The Best Gimbal For Sony A6600 Cameras!

At the time of writing, the Sony a6600 has only been available for a few weeks and it seems set to be just as popular as the rest of the Sony Alpha so we decided to get out ahead of people asking about what we feel is the best gimbal for Sony a6600. There is no doubt in our mind that questions about the various cameras in the Sony Alpha range make up a large portion of the questions we see regarding gimbals so we expect to see a number of people reaching out about the a6600 in the future.

Now, as you would expect from the Sony mirrorless camera range, the a6600 is very lightweight and comes in at only 0.93 pounds of payload weight for the camera body alone. Due to the recent mirrorless camera releases such as the Zhiyun Weebill Lab or the DJI Ronin SC, you can mount some of the heaviest camera accessories to your a6600 without issue. That said though, although the Ronin SC is an excellent gimbal, we feel that it is overpriced for what you actually get, especially when the Weebill Lab offers the same level of image stabilization at a cheaper price point.

For this reason, we feel that the Weebill Lab is the best gimbal on the market at the time of writing for the Sony a6600 and doubt that it is going to lose its top spot anytime soon. We have seen what competing brands have released to try and challenge the Weebill Lab and outside of the DJI Ronin SC, nothing comes close. It is easy to see why the Weebill Lab has the excellent reputation amongst the community that it enjoys and we feel it is only going to keep growing its customer base over the coming years.

Performance And Functionality

Now as we mentioned above, the Sony a6600’s camera body alone comes in at 0.93 pounds with the total camera setup payload being that plus the weight of whatever camera accessories you need to mount to your a6600 when recording. With a maximum load capacity of 6.6 pounds provided by the Weebill Lab it has plenty of power to take pretty much any a6600 setup that you can dream of without issue and still provide you with its excellent image stabilization.

The 6.6-pound maximum load capacity is the largest of all gimbals designed for use with mirrorless cameras at the time of writing too by a fair amount. This means that the gimbal is also ideal for use with many DSLR camera setups too helping to future proof yourself for any potential future camera upgrades too. Even if you decided to upgrade to another, heavier mirrorless camera after your Sony a6600, the Weebill Lab will likely be able to support it even with a bunch of heavy camera accessories mounted to it.

Moving onto the maximum battery life of the gimbal, the Weebill Lab is able to provide you with upto ten hours of battery with each full charge of its battery. Now, we would imagine that this is plenty for the majority of our readers but it is a step down from the sixteen to eighteen hours that the Zhiyun Crane Plus is able to provide but there is two reasons for this.

The Weebill Lab has been designed for use as a small, lightweight, compact travel gimbal stabilizer and a larger battery means that the gimbal has to be larger to house it while it also makes it heavier. Additionally, there is an increasing trend in the vlogger and videography space of people carrying a USB power bank with their camera accessories to recharge their devices on the go. As a high output power bank is able to top up your gimbal on the go, most gimbal brands have reduced the maximum battery life in their latest gimbals for a smaller and lighter build or higher torque gimbal motors.

Once empty, the rapid recharge system on the gimbal allows you to charge it back to full in as little as only three hours via a regular power outlet on a wall. If you are planning to use a USB power bank to charge your gimbal on the go, the recharge time will depend on the output of the power bank so we are unable to give any estimates as there are a wide range our power outputs for power banks.

The clips in the video above have been recorded using the Zhiyun Weebill Lab and as you can see, it makes light work of the cameras payload and ensures that the videographer is provided with the best image stabilization possible. You can see that the gimbal performs flawlessly and provides butter smooth stabilization ensuring that the user is able to capture the best image quality possible.

If you are doing any kind of paid videography work or trying to grow your YouTube channel or social media profiles then image quality is becoming more and more important to help your content stand out from the competition. Investing in the Weebill Lab can really help you up your game and improve the quality of the video footage that you are able to capture while out and about on your sessions with your Sony a6600.

Although we touched on the gimbal motors above, the Weebill Lab uses the latest technology from Zhiyun for its motors ensuring that they deliver the maximum power output possible. On top of this, in our opinion at least, the Zhiyun has arguably the best balancing algorithm available at the time of writing. Although the DJI algorithm does have some advantages over the Zhiyun tech, we feel that the Zhiyun algorithm has more advantages over the DJI system.

This means that the algorithm on the Weebill Lab is able to detect even the slightest movement, calculate how to best correct it, and then have the high torque gimbal motors rapidly correct the movement to ensure that your Sony a6600 remains stable. Depending on what you are using your a6600 for, this extremely quick stabilization could be vital for the niche you are working in.

Additionally, as you would expect from any modern handheld gimbal worth it’s salt, the Weebill Lab comes with a number of popular gimbal modes. In reality, there are probably three or four that most people will use on a regular basis with one or two that fill a niche in some cases while the rest will rarely be used. That said though, these gimbal modes can help improve the image quality you capture and ensure you are able to capture exactly what you want.

On top of this, the point of view mode on the latest generation of Zhiyun gimbals that the Weebill Lab is part of is one of the first motorized gimbals that are able to deliver natural-looking image stabilization via its point of view mode. Really natural looking image stabilization had previously only really been available via a manual stabilizer with motorized gimbals looking slightly robotic but the new point of view mode looks natural and smooth.

Zhiyun really has done an excellent job with the Zhiyun Weebill Lab and it is obvious to see how it has managed to dominate its weight class in the gimbal market in such a short period of time. There are a number of independent reviews of the gimbal online that you can read that offer an excellent insight into its performance and are well worth reading too.

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User Interface And Control System

Now, we just want to point out that the smartphone mounting bracket seen in the image above is an optional extra that is included in most bundles of the Weebill Lab and is well worth using as we will point out in the next sections. The actual physical user control system on the gimbal though is excellent and Zhiyun has taken all of the feedback onboard that they received for their Zhiyun Crane Plus and built on it.

The system is based around the standard unit of some buttons, an LCD panel, and a joystick but the simplicity of the control interface makes it very easy to use. This makes the Zhiyun Weebill Lab the ideal first gimbal for anyone who has never used or had experience with gimbals before as it is so easy to learn. On the flip side of this though, the system also offers all of the advanced controls and customization that a more experienced videographer or vlogger will need from a stabilizer too.

This best of both worlds approach ensures that no matter your level, the Weebill Labs control system ensures that you are able to get to grips with it quickly and get the most out of it for your Sony a6600. Additionally, the joystick is very sensitive making it extremely easy to control the gimbal head during manual or point of view mode.

Smartphone App

Now, as we mentioned above, the smartphone mount for the Weebill Lab is a great little gimbal accessory as it allows you to mount your smartphone to the gimbal body to make it easy to see at all times. If you are planning to use the intelligent object tracking system on the Weebill Lab that heavily relies on the smartphone app then we would highly recommend you actually mount your smartphone clamp to the gimbal.

Due to both the Weebill Lab and the Zhiyun Crane 3 needing the app for optimal performance for their intelligent object tracking as well as a few other things, Zhiyun were forced to overhaul their app prior to the release of their new range. Thankfully, they also took this opportunity to fix the various syncing and connectivity issues that the smartphone app had been suffering from.

The app is not in a good place and works very well, considering that it is a free download, it is well worth getting as it offers some wireless remote control functionality as well as the ability to quickly and easily tweak your gimbal settings. All in all, it is a solid gimbal accessory and Zhiyun done a solid job on the overhaul of their app to get it to the level it is at now.

Balancing

Now, we always see people reaching out and asking questions about balancing their gimbal and although the older generations of gimbal could be a bit of a pain, the majority of new gimbals are very easy to balance. That said, with the problems of the latest AK gimbal range from Feiyutech having a bunch of problems we saw a slight increase in people asking about balancing again.

The Zhiyun balancing process has been tweaked over the years through their various gimbals to the system that the Weebill Lab uses. It is very easy and quick to balance and the user manual also has a great overview of how to do it. There really is no need to worry about balancing the gimbal and if you do get stuck, there are a number of tutorials online that you can read that go over the process.

Build Quality And Design

As we mentioned earlier in the article, the Weebill Lab has been designed from the very start to be a lightweight, small, compact travel handheld gimbal stabilizer and with many vloggers and travel videographers using the Sony Alpha range, we can imagine the Weebill Lab pushing even further ahead of the competition due to this alone. Considering the maximum load capacity and battery life of the gimbal, it is tiny in size compared to something like the DJI Ronin S.

Additionally, the latest materials have been used including some brand new polymers to ensure that even though the gimbal is small and lightweight, it is also as robust as possible. We have seen so many people from the wider videography community mention how one of their camera accessories ended up damaged while in transit or during use. Thankfully, the Weebill Lab can take its fair share of bumps without issue.

The gimbal has also received some great innovation over previous generations of the Zhiyun range along with most other handheld gimbals. The Weebill Lab has a fully detachable handle as seen in the image above allowing you to switch from upright to underslung mode within seconds. Although this may not sound like much, it allows you to quickly get some low angle footage with your Sony a6600 without having to purchase additional gimbal accessories like you would with other gimbals.

The final thing that we want to comment on with regards to the gimbals build quality is the comfort of the handle. We have lost count of the number of people who overlook how important something as simple as a comfortable handle on a gimbal is but Zhiyun has done a great job. Even on longer sessions with your Sony a6600 lasting hours, we are confident that you will be able to hold the gimbal with your camera mount without getting hand cramps.

Our Verdict

We have no doubt in our mind that the Zhiyun Weebill Lab is the best gimbal for Sony a6600 cameras available right now. It really is an excellent bit of kit and will make a great addition to your collection of camera accessories. On top of this, the image stabilization is excellent and it can definatley improve the image quality you can capture using your Sony a6600.

You can also read some of these independent reviews of the Weebill Lab that have been posted by third-party videographers. They share their own opinion of the gimbal as well as their experiences and thoughts on it and skimming a few of those can really offer a great insight into its performance.