this has been bugging me for a while now. im out on a shoot, everything looks level on the ground, i take off and maybe 3 or 4 minutes in the gimbal starts drifting to the left. like a slow roll that the gimbal compensation cant keep up with. i level it manually from the controller and it holds for a bit then does it again.

its not the horizon leveling thing in the camera settings, ive already checked that. the gimbal itself is balanced, i went through the whole balancing procedure again after this started happening and everything sits where it should when motors are off. running the RS3 with a Sony a7IV and a 24-70 GM on it which is a bit heavy but ive been running this exact setup for months without issues.

thought maybe it was a firmware thing so i updated last week but honestly it might have gotten worse after the update, not sure if that's related or im just imagining it. does anyone have experience with this kind of drift issue or know what to actually check

that 24-70 GM combo is right on the edge of what the RS3 can handle comfortably, especially if you're doing any kind of dynamic movement. but if it worked fine before and nothing changed with the setup then its probably not a weight issue suddenly.

my first guess would be the IMU calibration is off. the RS3 has a pretty sensitive IMU and if the gimbal got any kind of knock or even just sat in a hot car for a while it can drift. go into the Ronin app and do a full IMU calibration on a completely flat surface, like a table you know is level. i had a similar rolling issue on my RS2 and that fixed it completely. also make sure the gimbal is warming up for a few minutes before you start flying, i know it sounds obvious but cold IMU can behave weird in the first few minutes

could be a motor starting to go on the roll axis tbh. ive seen RS gimbals develop a weak motor after heavy use and the symptom is usually exactly what you're describing, holds fine on the ground, starts drifting under load. you can kind of test it by applying light resistance to the roll axis manually and seeing if it fights back as hard as the other axes. rough test but gives you an idea