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Zhiyun-Tech WeeBill Lab Gimbal
  • Price - approx. $500-$700

    Sales will start in November

  • 24 Replies sorted by
  • Seems like a great setup for Real Estate videos as well?

  • Does it have the object tracking option through the phone camera like the crane 360 did?

  • @Brumbazz I have not heard it mentioned but you got to hope considering they are now feeding the camera video to phone that something good will come of that. The old system was just unworkable having to mount phone to camera. Zhiyun is really poor at communicating. I tried to ask about Fuji support and have heard nothing back.

  • @Scot Who exactly did you speak with? I’ve found Zhiyun to be quite excellent as far as communication goes. I’m not aware of many customer support people at any company who can answer specific questions regarding products that aren’t even on the market yet.

  • @jonpais I used there customer service link. As no one replied I can't give you a name. If they don't know than at minimum they should admit that. Ignoring an inquiry is not good customer service.

  • I plan to replace my Crane V2 with this one.

  • Fascinating how they're using your phone itself as a monitor for the camera on the gimbal

  • I ordered the gimbal and was fascinated how impossible it was to get that to work. Support kept running in circles and was no help. In the end I figured out the app does not work on iOS with cellular data (mobile data) turned on, why it is on by default, and I guess hijacking the stream connection, is beyond me.

    I send it back, was too much of a beta release.

  • @Brumbazz

    Due to recent gimbals price trends any company who runs good support looses instantly. Unfortunately.

    Zhiyun strong point is that after initial period community and people around are able to help a lot.

    app does not work on iOS with cellular data (mobile data) turned on

    This makes no sense, as it works in different bands compared to Wi-Fi/Bluetooth.

  • @Vitaliy_Kiselev

    I'm not suggesting the cellular data interferes with Wifi/Bluetooth transmission, I'm just guessing something goes wrong with the stream API confusing the cellular connection with the actual gimbal connection.

  • New Year's Eve parade. First event I used the gimbal on. I'll need to practice more and perhaps change the settings a bit to work better with wide angle lenses since I had the Laowa 7.5mm lens on it. I only had a few hours of sleep when I got their but still managed to stand for a bit to shoot this parade. It was also raining a little bit and people up against me a bit. I do see something that could have been better. The part that adjusts the height wasn't tightened well. Basically it adjusts how high you want the camera on the gimbal. Oops!

    The built in stabilizer of the GH5 was set to off.

    I bought the $600 package since the $800 package that includes the follow focus, smartphone holder, monopod belt and fast connectors was hard to find. I could still purchase that stuff separately at a later date for $230.

    I tried it with my iPhone XS at my house and it's pretty neat being able to control the gimbal and view the GH5's images on my phone. I do wish the visual quality was higher though. I'm sure the quality would be even better on the Crane 3 since it includes an HDMI port.

    Like some other people, I also had issues removing the battery door for the first time but for my second, third, etc attempt, I had no issue. Zhiyun really needs to design the door better for the next model.

    If the handle isn't attached to the bottom and you decide to hold it that way, you'll need to be careful not to touch the controls by accident.

  • True that in order to get the most out of the app, you need to shut off your data on the iPhone. At least it was like that the last time I used the video streaming feature.

    Another negative is that you can't hit record right away on the gimbal as soon as you turn it on. Have to wait some seconds. If you decide to hurry and hit record on the camera itself, after about 5 to 10 seconds, the recording will stop. The first time this happened to me I was speechless. I'm recording an event and I see on the LCD screen that the camera isn't recording anymore. "I could have sworn it was recording earlier" Thoughts to myself. I missed about 20 seconds of a lion dance performance because of that. That only happens when you turn both the camera and the gimbal on. It's perfectly fine afterwards as long as you keep everything on. It's just that if you shut the gimbal and camera off and then on again, it's a pain if you want to record right away since it takes some seconds for the camera and gimbal to fully communicate with each other. Obviously you can choose to not tether the gimbal to the camera and just hit record on the camera but it's more convenient hitting record on the gimbal itself.

    Here's a couple of videos. Stabilizer is off on both of them. Venus Laowa 7.5mm lens.

    For this one, it didn't do too bad despite the fact that as soon as they started the firecrackers, I had one hand on the gimbal and one hand blocking my eyes at times. 4K 60fps

    4K 24p For this one, I used a short extension tube https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1344688-REG/sunwayfoto_et_02_carbon_fiber_tripod_extension.html that I put in between the monopod and handle. My original plan was to use my Sirui monopod but while tightening one of the knobs a little bit too much, it broke. Crap!!!! Decided to use that tube instead to get a little bit extra height. Nowhere near as much height as I would have gotten if I had brought the monopod with me. Had to hold it up pretty high for this shot.

  • Has this stood the test of time/extended use?