. See the difference?! 
I would say the hands down best feature of the Gymbl is the fact that it's built so that you can take horizontal, vertical or whatever-direction-you-want panoramas. But keep in mind that to shoot horizontal panoramas you still shoot with your phone in a vertical position… so you end up taking more photos to get the full view. Not a major problem, but for some this will be a drawback. For this particular photo, I have about 16 shots (it's HDR so there’s also 2 exposures for each shot) taken quickly horizontally. To be honest, I rather carelessly swiveled around the iPhone mounted on the Gymbl, just to take as much of the scene as I could. Stitched it in Autostitch. And voilà! Pretty darn impressive!! 

[imageeffect type="frame" align="aligncenter" width="550" height="200"  alt="Paris in October - handheld - See the kinks?" url="http://thebeginnerslens.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/gymbl-with-kinks-only.jpg"  titleoverlay="yes"]

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[imageeffect type="frame" align="aligncenter" width="550" height="200"  alt="Paris in October - handheld - Easier to see now!" url="http://thebeginnerslens.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/gymbl-with-kinks-and-circles.jpg"  titleoverlay="yes"]

So although we’ve been totally singing the Gymbl’s praises, and we do love it, there are a few little drawbacks you should know about. First, I use a protection film on my iPhone and I had to remove it to use the Gymbl. To mount your phone on the Gymbl you have to slip your device in a tight case, and the film ads a layer of thickness, which makes it impossible to use with the case. Again, as we mentioned before the portrait constraint might be an issue, but on the whole it’s not really too much of a biggie, at least not for us. 

Before we part I'd like to give you a tip that works for panoramas in general, but that I remembered again while I was having fun with my Gymbl. When shooting panoramas, lock the exposure from shot to shot, to avoid having tone and color discrepancies in your final image. Also lock the focus, to avoid having some subjects (especially your foreground) half sharp/half blurry. Easy! 

So there you have it! If you're into panoramic iPhoneography, the Gymbl is a must! Actually, it's the only tripod/head on the market - to my knowledge - that will allow you to take awesome panoramas without the parallax issues! AWESOME!  
