Zhiyun Weebill S Review // One gimbal to RULE THEM ALLLLLLL
I love my little Weebill Lab. It’s innovative and small and just adorable. It isn’t the most powerful gimbal on the market though, and can be a little flighty if I ever mess up my ninja-walking. Which is often.
Enter: the Weebill S! What a BEAST!
A small beast. A very well designed beast.
Here’s my video if you’d like to jump in and see some footage and my thoughts. If you’d rather read, let’s jump in!
Zhiyun Weebill S motor strength and larger cradle
The Weebill S is genius. It has kept the small form factor of the Weebill Lab and been given one hell of a power upgrade. My GH5 and a heavier lens was about the limit of the Weebill Lab.
The Weebill S will hold my Lumix S1 without an issue! And my stock lens — the 24-105mm f4 — is not exactly a small lens either. I’m so happy I no longer need two different gimbals for my different setups. The Weebill S will hold both my GH5 and S1 just fine.
Will the Zhiyun Weebill S hold the Lumix S1? Yes!
I can confirm, very happily, that the Zhiyun Weebill S will hold the Lumix S1. Which is amazing given its tiny size. I’m super impressed. The motors are mad on this thing!
New latches.
Sometimes when you’re balancing a gimbal, there’s a whole lot of screw-twisting. Like a lot. The new S has a latch system which is not only much faster but much easier on the hands.
Maybe I was wrong…
I’ve often said… like a lot in the past… that I’m only really interested in getting smooth footage from my gimbals. All those bells and whistles are just happy extras.
Well, I think that I am finally at one with the “happy extras”. I now, actually, would struggle to live without them. I love the under-slung mode on the Weebill S (and the Weebill Lab) and I ain’t going back!
I am also really impressed that you can set off motion time lapses directly from the Weebill S without using the app. Now that is one bell-and-whistle I can get on board with.
There’s even an “auto-tune” feature — that you can access from the screen on the gimbal — that will automatically tune the motors to get the best performance out of your setup. No more app-faffing! Take my money!
Zhiyun Wireless Image Transmitter
This is a separate product all together, really, but seeing as it’s being bundled with the Zhiyun Weebill S, I thought I’d cover it here.
This little module sits beneath your gimbal and can transmit a live signal feed directly to your smartphone or tablet… what?! No need for any additional monitors; you can just use your phone.
As a solo wedding shooter I’m very intrigued by this little device. I want to try using it to monitor my cameras when I’m filming multi-angle moments during the speeches for instance, and moving around isn’t always an option. I shall report back when I’ve used it more, but so far I can say it does what it says it does, and works very easily.
Should you buy the Zhiyun Weebill S?
Well. I still think that if you have an existing gimbal and it’s doing the job then maybe save your money. These are stabilisation tools first and foremost, as much as I love all the additional features the Weebill S brings.
If you have the Weebill Lab, I mean, it’s a tough one. The S absolutely IS better, but if your Weebill Lab is serving you well then don’t be too hard done by. My favourite features — the form factor and under slung mode — are basically the same on both.
If you are new to gimbals I would absolutely buy this. It is brilliant, and by now Zhiyun have long since ironed any of the kinks out of their wonderful products. It’s portable enough that you’ll actually USE it, and the cradle is big enough to future-proof yourself if you ever buy bigger lenses or a new camera.
What’s not to love?!