Well it's been a long wait for Fujifilm shooters to get integration with
industry-leading gimbal systems, but now in 2020 I'm happy to report that the
wait is over! To prove it, here are some clips of me awkwardly running alongside
a bicycle, trying not to trip over my feet and smash into a barrel cactus!
Hey everybody, I'm Seth and welcome to my youtube channel. For those of you who are
new here, I am a professional photographer and I travel quite a bit
across the American West with my Airstream and so that's why I'm bringing
you this video inside a trailer. I've been shooting projects with Fujifilm
since 2016 with the xt-1 and all this time there haven't been any gimbal
systems that have played nicely with the Fujifilm ecosystem. I didn't know why
that was but it's been kind of frustrating. Now in 2020, Fujifilm has
just rolled out a firmware upgrade to the Fujifilm X-T3, so with version 3.1 we
have integration with gimbal systems. Enter the Zhiyun Weebill-S. So I've had my
eye on this little fellow for months now and online reviewers have all said
pretty much the same thing. It's the perfect gimbal with its nice small sleek
design, it's strong motors it's underslung handle, the motion lapse
trajectory and the image transmission system. It all sounded really cool.
So when Zhiyun reached out for a partnership on this video, I said yes
because I really wanted to test out the integration with Fujifilm and see how
well it worked, test out all the features and report to
you guys how it performed. This is my honest feedback and if the product
hadn't lived up to the hype I would have sent it back weeks ago and we wouldn't
be sitting here now. I've been pretty happy with the Weebill-S this far.
That said, the integration is only about 75% complete since all this
functionality is new there's still some wrinkles to be ironed out in this
version of the firmware. Things like the aperture control and the shutter speed
control while in video mode.Those don't actually work yet but it's safe to
assume that since the ball is rolling on this integration we will see full
functionality in the near future. But for now we have start and stop record. We
have autofocus trigger. We have ISO control. Those are all working like a
charm in video mode and a big bonus that I discovered: you may have noticed the X-T4
sitting here. It has this new functionality built in and what's more
is that the flip out screen actually clears the motor arm so that's not an
issue and and the motors are actually strong enough so that
you don't have to rebalance the whole system when the screen comes out. So all
this is really good news for Fujifilm shooters. If you already have the Weebill-S
or you plan on getting one to use with yourX-T3 or X-T4, be sure to upgrade the
Weebill-S to the latest firmware and then when you go into camera settings, Fuji
should come up as a camera option. In photo mode we get grip control of the
shutter speed the ISO and the exposure compensation. There's also a focus
trigger and of course image capture on the movie side. We're currently just
getting start stop record and adjustments like ISO and autofocus
trigger but those limitations don't bother me because honestly when I'm
shooting video I'm not fiddling with that stuff. If I'm gonna change the
exposure I'll twist the variable ND on the front of the lens. So it would be
nice to have the full functionality but honestly it's not bothering me at all.
But yeah the footage that I'm getting with my X-T3 and 4 on this gimbal has
been really nice.
As far as the hardware goes I can vouch that the build quality is really nice.
The way it feels in the hand the overall design and the function is top-notch
with high quality materials. I love the portability it fits very nicely in my
backpack and for traveling it's really convenient. It's great that I can
stand it up on its own. The mini tripod base is really handy. Balancing the
gimbal is really easy once you've done it a few times. These lock switches are
really useful for balancing and for traveling with it. Basically it makes it
so that the gimbal arms don't flop around.
I like the battery setup.They're right here in this center compartment.
I do wish that you could plug the unit directly into USB for charging but the
battery life is has been pretty good. Although if you do have the motor
strength turned up to maximum, the strong setting, it lasts not nearly as
long as even just the the middle setting. Another bonus is that you can get backup
batteries on Amazon for actually really cheap. So the battery situation is good.
Well there are a slew of YouTube videos already out there covering the Weebill-S
modes but I'll just go over them real briefly. This is vortex mode, obviously. We
have underslung mode if we take the handle off put it up here. It's
underslung for low angle shots or just general carrying purposes. Default modes
are pan follow mode which is with the switch up. And pan follow, it's just as it
sounds. You can turn it left to right and it will follow your pan. With the L which
is the switch down, stands for lock mode. So in that mode the camera will stay
facing forward in any direction that you turn it or move it. One pretty cool thing
is that in pan follow mode or lock mode you can just manually grab it and set it
to whatever position you want it'll stay there. A double tap on the trigger button
will just reset it. Speaking of the trigger button, if we give it a triple
tap it will flip around into selfie mode. We also have the go mode for getting
quicker motions and capturing action. A POV
mode, so what that is gonna do is just kind of simulate an actual point of
view of a person. It'll roll side to side a little bit,
it'll look down. Okay and so another feature that I'm really stoked on is the
motion lapse trajectory. So you go into the ZY Play app to set that up and
basically what it lets you do is point your camera into the night sky, you set
these waypoints and set your interval and your shutter speed and it will track
these points in the night sky and create a motion moving time-lapse. Like it's
amazing. I could do an entire video on the image transmission module so if
that's something you're interested let me know down in the comments but so
basically what that does is it syncs the image signal through the HDMI wirelessly
to your phone and then you can sync the motion of your phone with the gimbal so
that as you're moving your phone the gimbal is moving along with it. It's
a pretty dang cool feature again let me know if that's something you're
interested in. Okay so one more little nugget that I'll share with you guys
before I go. I have added a Manfrotto base plate attachment onto this gimbal
right here I will link to it down in the description below. So basically what that
lets me do is like I just demonstrated pop it off set it onto a tripod, really
quickly I can put it back on here and every time I take it off and put it back
on I don't have to rebalance the gimbal. It's a beautiful thing! Okay guys
well that about wraps it up if you enjoyed any of this information found it
useful please subscribe smash that like button. Let me know if you plan on using
an X-T3 or X-T4 with the Weebill-S. I'd love to hear your feedback. Until next
time get outside and get creative and I'll see you down the road!