A Gimbal With A Flip Out Screen?! | Zhiyun Weebill 2: Should You Get It?

I've actually been using Zhiyun gimbals for a very long time, starting for the first ever Zhiyun Crane v1.0, which I still have. This is the first version that I switched to from the DJI Ronin M. if you remember that gimbal from maybe 2014 or 2015. I can't remember exactly.

But once I switched to these ones, I found that I liked the form factor, and Zhiyun has been getting considerably better at keeping their gimbals compact and increasing the power of their motors.

Zhiyun released about a month ago this Weebill 2, and one of the really cool things about it or one of the cool gimmicky things about it is that it has a flip-out screen. Not even my main camera, that Sony A73 has a flip-out screen, so that's pretty cool, but a little bit more about this flip-out screen later on in the video.

A little fun fact about this Weebill 2 is that I did not purchase it, nor did Weebill send it to me. Well, they kind of did.

Let's talk about some of the specs on this gimbal. This gimbal is a very compact gimbal, and it comes with a payload of 3.3 kgs or 7.3 lbs.

It handles my A73 with the Tamron 28-75 Zoom lens F2.8 quite well, even though that lens is a little bit on the longer side.

The gimbal weighs 1.47 kgs or about 3.2 lbs, which makes it slightly heavier than the Weebill S. According to Zhiyun, this gimbal has an improved sensor for better stability.

The battery runtime is about 9 hours if you're not using the flip-out screen constantly. If you're using it, you will probably get a little bit less. If you do quick-charging on this gimbal, you're able to charge the battery fully in about 1.5 hours, so that's pretty good.

With the Weebill 2, the good thing is that you also get a USB-C charging port so you can keep it charged and plugged in if you're not using it.

One really cool thing I like about the Weebill 2 is that it has a locking mechanism on all its axes, and this makes it easy for you to just pop it into your backpack or camera back without worrying about rebalancing your camera.

This gimbal also comes with the 501 Manfrotto PL plate and also a little riser if you need a little bit more room to mount your follow focus.

You're able to switch to underslung mode very easily with the optional extra grip of the Weebill 2.

The base model one only comes with the tripod legs, so if you wanted to switch to undersling mode, you will have to go and unscrew the knob and screw it back up. That would take a little bit of time.

You could either just get yourself an extra grip, so that you could have the two on both sides, so you can quickly switch back and forth between undersling and regular.

If you have an older gimbal like me with the Zhiyun Crane, I can just grab the legs and attach it to the bottom of the gimbal because it's the same tripod thread. Now, you don't have to get yourself an extra grip. You can save yourself some money. You can also use this as a tripod stand if you want to lay down and you can quickly switch to undersling mode really quickly.

One very useful thing about the Weebill 2 is that all of the controls are on one side of the gimbal, and to me that makes it very easy and very intuitive to reach all the controls on one side. I can grip the gimbal pretty comfortably with all the buttons in here.

You get your power button. You get your record button. You're able to switch between three gimbal modes: pan follow, lock, and follow modes. There is a useful switch if you want to quickly switch between these three modes, so you don't have to go into the app or into the flip-out screen to switch modes.

But if you wanted to go into one of the other modes, you will have to go into the app or the flip-out screen to switch into the other modes like POV or Vortex mode, for example.

You also get a joystick, which you can quickly access with your thumb as you're holding the Weebill 2. I really like the joystick as well. It's a lot easier to use compared to other Zhiyun gimbals, and even to some of them that did not have a joystick, but had a weird sort of flat joystick.

On this gimbal, you also get a control wheel, which lets you control either focus adjustments on the roll axis, aperture, ISO, or Zoom.

You also get a trigger at the front of the gimbal. This allows you to enable or disable smart follow if you're using the image transmission module.

In my opinion, this is the most revolutionary part of this gimbal. After using this gimbal for about a week now, I actually have to say that I really like the flip-out screen.

It's a touchscreen, and I like that can easily adjust and enter all of my settings on the gimbal without having to go through the Bluetooth app on my phone.

Even with the previous Zhiyun gimbals that I've used, I never like to access the Bluetooth app because it would just slow me down in a running gun-shooting scenario, and sometimes, I would get connection problems.

This screen also works as an external monitor, believe it or not. The drawback is, though, that you need to get yourself the image transmission module and you need to get the new one, not the older one that they have, because apparently, it's not compatible with the Weebill 2.

That's another useful function to have for this flip-out screen if you do not have a flip-out screen on your camera, or if you do not want to mount the bigger external monitors on your gimbal, you can just go ahead and get yourself the image transmission module and use this small screen as your external monitor.

In terms of offering, Zhiyun offers this gimbal and a bunch of combos. The first one is just the base standard one, which is just the gimbal and comes with a few cables. It only comes with one tabletop tripod stand grip. The base model starts at about $549 (prices may change). If you pay a little bit more and get the pro combo, you get the image transmission module as well.

All in all, I can say that the Weebill 2 is a very solid gimbal, very compact, very robust, and it's very user friendly in my opinion.