Ten calculators, each showing its working

Why these run in your browser

Every calculator on this site computes in the page with no data sent anywhere. Your rig weight, your codec and your battery load are not information anybody else needs, and a calculator that requires an account is a calculator you will not use on location.

Each one also shows its formula. A number you cannot check is a number you have to trust, and the arithmetic behind all of these is simple enough to verify: watt hours divided by watts, bitrate divided by eight, focal length squared over aperture times circle of confusion.

Where a figure is a practical rule of thumb rather than a published value, the page says so. The 70 to 80 percent gimbal working load and the 0.85 power conversion factor are both approximations that hold up in use, and presenting them as specifications would be dishonest.

The three numbers to run before buying anything

Rig weight first, because it is the input to everything else. A caged full frame body with a fast standard zoom is typically 2.0 to 2.4 kg, and adding a monitor and a battery plate takes it past 3 kg. That single figure decides which gimbal class and which fluid head capacity your build requires.

Then gimbal payload, if movement is part of your work. A rated payload is a motor torque limit reached at perfect balance, not a comfortable operating point, and buying a stabiliser that cannot carry the rig you already own is the most expensive mistake in that category.

Then storage per hour, because codec choice is a media decision as much as an image one. A jump from long-GOP to ProRes multiplies your drive, offload and archive costs by roughly four, and that cost recurs on every project rather than once.

What a calculator cannot tell you

Whether the shot is worth taking. Every figure here is a constraint check, and constraints do not make creative decisions. A gimbal that fits your payload is not an argument for a moving shot, and a codec that fits your card is not an argument for shooting RAW.

It also cannot account for a badly balanced rig, a cold battery, a hot card or a cheap plate losing more in conversion than the model assumes. Treat every result as a planning figure with margin rather than as a limit to run against.

For decisions rather than numbers, the head to head comparisons give thresholds you can measure your own work against, and the two complete build ladders show what all of this looks like applied at three budgets.