First Gimbal with a HUGE Screen _ Zhiyun Weebill 2 Review

By now we had all sorts of gimbals with all kinds of features, but Zhiyun is the first one to ever put a massive 2.88 flip out touchscreen onto one. So let me show you what the all-new Weebill 2 has in store for us and what else is new about it. What up guys, welcome back to another episode. My name is Eddy Bear and today we take a look at Zhiyun's new mid-tier gimbal, the Weebill 2. With it, Zhiyun implemented a bunch of bold design changes, so I will give you an overview what comes with it, what performance you can expect from it, and what features it has in store for you. The Weebill 2 can carry a payload of about 3 kilos and it's supposed to have a battery runtime of about 9 hours without the use of any accessories. To see what accessories are available, let me show you what comes with this combo package here. And full disclosure, Zhiyun was kind enough to supply me with this unit, so I can show it to you. Thanks Zhiyun for making this video possible. One positive thing I want to point out right away is the fact that Zhiyun is not using any kind of unnecessary foam for their packaging. In fact, I prefer these multifunctional carrying cases over the old foamed ones every day of the week. Even the first compartment alone gives you more than enough space to store additional accessories for the Weebill 2. In this one you can find the tripod mount and the additional sling grip, since this is the combo package. In the second compartment, safely tucked away, you can find the Weebill 2. A prominent design change on the Weebill 2 is how the controls are organized. Instead of being aligned in the center of the gimbal, they can all be found on the left side of the grip. Every axis comes with a separate lock, so this makes transport, storage, and balancing of the gimbal easier. Aside from its design, the new flip-out 2.88-inch touchscreen of the Weebill 2 is also unique to the gimbal market, and we are going to talk about it in a minute. In the box you can also find the Zhiyun camera plate and the lens support, which is mandatory if you're a proud owner of a Canon EOS R or an R5, an assortment of cables to connect your camera to the gimbal, and a camera riser plate. By the way, the unfolding front compartment of the bag also contains a shoulder strap. The Weebill 2 would not be a Zhiyun gimbal without the grip for low-angle shots. To mount it, we only need an allen key. Take the sling grip, open the lock mechanism, push the release button, and remove the mounting plate. Now install the mounting plate right next to the display in the thread. Slide the grip onto the mounting plate and make sure to lock both of the locking mechanisms. Circling back to the display, it can be adjusted in a 75 degrees range with three hard stops at 0, 45, and 75 degrees. There are two significant changes I'm excited about with the Weebill 2. One being the built-in battery. This makes its footprint smaller, but at the same time, if you run out of charge, you won't be able to just switch out the battery. Zhiyun therefore made sure to equip the Weebill 2 with a USB-C quick charge capability that fully charges it within one and a half hours. The second big change is the industry-leading 2.88 inch flip out touch screen. This screen not only lets you adjust every possible setting of the Weebill 2, but also serves as a video monitor where you can check your footage and see Zhiyun's smart follow in action. However, if you're a proud owner of a Zhiyun Image Transmission Transmitter 2.0, you should not plan on using it on the Weebill 2. In order to fully leverage the 2.88 inch flip out touch screen, you need to have also the new Zhiyun Image Transmission Transmitter AI. I tried the 2.0 and it doesn't work. Since Zhiyun so far is not selling the AI transmitter separately, I highly recommend you to at least go for the Weebill Pro package which comes with the AI transmitter. Zhiyun told me once there are more units available, they will make the AI transmitter available for purchase separately. You can easily switch between the different stabilization modes through the flip out screen, but you can override them with the mode switch located next to the record button. This switch only offers you access to pan follow, lock and follow mode. You can access more features through the flip out screen, but more about that in a minute. The control wheel has a nice resistance and has enough texture everywhere so you can precisely control it no matter how you hold the gimbal. Something I'm not happy about is how the buttons are arranged for starters. It's impossible to pull focus and adjust framing with just one hand. In order to do that, you have to engage in a weird dual hand control grip which is super heavy and uncomfortable. In general, I feel they could move all the buttons a bit closer towards the joystick. This would make it easier to control for people like me with smaller hands while still leave enough space to rest your thumb. I also should point out that this gimbal is meant to be mainly controlled with your left hand. If you're used to adjust framing etc with your right hand, you will find yourself in a pickle. Now let's take a look at the flip out screen of the Weebill 2 and see what it can actually do for you. When you power up the Weebill 2 after holding the power button, it will take the gimbal a few seconds to boot up. By the way, the usage of the flip out screen is optional. You can also adjust all the settings of the Weebill 2 with the help of your smartphone through the app. Let me begin this overview by pointing out that if your camera is connected correctly to the Weebill 2, you will get a little camera symbol in the top left corner indicating that you can control the camera through the Weebill 2. The menu is quite simple and well organized into four sections. You can either select them directly or scroll through the whole menu in order to select the individual settings. Under mode settings, you can choose between seven different operational modes. Pan follow mode, lock mode, follow mode, point of view, short POV mode, portrait mode, go mode, and last but not least, the infamous vortex mode. By the way, portrait mode, which I would love to call bazooka mode, can be comfortably shouldered thanks to the Weebill sling grip. By the way, here's a pro tip for you. If you successfully want to connect your camera to the Weebill 2, make sure you're using the USB-C connector on the inside of the tilt arm. By heading over to balance check, you can easily spot which of your axes may be off balance. If you don't see any colorful bars, you're perfectly balanced. Otherwise, you will have to rebalance your gimbal. Under advanced features, you can choose between a variety of creative shooting options like time lapse, motion lapse, panorama, and v-mode. In the parameter settings, you can further adjust or optimize your shooting preferences by adjusting things like motor settings, smoothness, follow speed, joystick responsiveness, and deadband. Also easily accessible is the auto calibration feature which should be conducted every time you change something on your setup. You also can control the assigned ability of the control wheel. You can choose between roll, aperture, ISO, shutter, electronic focus, or follow focus or zoom motor control. You also can adjust the follow focus motor and the zoom motor settings, fine-tune the roll and tilt axes, change the language, pull some device information, and you can enable that the video transmitter is being charged while connected. I know this recording doesn't show it too well, but its brightness and size makes it really easy to control and use even in brightest daylight. After you adjusted all your settings to your liking, you can tuck the display away safely and you don't have to use it if you don't want to. So what is there overall to say about the Weebill 2? I do like the fact that Zhiyun was brave enough to try a radical new design and still keep the gimbal lightweight and compact. Especially in combination with the sling grip, we still have the comfortable way of achieving super low angle shots, while paired with the new flip out screen, you get a nice package that almost makes an external video field monitor obsolete. With that said, how do you like the Weebill 2's new design? Are you thinking about an upgrade? Let me know in the comments and if you like today's episode, do what people who like YouTube videos are supposed to do. Thank you for watching and I will see you shortly.