The Best Gimbal For Sony A7RIII Cameras And The Rest Of The A7 Series!

So the Sony A7 series of mirrorless cameras is without a doubt one of the most popular series of mirrorless cameras on the market right now and it has an absolutely huge customer base from the videography, photography and vlogging communities. As with any camera range with a massive user base, we are constantly seeing people reaching out and asking for advice on the best gimbal for Sony A7Riii as well as various other cameras from the Sony A7 range.

Due to this, we have decided to publish this article to cover what we feel is the best gimbal for the Sony A7 range and try to help any of our readers who own an A7 camera and are looking to add a gimbal to their camera accessories. Now, the majority of the cameras in the Sony A7 range come in with a camera bodyweight of around 1.44 pounds without having any accessories mounted to the camera at all.

Although this is heavy by mirrorless camera standards, thankfully, most of the accessories that are commonly used with the Sony A7Riii and the other cameras from the A7 range are pretty lightweight. This makes the latest generation of mirrorless camera gimbals perfect for use with the range and ensures that are able to provide you with some excellent image stabilization.

We have settled on what we feel are the three best gimbals for Sony A7 cameras on the market right now and compared them all to each other in the comparison table below. Just beneath the table, we have a short breakdown of why we have decided to feature each gimbal and then the rest of the article is content going in-depth of each gimbal and what it is able to provide for your Sony A7Riii or other A7 camera.

Comparison Table

Last update on 2023-09-11 / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

First up we have the new kid on the block, the Zhiyun Weebill Lab that we absolutley love and feel that it has managed to blog the rest of the gimbals designed for use with mirrorless cameras out the water. That said, it does have a slightly different design to what people will be used to when it comes to handheld gimbal stabilizers and although most people seem to like it, we have seen a few people saying they do not like the new design.

Next up we have the Zhiyun Crane Plus, the Crane Plus took over from the Zhiyun Crane v2 as the dominant gimbal in the mirrorless camera space and the Zhiyun Weebill Lab above has taken over from the Crane Plus. Although the Weebill Lab does have some slightly better features, the Crane Plus has that traditional handheld gimbal system that we have seen a number of people say that they prefer over the newer systems.

Finally, we have the DJI Ronin SC that is essentially the little brother of the DJI Ronin S. With the Ronin S dominating the DSLR camera gimbal market, DJI wanted to try their hand at dominating the mirrorless camera market with the Ronin SC.

Unfortunately for DJI, Zhiyun were looking to strengthen their position in the mirrorless camera market and both the Crane Plus and Weebill Lab ended up outperforming the Ronin SC while also coming in at a cheaper price point. That said though, there are a large number of videographers who prefer to use the DJI range and the Ronin SC is still an excellent gimbal in its own right.

The Zhiyun Weebill Lab

Now, like we said, the Zhiyun Weebill Lab has the new super compact travel gimbal design and is perfect for the vast majority of Sony A7Riii setups and should easily be able to meet your needs. With it being the latest release from the world-renowned Zhiyun brand, the Weebill Lab has all of the latest technology, hardware, and gimbal modes to ensure that you get the very best performance from it as possible.

In addition to this, the great performance, ease of use, low price, and solid build quality of the Weebill Lab have ensured that it has managed to quickly earn itself a great reputation within the community that is growing at a rapid pace as time goes on. Additionally, as more and more people get used to the new design of the Weebill Lab, we can only see it becoming more and more popular within both the videography and vlogging communities as time goes on and people realize how great this handheld gimbal really is.

Performance And Functionality

Now, like we said, the Sony A7Riii and the rest of the Sony A7 camera series comes in at around 1.44 pounds of payload weight for just the camera body alone. The Weebill Lab offers a massive maximum load capacity of 6.6 pounds that is revolutionary for the tiny size of the gimbal but a small number of Sony A7Riii setups may come in over the 6.6 pounds of payload weight mark. If this is the case for you, then you should probably go with the DJI Ronin S as it is designed for use with DSLR cameras and super heavy loads.

That said though, we would imagine that the majority of our readers will be fine with the Weebill Lab and that most of your camera setups will be well under the 6.6-pound load capacity limit. Even though the Weebill Lab is a small 3 axis gimbal, it has been designed to ensure that larger cameras with longer and heavier lenses like the Sony A7Riii are able to get a full range of movement when mounted to it to ensure the best possible performance.

When it comes to power, the Zhiyun Weebill Lab can provide you a maximum battery life of around ten hours for each full charge of its batteries. This is a pretty consistent ten hours of battery life too meaning even if you do use a heavy camera like the Sony A7Riii and use a large amount of the payload of the gimbal, you can still expect close to the ten hours of battery life mark.

You can also top the gimbal up via a high capacity power bank while you are out and about too. That said though, the power banks for mobile phones will be pretty useless so we would recommend that you get one specifically designed for use with laptops if you do want to use it for topping up your gimbal batteries. When you plug the gimbal into a regular mains power wall outlet, you are able to charge it back to full in around 3 hours ensuing you minimize your downtime.

We love the YouTube video that we have embeded above as we think it does an excellent job of showing off exactly what the Zhiyun Weebill Lab gimbal stabilizer is able to provide for you. It makes effortless work of even heavy camera rigs like the ones common with the Sony A7Riii as well as the other Sony A7 series cameras and ensures you get the best possible image stabilization that it can provide.

As we mentioned at the start of the article, the Weebill Lab also has all of the latest technology and hardware from Zhiyun too. Although the vast majority of it is also available in the Zhiyun Crane Plus that we will cover below, one new mode on the Weebill Lab is its vortex mode. It allows you to get your Sony A7Riii to pull a barrel roll movement when recording to allow you to capture some pretty unique clips.

The rest of the gimbal modes on the Weebill Lab are outstanding as you would expect from the latest generation of Zhiyun gimbals. The manual mode and point of view mode are able to help you capture some natural looking footage while the intelligent image tracking mode is outstanding and can really help you during your videography sessions.

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User Interface And Control System

Please note that the smartphone mount shown in the image above has to be purchased separately if you do not buy one of the Weebill Lab packs with it included. The gimbal performs well without it anyway, it just makes some of the modes for the gimbal that little easier to control.

Anyway, the actual control interface on the Weebill Lab is based around the standard LCE panel, joystick, and button system that has been tried, tested, and perfected over the years. The system is extremely easy to use and will ensure that you are able to quickly and easily get to grips with the Weebill Lab even if you have never used a gimbal before.

That said, if you are a more experienced videographer as we would expect many Sony A7Riii to be, you will find that the control interface allows you to customize the performance of the gimbal to meet your needs too. This ensures that no matter if you are an entry-level or professional videographer, the control interface for the Weebill Lab should be able to ensure you get the very best out of it no matter what you need.

The Smartphone App

Thankfully, the Zhiyun smartphone app has been totally overhauled with the release of the Weebill Lab and Zhiyun Crane 3 as both gimbals offer some increased functionality when used with the free app. This overhaul has fixed the connectivity issues that had previously plagued the Zhiyun app and turned it into a valuable gimbal accessory.

Not only does it offer some great wireless remote control functionality but it also allows you to easily tweak key gimbal settings while also allowing you to set up the intelligent image tracking mode quickly. All in all, it is a great bit of kit since the rework and is well worth downloading and adding to your phone.

Build Quality And Design

As we mentioned, the Weebill Lab has a totally new design and the majority of people who have tried the gimbal seem to have come around and realized that it is better. Now only is it smaller, lighter, easier to use, and easier to store but it still offers your Sony A7Riii a full range of movement for optimal performance even if you use a long lens with it.

When it comes to the build quality of the Weebill Lab, it should be no surprise that it is second to none. Zhiyun has compounded all of their knowledge that they have built up regarding building gimbals over the last ten years and put it into the Weebill Lab to produce the best gimbal possible. As we said above, it is small, lightweight, and easy to store for transit or storage but it is also surprisingly robust and lightweight too.

Our Verdict

The Zhiyun Weebill Lab is an excellent bit of kit and Zhiyun have done an excellent job of putting together the best mirrorless camera gimbal that we have seen to date. Its low price tag also means that it is also a budget gimbal for Sony A7Riii too as you don’t have to break the bank when picking it up while still getting the best performance on the market.

Since its release, the Weebill Lab has gained a large following with many choosing to post thir own independent reviews of the gimbal online that may be worth reading. Either way, the Weebill Lab will definatley improve the image quality that you can capture when using your Sony A7Riii and make a great addition to your camera accessories.

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The Zhiyun Crane Plus

Next up on our list of gimbals for Sony A7Riii and other Sony A7 cameras is the Zhiyun Crane Plus that is actually a generation behind the Zhiyun Weebill Lab covered above but still offers some excellent performance as well as that more commonly used designed that some videographers and vloggers prefer.

Zhiyun were previously dominating the mirrorless camera gimbal niche with their Zhiyun Crane v2 before they decided to upgrade the gimbal and release the Crane Plus before upgrading again to the Weebill Lab. Either way, for the last five to seven years, Zhiyun has been the dominant brand in the mirrorless camera gimbal niche and we can’t see this changing any time soon.

Although the Crane Plus is from the previous generation of gimbals, it is still growing its customer base at a solid pace due to its low price tag, excellent performance, extremely long battery life, and great build quality. This has earned the gimbal an excellent reputation amongst videographers that is still growing today even though the Weebill Lab is on the market.

Performance And Functionality

When it comes to performance, we would still rate the Crane Plus as an easy second place behind the Weebill Lab when compared to what the other mirrorless camera weight class gimbals are able to provide you for your money. It is easily able to support a maximum load capacity of around the 5.5-pound mark meaning that even with the 1.44-pound weight of your Sony A7Riii with the weight of any accessories you use added on, it should easily be able to provide you with the image stabilization that you need.

As we mentioned above, the Crane Plus is a total beast when it comes to battery life and is able to provide you with up to eighteen hours of power per charge of the gimbals batteries. At the time of writing, this is by far the longest battery life gimbal that we are aware of and offers some advantages for travel vloggers or videographers who may be unable to recharge their gear for a few days.

That said though, you can use a power bank to top up your Crane Plus batteries when out and about if needed. Additionally, the Crane Plus can also be recharged back to full from being totally empty in only three hours ensuring that you have minimal downtime when on your videography sessions.

Now, the clips above are by far our favorite cinematic video that was recorded using the Crane Plus 3 axis gimbal stabilizer and we feel it shows off the quality of the image stabilization that it is able to provide for you. You can see how smooth and clean the video footage is and how it helps to improve the image quality of the overall video without having that robotic footage look that some gimbals can provide.

Like we mentioned earlier, other than the vortex mode and slightly different gimbal motors, the Crane Plus has all the latest technology from Zhiyun in it that the Weebill Lab has. This includes their updated balancing algorithm, their overhauled point of view mode, the new night lapse mode, the updated motion memory mode, and the excellent intelligent object tracking system too.

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User Interface And Control System

The control system is pretty much the exact same as the previous generations of the Zhiyun Crane range that allows you to quickly and easily control the gimbal as required. The whole system is based around you using your thumb to control the gimbal controls while the rest of your hand is free to focus on actually supporting your gimbal and Sony A7Riii rig.

Again, the system is very easy to learn making it an ideal gimbal for any first-time gimbal owner while also offering the same advanced control and customization via the smartphone app for advanced users. All in all, a great control interface that some other brands would do well to add to their own gimbals to be able to target both entry-level and professional level videographers and vloggers with the same gimbal.

The Smartphone App

The Crane Plus uses the exact same Zhiyun smartphone app that the Weebill Lab does so everything we said above about the Zhiyun app rings true here. Thankfully, the app is now in a useable state making it actually worthwhile downloading as back when the Crane Plus was released last year, the app could barley connect to any of the Zhiyun gimbals and if it did, there was a high chance it would just randomly disconnect.

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Build Quality And Design

The design of the crane plus is the same as the majority of the previous Zhiyun Crane gimbal range based around the standard popular handheld gimbal design that has been used for the last decade or so. This is probably the main reason that the Crane Plus is still selling so well even though the updated Zhiyun Weebill Lab is on the market. Some people just prefer to use a gimbal whos design they are familiar with and the Crane Plus offers this making it an easy transition over from any other gimbals the videographer may have used previously.

The build quality is as great as ever with the Crane Plus being a tough bit of kit that can take any knocks coming its way when it is in use or in transit without breaking. Although we would have previously considered the Crane Plus to be a lightweight gimbal, the Weebill Lab is much lighter but we still feel the majority of our readers would be able to hold the Crane Plus with their Sony A7Riii setup mounted to it for long durations with ease.

Our Verdict

The Crane Plus is an established gimbal with plenty of third-party reviews that you can read if you wish. The gimbal offers you some excellent image quality via its great image stabilization and can easily make a great addition to your collection of Sony A7Riii camera accessories.

Although we would still recommend that you go with the Zhiyun Weebill Lab over the Crane Plus, we understand that some people just prefer the traditional handheld gimbal design making the Crane Plus ideal for them. When it comes to performance, the Crane Plus is a very close second behind the Weebill Lab anyway and an ideal choice for most Sony A7Riii setups.

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The DJI Ronin SC

The final gimbal that we will be featuring on our list is the DJI Ronin SC that is easily the third best gimbal for the Sony A7Riii and any other Sony A7 series cameras but we just feel it is overpriced considering that it supports a lower payload than the two Zhiyun gimbals above while having almost identical performance.

That said, there are a large number of videographers who prefer to use DJI and the Ronin SC is an excellent gimbal in its own right. It offers some solid performance as well as some great versatility with a solid build quality. Even with its high price tag, the Ronin SC has been able to quickly earn a reputation for itself that is steadily growing amongst videographers.

Performance And Functionality

When it comes to performance, the Ronin SC has the lowest maximum load capacity of all three of our featured gimbals for Sony A7Riii cameras coming in at only 4.4 pounds. That said, we are still confident that it will be able to support the payload of many Sony A7Riii camera rigs but if you do like to use heavier accessories then either of the Zhiyun gimbals above or the Ronin SC’s big brother, the DJI Ronin S will probably be better options due to their larger load capacities.

The Ronin SC supports a maximum battery life of around eleven hours and again, it does a pretty solid job of ensuring that you get those eleven hours no matter how much of its load capacity that you use up with your camera rig. When the gimbal does run empty, you can recharge it back to full via a mains power outlet in only two and a half hours offering the shortest recharge time of all three featured gimbals.

The video above showcases exactly what the DJI Ronin SC is able to do for you and shows off the levels of image stabilization that the gimbal is able to provide for you and your Sony A7Riii. As you can see, the image stabilization is excellent and the handheld gimbal makes light work of the camera rig to ensure that it provides quick and responsive adjustments to movement to ensure you get the best possible image quality when recording.

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User Interface And Control System

The user interface system on the Ronin SC is very similar to the ones on its big brother the Ronin S as well as the Zhiyun Crane Plus too. It is very easy to pick up for anyone who has never used a gimbal stabilizer before while also offering some great advanced customization for any experienced gimbal users too.

The Smartphone App

In our opinion, the DJI smartphone app is in a league of its own and leads the pack of gimbal apps with no real competition for the top spot. Even after Zhiyun has updated their app so much, it is still nowhere near the quality of the DJI app in our book. The app is so easy to navigate that connects directly to your gimbal without issue making the whole process very easy to use.

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Build Quality And Design

As we mentioned earlier, the Ronin SC is essentially a smaller, lighter version of the Ronin S targeted towards the mirrorless camera market. The design concept of both of the gimbals is very similar and the Ronin SC has the normal professional level finish that you would expect from a DJI product.

The build quality of the Ronin SC is outstanding and DJI has done a great job in putting this great little handheld gimbal togeather. It is as tough as you would expect and pretty lightweight too coming in between the Weebill Lab and Crane plus when it comes to gimbal weight.

Our Verdict

Now, the DJI Ronin SC is a very popular gimbal with a large user base and plenty of independent reviews but in our opinion, it is simply overpriced for what you actually get for your money. In our opinion, either the Zhiyun Weebill Lab or the Zhiyun Crane Plus would be better additions to your Sony A7Riii camera accessories due to their lower price tags and larger maximum load capacities. All three gimbals have very similar levels of image stabilization with very similar levels of image quality support so we see no reason to spend the additional money.

Additionally, if you are interested in a manual camera stabilizer over a motorized gimbal unit then we also have our article on what we feel is the best Steadicam for Sony A7 cameras too. We usually recommend that our readers go with a motorized gimbal over a Steadicam style unit as the modern gimbals also provide the natural-looking image stabilization that Steadicams provide in addition to the advantages of a gimbal too.