(upbeat music)
♪ Holding out my hand ♪
♪ Throwing you a line ♪
♪ You could turn me down ♪
♪ And I hope you let me try ♪
♪ Be all I am ♪
- Oh, we're gonna need a bigger garage, dude.
(upbeat music)
♪ Holding out my hand ♪
♪ Throwing you a line ♪
♪ You could turn me down ♪
♪ And I hope you let me try ♪
♪ Be all I am ♪
- While they're over there doing all the hard work,
check this out.
This is the Zhiyun Weebill S.
Now, this might look a whole lot like the Weebill LAB,
which I reviewed six months ago,
but this is a whole new beast.
It's the same form factor, which I love.
It's tiny and it's very lightweight,
but look what I have on here.
It's the Canon 15-35mm RF lens, which is one of
my biggest lenses, on the Canon EOS R,
and just look at this.
Ahh, it doesn't hit the eyepiece.
This is what I've been waiting for for the longest time,
is a compact gimbal that can easily work with this.
Now, I've reviewed a whole bunch of Zhiyun gimbals before
and all of them had something that I liked about it.
They tried interesting things,
like just the design of this is really cool,
but there was always a shortcoming in each of them.
But I'm happy to say, this is the gimbal
I've been waiting for.
This is gonna be my new go-to gimbal.
Edward, what gimbal are you rocking?
- The Zhiyun, I think it's the V2.
- It's like a small one
that fits a smaller camera pretty nicely.
- [Edward] Yeah.
- How does this feel to you?
- Oh, way better, dude.
And after a while of holding, like, a gimbal your arm,
you know, your shoulder gets tired, your arm gets tired,
and having it all compact like this is ideal.
- Yeah.
You guys film a lot of car stuff, right.
So, you know, filming inside of a car
or filming underneath, getting inside
of all the cracks and stuff, like just having such a small
footprint, it's pretty sweet.
- That's really, it's nice.
- Honestly, that transition between just upright mode
and low mode is just such a good feeling.
- It's so good.
- That's how you know if they've done a good job,
is if it's the first time you're picking up the gimbal
and it's doing exactly what you want it to do
that's a great sign,
and I think they've done a really good job
adjusting the parameters on this version,
so out of the box it just feels really good.
And that's one of the things I've mentioned in pretty much
every single previous Zhiyun video,
was that it just didn't feel very natural out of the box.
You had to in and just tweak a whole bunch
of settings in the parameters, which isn't that difficult,
but it's still just an extra step but here this is just like
right out of the box it just feels really, really good.
With some of Zhiyun's older models, I did complain
that you're not able to access follow mode, which is where,
see how it tilts, and also pans very fluidly.
But now we can access follow mode, as well as pan follow,
as well as POV where it tracks, like all the modes
are very easily accessible.
And when you're hand holding it like this you're very likely
to press all these buttons accidentally, so when you are
gonna to grab it like this, you can just double-tap
that LV button and it's gonna lock that keypad
so you can kind of grab it without worrying about it,
so that's kind of a nice feature to have, as well.
I really like the form factor.
I love being able to just go into underslung mode,
just like that, and just kind of the flexibility
of kind of having this, and you can take this off
and you can put it down here at the bottom
and use it more like a traditional gimbal, like this.
Batteries are just stored right here,
so you have easy access to these 18650 batteries
which are powerful batteries.
So, I'm gonna have them do all the hard work,
while they put together the new suspension on my truck,
and I'm gonna get some footage, so let's do this.
(upbeat music)
You're in a tight angle, right?
- [Cameraman] Yeah.
- 'Cause if you're on a wide angle people
are gonna see I'm not actually doing anything.
- [Cameraman] No dude, you're good.
- Okay, cool, so it looks like I'm, okay, good.
(Power tool revs)
Ow, that hurts my hand.
Last time I put on my own suspension on my Jeep Wrangler,
I said, I'll never ever do this again.
I will say it again, but this time I mean it.
The last time we're doing our own suspension.
How many hours have we been at this?
- [Cameraman] Almost 12.
- Almost 12 hours we've been at this.
The plan was to come here, put this on, then go to
the tire shop, get on some tires while we eat a nice lunch,
and then go off-roading, to catch golden hour.
Now it is midnight (laughs).
This is the previous Weebill LAB which I liked,
but I thought had some shortcomings, but they basically
patched up all those issues in this version.
So I'm stoked.
I held onto this Weebill LAB originally
because I really liked the compact form factor,
but now that I have this,
which is practically the same size
but just much more capable, I won't be needing this anymore.
So do one of you guys want it?
Drop a comment down below and I'll send this out to someone
within the first ten hours of this video going live.
By the way, Zhiyun does send stuff
to me for free, by the way.
Shout-out to them for sponsoring this video.
But one thing I've always respected about Zhiyun
is that they're cool with me
being completely, brutally honest in all of these videos.
So in the past, I've talked about how how crappy
their motion controller that they tried
to develop was, and they literally re-posted that video.
But speaking of Zhiyun's motion control systems
that I called garbage in the past,
they've definitely worked on that,
'cause check this out, look at that.
This is just a beta version of the app,
so this isn't final,
but look at that, just through my phone
and the app I get this full-function, it feels good.
But this is dope.
They're telling me right now that this will not only be
able to motion control, but also receive a wireless
video feed, to your phone.
Let's see if we can balance an even bigger camera on here.
Let's try this Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K.
with this 16-35 f4 lens.
Now this is a big camera, not to mention a very tricky
camera to balance just because of the way it's shaped.
It's so wide right here, on the right.
So not many gimbals can balance
this without some modifications.
It actually slides on okay, but it does become
a little bit too heavy on the left side.
So sometimes you just gotta get a little crafty
with this camera.
I'm just gonna throw this on to kind of make it
into a makeshift counterweight over here.
This is just a random top handle I have, doesn't really
matter what it is, I just need weight there.
Okay, so it took a little bit of craftiness.
I just threw that weight on right there,
but check it out, I get full range of motion still,
and the motors are having no issues.
Another feature I forgot to mention, check this out.
Boom!
The base plate basically splits into two, so you can go
handheld shoot with it a little bit,
and then just drop it right back in
and you don't have to re-balance it,
you just click it in and it's re-balanced, right there.
I mean, the original Weebill had that as well,
but, like I said, this gimbal
just takes everything good about all their other gimbals
and just puts it all into this one little gimbal.
Oh!
And my favorite thing with these Weebills
is like look how small it gets,
and locks in this position so it's very easy to transport.
You don't even need a case for it.
It can literally just tuck in right there.
Piece of cake.
Hell yeah, fits in a fanny pack.
Really easy to toss into any bag,
which is a good thing, because the previous one
did come with a styrofoam case that's lockable.
And I used it once in a while, but apparently they got
feedback from most of their Weebill users
and nobody really used this hard case.
So this on comes in kind of this styrofoam enclosure
but it's not really a carrying case,
which I kind of wish it was,
'cause literally if they were to just put
a hinge on this side and a little handle
you kind of can use it as a carrying case,
but like I said this is easy
to pack into any bag, so no big deal.
And like I mentioned, this is still an early,
pre-release version of the firmware,
so as expected, it is a little bit buggy.
So later when I get the final version of the firmware
on here I'll test it out, and if I still notice any bugs
I'll put it in the description below, so check that out.
Now this down here is the wireless transmission add-on
that you can get for this gimbal,
and right now I just have it
gaff taped on here, because I don't have the right screws
to put it on yet, but once you do
there's like a little plate
that you bolt onto the bottom of this,
and you can just clip this on and off the rig.
So the final version is going to look much prettier
than this, but it's gonna sit right here,
it's gonna power off this USB right here,
and it's gonna send a signal out of your camera,
into here, and straight into your phone.
Check out this latency.
That's really not bad.
I'm pretty impressed with the quality of this signal.
Like on the screen capture you can see that it's not
super jittery, it's actually a pretty decent shot
to judge your frame off.
I guess, it's totally usable as a monitor, wow.
Matty, check this out.
- Gee, what the heck is this?
- Okay it's taped on right now 'cause I don't have
the right screws to bolt it on right now.
(laughter)
For the final version it's going to be nice and sleek.
You're gonna be able to just like.
- So this isn't like the final version
of the way of viewing?
- Well, I think the first orders are gonna send it to you
with a roll of gaff tape, so you know.
- Gaff tape solves everything.
- (laughter)
- I'm testing the lag and it's not bad actually, hey?
- Yeah.
- Well, that's impressive.
Do you just plug that straight in?
- Yeah.
- Dang.
- Let's test the range.
- Still smooth, okay.
Now we have the first skip, it's doing some skips
but it's still working.
- With a phone you wanna stay pretty close.
They said they are also making a receiver for this,
so you can plug it onto your monitor
and you're going to be able get more range out of it.
What's also cool about this.
You know how like certain gimbals have that motion
controller, so as you move it?
- Oh, like a mimic?
- Yeah, exactly.
- So you could, hmm, interesting.
- So that's gonna be built into this app as well.
Right now they're two separate
parts of the app. - Right.
- So they both work but you can't
use them together. - Separately, yeah.
- They're saying for the final version
you're gonna be able to control the camera while you
monitor it. - Interesting.
- So, it's kind of nice, this is like the whole mimic system
just built onto your phone.
- But, answer me this.
Why don't I have one of these?
- That's a good question.
Did you piss off Zhiyun or something?
- Apparently.
(laughter)
- I haven't seen the app yet work with the motion control
and this yet, but if they get it right,
that'd be a pretty cool feature.
- That'd be interesting.
- You'd be able to take this and mount it on like
an exterior of a vehicle that you're driving or something,
- Right, yeah, yeah.
- And then from inside the car you're just using it as
a controller and monitor, so.
- And just a two-man.
Someone could be moving around, and I'd be doing
the mimic thing or whatever.
- Yeah.
So now that I've had the chance
to use it for a couple of days,
definitely happy with the way that this footage comes out
and the way this gimbal performs.
I like how predictable it is and how it kind of feels
in my hand, so, definitely my new go-to gimbal.
And they did just actually tell me the price for this.
It's actually not bad, they said this is going to be sold
for 439 U.S. dollars, so definitely reasonable.
I was afraid there for a second that they were going to try
to sell it for, I don't know, 700 bucks,
but 439, definitely something
that I can get behind and recommend.
And for 519 you can get it with the focus motor on here,
so you get this little focus knob here
and you can control your manual focus lenses.
And finally, for 679 you get
the image transmission pro package.
So that's that wireless module that kind of slaps down here
that we tested out earlier, so three options to go with.
But overall, super-happy with this gimbal.
Let's just wrap this up by reading a few comments.
So my last video was about Light This Location contest
that Aperture is putting on.
It's where you can submit a five minute video
and win up to a $200,000 grand prize worth of film gear.
I'm going to be one of the judges for the contest,
so I technically can't enter
but I made a little sample short film anyways
just 'cause it's fun.
Let's see what you guys had to say.
"Up as a horror film, interesting concept".
This has nothing to do with Up, it's a piece of scary art.
"I think I'm speaking for most of your viewers.
"Where can I buy that towel?"
The towel with me shirtless, holding Peta?
I should probably sell that, huh?
For a limited time I sold that on a mug,
but now I realize I need to be selling towels.
That's all I screen-shotted, but there's no reception here,
so that's all I can read for now,
but I'll see you guys next week.
Or yeah, next week.
Today's Friday?
Yeah, I'll see you guys next week.
(upbeat music)