Zhiyun Weebill 2 Review: Superb Stabilization and the Largest Gimbal Touch Screen

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The Zhiyun Weebill 2 offers a professional camera gimbal set-up while focusing on both the user experience and improving its technology offerings. With its redesign centered around its new full-color touch screen, we’ll look at how successfully the Weebill 2 streamlines its features.

Zhiyun Weebill 2 Design Ergonomics

Zhiyun have been very careful to preserve the familiar elements that worked on the Weebil S while optimizing for improved usability. Towards this end, Zhiyun went with a more ergonomic-focused redesign that tries to improve on seemingly weaker areas.

For the Weebill 2’s grip materials, Zhiyun has opted to utilize silicon for a better grip at both the base handle and for the sling grip handle accessory.

When using the Weebill 2, you can either hold the camera gimbal in a standard upright position or utilize its sling mode for lower shots. If you’re swapping between shooting styles or filming longer, the silicon’s rubbered texture provided a comfortable and much firmer grip. While you can utilize the tripod’s feet as an extended and sturdier grip, this material change felt better regardless.

Another major focus area of the Weebill 2 is the three respective axes. To help get newer users acquainted and as a stylish touch, Zhiyun has now labeled all three axis motors on the Weebill 2. They’ve also opted to change the axis lock style on the Weebill 2.

Now with Zhiyun’s camera gimbals, figuring out ways to improve these locks to keep everything secured in transit is always paramount. In this area, they’ve succeeded beautifully as barely any motion can be felt when testing the locked axes. However, the actual design of the axis locks feels a step backward.

Each axis lock is controlled by a small gray shell-like seamless lock. This redesign from a two-way lock appears to be a cost-cutting measure or an attempt to simplify the locking process. In practice, this much smaller lock takes more effort to get a grip on and requires more focus to make sure it’s secure.

Utilizing the Impressive 2.88″ Touch Screen

Rather than sticking with the OLED display screen, the Weebill 2 has opted to go with a fully retractable, flip-out touch screen. This 2.88″ full-color screen serves as the centerpiece of the Weebill 2 design; it provides quick access to all the essentials. At the top of the screen, it displays the Weebill 2’s battery life, the current gimbal mode, and whether a camera is currently connected.

Across the four menu categories, there’s a mixture of tweakable settings and active uses. You can change gimbal modes, customize parameters of the gimbal, or access the ability to record a motion lapse or time-lapse. For those that have mounted the TransMount Image Transmission AI version, you can also swipe down to access image transmission and enable SmartFollow.

At its core, the 2.88″ touch screen provides an easy way to make adjustments quickly without fiddling with an app or having to tap through a lengthy menu. Simply utilize it as needed; you’re free to tuck away the touch screen until later.

Do Fewer Buttons on the Weebill 2 Improve Usability?

As a byproduct of the touch screen, Zhiyun was able to reduce the number of buttons on the Weebill 2. Previously, the Weebill S’s buttons wrapped around the product; you had to contend with several spread-out short-cut keys. With the Weebill 2, Zhiyun instead condensed all but its trigger switch to one side of the gimbal.

With the trigger button at the front, you can single press to enable SmartFollow, double-press to reposition, triple press for selfie mode, or hold and press to stay in POV mode. Meanwhile, at the side, there’s a joystick, power button, record button, mode switch, and control wheel. Like the trigger button, the power and record buttons support multiple commands.

With this closely clustered button layout, the Weebill 2 also supports one-handed usage. So if you need to make a quick tweak, every button is within quick reach of each other.

Expanded Versatility With the Weebill 2 Control Wheel

With the Weebill 2, additional control wheel customizations are available. As always, what camera you have connected to the Weebill 2 will support different degrees of functionality here. Previously you could just control the electronic focus of your camera or the focus and zoom of the focus-zoom control motor (when equipped).

However, now there’s also the option to adjust your roll setting as well as adjust aperture, ISO, and shutter on supported cameras. With the ability to swap between each of these settings quickly with the touch screen, it’s really easy to fine-tune during moments you can’t touch the camera itself. While not super critical, the roll setting option offers some added functionality for less supported cameras.

Battery Life and Charging With the Weebill 2

While the Weebill S had a runtime of twelve hours, the Weebill 2 has a max runtime of nine hours. Despite this downgrade in overall operation time, the Weebill 2 has two power advantages.

First off, the Weebill 2 can charge in as little as 1.6 hours via USB PD at 24W 15V. To achieve this, you’ll need to provide your own PD charging port or wall charger.

Secondly, you don’t have to deal with any external batteries. The Weebill 2 charges via a USB-C port at its base. So if you need to extend your runtime, you can charge the Weebill 2 during operation with a portable power bank or power station as necessary.

Utilizing Popular Modes With the Weebill 2

The Weebill 2 features a variety of creative gimbal modes to explore. There are the standard Pan-follow, Lock, Follow, POV, Go, and Vortex modes. However, there’s also a one-button Portrait mode that allows for quick vertical shooting for the likes of TikTok and Instagram Reels.

As a comparison, to obtain a similar shot on the Crane 2S, it required you to remount your camera in a specific vertical mounting slot. However, the Weebill 2 can take full advantage of its two-style shooting.

With the inclusion of the touch screen, mode switch, and POV trigger switch amongst the buttons on the Weebill 2, there’s plenty of options to quickly jump between its common modes too.

Using the Weebill 2 and Camera Compatibility

While a large touch screen and usability improvements are great, you ultimately want optimal stabilization from a gimbal foremost. For the Weebill 2, Zhiyun has utilized a new Infineon chip and algorithm to bring improved stabilization and responsiveness. And I’m here to say in testing that it’s delivered on some of the smoothest footage yet. Be sure to watch the review video to see some sample shots.

As always, you’ll need to make sure you properly balance all your axes. You’ll also want to try the different defaults or customize the smoothness parameter via the touch screen. With some parameter tweaks plus the lightweight feel and easy-grip of the Weebill 2, it’s much easier to position for shots as well as maintain them.

The Weebill 2 also supports a payload of 4 KG, so you can expect it to support a majority of popular cameras on the market. Zhiyun’s compatibility list, regardless, is a good first step because you’ll want to see what features are supported with the Weebill 2.

Should You Buy the Zhiyun Weebill 2?

With the Weebill 2, Zhiyun has taken feedback to heart and provided a rich user experience full of many technical upsides. Despite a largely positive offering, whether you buy the Weebill 2 should largely depend on your budget and your need for stabilized footage. It’s a professional tool foremost with expandable support accessories to unlock its full potential.

But if you’re ready to upgrade your footage to the next echelon, consider the Weebill 2.

Source: makeuseof.com