The Best Gimbal For Sony A6400 Cameras!
The Sony Alpha mirrorless camera range is just going from strength to strength with Sony expanding into the mirrorless camera space with more and more additions to their Alpha range. Due to this, we are seeing a steadily increasing number of people reaching out and asking for a recommendation on the best gimbal for Sony A6400 cameras. Thankfully, Zhiyun is also trying to cement their position as the dominant gimbal brand in the mirrorless camera weight class and have just released their Zhiyun Weebill S flagship handheld gimbal.
At the time of writing, the Weebill S has only been on the market for a few days and it has already managed to earn itself an excellent reputation amongst videographers and vloggers that is growing at an exponential rate. If you want the very best image stabilization available and have the budget then the Webill S is the obvious choice as it is the king of mirrorless camera gimbals by a long shot.
If you are on a tighter budget then the Zhiyun Crane Plus could be a solid budget option too but keep in mind that the Crane Plus is two generations old now whereas the Weebill S has literally just been released onto the market. That said though, back in its day, the Crane Plus was the dominant 3 axis gimbal for mirrorless cameras and managed to earn itself an excellent reputation over the years amongst videographers and vloggers.
That said though, if you are a professional level videographer or a high-level vlogger and need the best image quality possible out of your Sony a6400 then all of the latest technology on the Weebill S not only pushes it to the front of the pack but also future proofs it for years to come. As you would expect from a Zhiyun flagship gimbal, the tech on the stabilizer is well ahead of its time and is likely to keep it ahead of the competition for the foreseeable future.
Due to this, we will be taking an in-depth look at the Weebill S and what it has to offer below as we really do feel that it is the best gimbal for Sony A6400 cameras right now. If you are on a tight budget and would like to know more about the Crane Plus then we have our dedicated review of the Crane Plus or you can read third-party reviews of it from independent videographers too if you would prefer.
Performance And Functionality
In addition to this, if you think you may upgrade your lens to a heavier one in the future or even upgrade your A6400 to a heavier DSLR in the future, there is a good chance that the Weebill S will be able to support the total payload. This ensures that adding the Weebill S to your collection of camera accessories now helps to prevent you from having to upgrade your gimbal in the future if you do upgrade your kit.
Another improvement on the Weebill S over the previous Zhiyun gimbal stabilizers is that it offers a maximum battery life of up to fourteen hours with each charge. We are confident in saying that this is should be plenty for the vast majority of our readers to capture all the video they need with their A6400 before having a chance to recharge their gimbal.
On top of this, a large number of people from both the videography and vlogging communities have taken to adding a USB power bank to their camera accessories too. Depending on the output of your power bank, you can also use it to top up your gimbal’s battery during your breaks to help extend its battery even further if required.
Now, the Weebill S does come with the latest quick charge tech from Zhiyun and can be charged back to full in as little as three hours from a normal power outlet minimizing downtime. That said though if you do plan to recharge the gimbal a USB power bank then recharge times can vary widely as it will depend on the power output of your charger.
Although Zhiyun has been the dominant gimbal brand in the mirrorless camera weight class for around a decade now with their various gimbals, they keep innovating and pushing forward. With the Weebill S being their latest release, it comes with all of their latest technology that totally blows the competition out the water.
In our opinion, the predecessor to the Weebill S, the Weebill Lab was slightly better than the DJI Ronin SC but there really wasn’t much in it between the two gimbals. With the Weebill S though, the difference in performance to the Ronin SC is like night and day with the Zhiyun gimbal being way out ahead of the DJI product.
Zhiyun has also packed the Weebill S with their latest gimbal motors and gimbal sensors too helping ensure that it dominates the competition. These new gimbal motors are able to provide you with three hundred percent more torque than the gimbal motors that they used in the Weebill Lab ensuring that you get the best image stabilization possible.
The new generation of Zhiyun gimbal sensors also detects even the slightest movement before sending it off to the Zhiyun balancing algorithm to have it corrected at lighting speed. If you are working in a niche where you will be subject to lots of rapid vibrations or movements this really works to your advantage. To our knowledge, the actual balancing algorithm on the Weebill S is the same one used in both the Weebill Lab and the Zhiyun Crane 3 but we feel that it is joint top alongside the DJI algorithm at the time of writing anyway.
When you take all of this into account it really is easy to see why the Weebill S has managed to quickly establish such a large customer base in around a week. Its reputation amongst the community is still growing at an exponential rate as word gets out about its release and plenty of independent videographers and vloggers have posted their own glowing reviews of the gimbal online.
User Interface And Control System
The system is based around a variant of the traditional LCD panel, joystick, and button system that is the standard control interface for handheld gimbals these days. That said, the LCD panel is now an OLED display and the joystick has also been updated to be as sensitive as ever. If you are looking to use the gimbal in manual or point of view mode with your Sony A6400 mounted to it then the sensitivity of the joystick offers excellent control over your camera during use.
The whole control system is also just as sensitive to touch in ideal conditions as it is if you are using it with wet or cold hands too. This ensures that you have maximum control of the gimbal no matter the conditions that you are recording it. This really is one area where some competing gimbals struggle where sensitivity in the joystick can really drop off if your hands are cold but thankfully Zhiyun has ensured that this is not an issue.
Smartphone App
Thankfully, the app is now a solid gimbal accessory that is well worth downloading to your smartphone. It has just been updated again to add a few tweaks exclusively for the Weebill S too and we would highly recommend that you at least try it out. If you are planning on using the Zhiyun intelligent object tracker on the gimbal then we would also recommend that you attach the smartphone mounting plate to your gimbal too as it makes the whole process much easier.
In addition to that, the app also offers you a quick and easy way to access your gimbal settings to make tweaks within seconds rather than minutes. Additionally, it also offers some solid wireless remote control of the gimbal head too that can be surprisingly useful in some videography niches. As the Zhiyun smartphone app is free to download and available for both iPhone and Android devices, it is well worth trying as it does have some solid features.
Build Quality And Design
On top of this, the Weebill S has a larger clearance area at the back of the gimbal head ensuring that you get the maximum range of motion during use. One of the few drawbacks of the Weebill Lab was that larger cameras and longer lenses could end up being too big to get a full range of motion out of the gimbal. Thankfully, Zhiyun took the constructive feedback of the community on board and have corrected this issue for the Weebill S.
Zhiyun has also taken its build quality to the next level for the Weebill S making it smaller and lighter than the already extremely compact Weebill Lab. This makes the Weebill S the best travel gimbal available right now in our opinion as it offers absolutely outstanding performance with top-notch specs while being much smaller and lighter than the competing gimbals on the market.
Another great thing about the Weebill S is that the materials that it is made from have been specifically chosen due to being as lightweight as possible but also being very robust. This ensures that the gimbal can take bumps and knocks either when in use or when being transported without you having to worry about it breaking easily.
We are happy to see that Zhiyun have developed on both the design and build quality of the Weebill S as they are the only gimbal brand really innovating the space. We actually expected DJI to make something similar to this with their DJI Ronin SC but they just made a smaller, dummed down version of their Ronin S from the DSLR market.
Our Verdict
That brings us to the end of our article on what we feel is the best gimbal for Sony A6400 cameras right now. In our opinion, the Zhiyun Weebill S truly does reign supreme and is in a league of its own ahead of all of the competition. It has a large number of excellent reviews already and we only expect more and more people to publish their own reviews as the months come and go.
That said though, the Weebill S can be a little pricey if you are an entry-level videographer. If you are on a tighter budget then the Zhiyun Weebill Lab or Zhiyun Crane Plus are both still solid options for the Sony a6400 that both come with a lower price tag than the Weebill S.
