This video is Part 2 of my videos about the Weebill S.
I talk you through the good, the bad and the ugly of this Gimbal with demos and example footage of what it can do.
I show you most of its features.
You can learn how to balance the Gimbal and an explanation of its modes here: Weebill S ULTIMATE Review – How to Balance and Modes Walkthrough \\ PART 1 – Ballys Realm – The Website!
Weebill S Accessories video: Weebill S Accessories – Ballys Realm – The Website!
Amazon Affiliate links for the Weebill S Gimbal packages:
Standard Gimbal: geni.us/dUIJ
Zoom/Focus Pro package: geni.us/xQT8cBX
Image Transmission Pro package: geni.us/StoBab
Panasonic S1 camera: geni.us/LumixS1
Hi, welcome to my review of the Zhiyun Weebill S gimbal.
I’ll tell you about its features, how to use it, what I like about it and what I don’t like about it, and how this thing can balance my Panasonic S1 camera and all this additional gear and control my zoom lens.
So the predecessor to this gimbal was the Weeba Lab. Now this particular gimbal is touted as having 300% more power in its motors compared to the Weeba Lab, and 50% more responsiveness compared to the Weeba Lab. It keeps the same small form factor and carries over the great features the Weeba Lab had plus more.
Now I’ve fully rigged out my gimbal and I have a video that I’ve produced already about the accessories on here, and you can check that out in maybe a card here or here. The battery life on this can last between 12 to 14 hours depending on how well you’ve balanced your camera. So if this is balanced properly, then you’ll get the best battery life out of it.
This gimbal has got a dual Manfrotto and Arca Swiss type quick release plate. So for example, if I need to take off my camera, I just press the side button, and I can take my camera off with this Arca Swiss quick release plate, and then I can go ahead and put it on a tripod, which has also got a quick release Arca Swiss type system, and away I go. And if I want to put it back onto the gimbal, I can leave this balanced and literally just snap it back on, and it’s back on there.
I’ve made a separate video on how to balance this gimbal properly and the operating modes that it has. So make sure you check that out in one of the cards here or in the link in the description.
So I’ve just torn this down so I can show you a few things about it. Now, when you buy the gimbal, it comes with a little mini tripod, which screws onto the bottom. And then what you’re meant to do is take this off and screw it onto here so that you can use it in underslung mode.
Now, you’ve seen from the whole video that I’ve had loads of different accessories and my own handle on there as well. So once again, I’ll leave a link to it up here somewhere. You can check out all the accessories that I have for this. But this is what you get with it.
Now, I’m going to show you how easy this is to pack away. Literally, you unlock the arm and fold that in. You unlock this arm and fold that in. And that’s it. You now have a rather small gimbal compared to all the other big ones that are out there.
Now, this comes with a battery charger because you can’t charge the batteries inside here. You have to actually take them out and charge them. And the battery charger has a USB-C connection on the end. The way to take the batteries out, they’re in this compartment over here. And what you have to do is I normally hold it from here and push with my finger and then slide the cover off.
So you take out these batteries and put them into the charger and then just charge them separately.
Now, I have the Transmission Pro Kit, which means that this comes with a follow focus motor that I’ve mounted on the front. And that allows me then via the included teeth, which wrap around the lens, to either control the focus. If I’m in manual focus mode or in my case, I have a zoom lens, therefore I’m controlling the zoom via the control wheel on the side.
It also comes with an image transmission module with mounts onto the bottom of the gimbal underneath the camera. Now, this connects to your camera via a HDMI out and transmits a 1080p 30 frames per second image to up to three devices. So, for example, you can use a ZY Play app to connect to this and use your phone as a monitor. So that’s why I have my phone mounted on the side of the gimbal. It can also then transmit to an optional receiver unit that you can have plugged into a, let’s say, a field monitor or a television, even if you had to. It has about a 100 meter or 328 feet range, which is not too bad. And you can even get a remote and receiver combo, which will allow you to, say, use a monitor and to control the gimbal without the need of any operator.
You can connect to the gimbal using the ZY Play app and control it from your phone using Bluetooth. So, for example, I have it connected now. If I want to move this to the left, I can just move it to the left, to the right, up, down, change the pitch. Anything I need to do can be controlled and I can kickstart the recording, take pictures or from my phone. They’ve also included something called Sync Motion, which syncs your motion on your phone with the gimbal. So when you turn it on, any direction I move my phone, the gimbal will move. It’s pretty neat.
So, as you can see, the image transmission module is transmitting the video to my phone. Hence, I can use it as a little monitor and I can even control the direction of the gimbal from here and use it as I want. From the app, you can change all the operating modes. So if you want to do pan, follow, lock, go mode, that can all be done via your app.
Now, the app has got some professional features built in. So, for example, when you’re connected to the image transmission module and you’re viewing the live image on screen, you can apply LUTs to change the look of your image. You can bring up a histogram. You’ve got pseudo color, zebra stripes to see when you’re overexposed, clipping to see if you’re overexposed as well. You’ve got reference lines to see whether your image is straight or whether you’re following the rule of thirds. Focus peaking to see if you are actually in focus or not. It also has modes such as panorama, time lapse, motion lapse and long exposure time lapse.
If you’re enjoying this video and finding it useful, then make sure you hit the like button and please don’t forget to subscribe if you haven’t already.
So in conjunction with the image transmission module and the app, you can use something called Smart Follow 2. Now, what that does is it allows you to track a subject and then when you move, so let’s say, for example, if you’re tracking yourself and you have the gimbal in front of you, you can use the app to draw a square around yourself. And then when you move, the gimbal will use the app in order to move the gimbal in the direction that it sees you.
Now, I think this is a slightly better version than using, say, the Ronin SC, I believe it is, that requires you to put the phone on top of the gimbal, on top of the camera, and that’s added weight onto the gimbal that you don’t need. Now, it’s not as accurate as the DJI app. However, not having to put the phone on a camera is definitely worth it.
Now, the one job a gimbal has is to keep your footage stable. Now, in all the tests that I’ve done and my normal usage from this gimbal, I think it’s done a really, really good job. Considering I have a really heavy camera with loads of accessories on here, these motors are holding up really well. You can check out my demo coming up now.
Pan follow mode. So we can go left, right, but the gimbal will stay in place for this. It’s going to lock mode so that no matter which way I go, that gimbal is locked on to my thing. Point of view mode means anywhere I want to take this gimbal, I can take it in that direction. And then we have go mode, which is fast movement to whichever direction I need it. Vortex mode. And then follow mode, which when I press the trigger, goes in the direction that I need the gimbal to do. I’m going to let go. So if it’s in, for example, pan follow or lock, it won’t move that axis. Under slow mode. Walk backwards.
So since this is an unbiased review, I’m going to go through some of the things that I don’t like about it. Now, first on my list is this is made out of plastic, which means from time to time, I don’t know if you can hear it. Plastic creaks. I’m pretty sure that the item is solid. It won’t break, but it can be annoying when you’ve got creaky plastic and say if you’ve got a microphone nearby, that’s going to get captured. Now, the current firmware at the time of recording is 1.97. Now, all the forums that I’ve read and including the experience I’ve had myself, it’s a little bit buggy, this version.
So 1.96 is supposedly the most safest version as of this recording. Now, what you get is the camera shakes because I think the motors themselves are trying to overcompensate for the camera. Therefore, they give too much power and the camera shakes. So again, the way to overcome that is to downgrade to version 1.96.
I also found that the way to overcome that is by making sure you balance the camera properly on the gimbal and then just lower the values of the roll axis because that’s what my one was shaking on and that gets rid of the shake.
So an issue I’ve had with my one is the arm that moves up and down on the front. The screw has become a little bit loose. So my camera would just fall down because of its weight. No matter how much I tightened it, it would still fall down. So what I’ve had to do is I’ve just used a little bit of black tape here and I’ve put a little bit of paper inside the screw itself as well. But it’d be great if something like that didn’t break.
Another common problem that I’ve also heard and that I have myself is that one of the axis locks is broken or in my case, it’s slightly eroded, I would say. So it does lock. But if there’s too much weight on one side, then it will just click past it.
So the Smart Follow mode on this in conjunction with the app and the image transmission module wasn’t as good as I expected. I tried to record a demonstration for you, but 9 out of 10 times it would just lose track of me. I’ll show you some of the footage across now.
So this is just a demo of the Smart Follow 2 that I was referring to. And what you do is you connect to the transmission module. You show the image on screen. And then I’m not this is not the best color to be wearing against that kind of a wall. However, what you do is you go into the Smart Follow mode and you select what you want tracking. And when you move and it knows where you are and it tracks you. But sometimes it doesn’t work like you’ve seen in this case. Then when I come back into shot, you see how it’s searching, it’s trying to have a look. And it just goes crazy because they can’t find me. Okay, well, that’s another drawback. It’s not the best software.
So in conclusion, I think this is a really great gimbal. Even though it has a few negative points, which I mentioned before, the good outshines the bad.
And in comparison to say the competition, which I would say is maybe the Ronin S, which is very expensive compared to this and the Ronin SC, which is more in this league.
But in my research, that would the Ronin SC would not be able to balance my Panasonic S1 with my 24 to 105 millimeter lens. And I knew that this would manage to balance it because on the website itself of the Weeble S, they’ve put the S1 with the 24 to 105 millimeter lens.
Have all the links in the description for you if you want to make any purchases based on what you’ve seen here. Now, they are Amazon affiliate links, which means that if you do buy something, I get a very small commission from it. But that just helps this channel grow and bring you better and better reviews of products that I obtain.
Thank you for watching. Please make sure you subscribe if you haven’t already and hit the like button if you enjoyed this video. Thank you once again and I’ll see you in the next video.
Other Technology videos by me: bit.ly/BallyTEK
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Comment below what you thought or if you have any other tips for the Weebill S.
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Some of the links in my video descriptions are affiliate links, which means at no extra cost to you, I will make a small commission if you click them and make a qualifying purchase.
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Current equipment that I use:
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View the full kit at: kit.co/BallysRealm
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My camera rig:
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My Camera: – geni.us/LumixS1
Camera cage: geni.us/F8qiz
Top handle: geni.us/NstCC
Side handle: geni.us/ONLJBj
My wireless mic: geni.us/gICv
My on-camera microphone: geni.us/3hbz5FP
My variable ND filter: geni.us/if2x
My camera gimbal: geni.us/StoBab
My camera bag: geni.us/6tqU
My memory card: geni.us/8Ovd9S
My 5” Video Monitor: geni.us/ehzc8
Monitor mount: geni.us/9IebdFI
My Studio Light: geni.us/n6wsEkR
My LED light: geni.us/eJ0L
My RGB LED Light: geni.us/GXZrA
My Flash: geni.us/FDLPT7D
My tripod: geni.us/RdwOh
My Monopod: geni.us/DL5QSh
My mini Tripod: geni.us/cZHQvt8
My fluid video head: geni.us/sfHD
My flexible Tripod: geni.us/vjwq
My Pocket Gimbal: geni.us/wN3w5
Extension rod for Pocket Gimbal: geni.us/Y13xe59
My Phone: geni.us/eWT5
Mobile phone mount: geni.us/fZMMnb
My smartphone gimbal: geni.us/9kJ3