I finally ditched my old gimbal for a cheap slider and it changed my desert shoots
Spent $220 on a used carbon slider from a guy in Mesa last spring and honestly it saved my back on a Sonoran shoot. My old motorized gimbal kept dying in the 110 degree heat and I was done fiddling with balance. The slider is manual so no batteries to fry and it gave my timelapses a smooth push that looks way more natural. Anyone else swap out gear just because Arizona summer wrecked it?
I bought a $90 gimbal off Facebook Marketplace two summers ago and it lasted exactly one shoot in Tempe before it started doing the shaky thing. So yeah, heat has killed more gear for me than actual use ever has, and my setup is basically a graveyard of bad decisions at this point. A manual slider makes way more sense out here, no chips to cook and no balance to mess with when you're already sweating through your shirt.