One of the titans in the gimbal industry has released a new smartphone gimbal with a twist. As the adoption of smartphones into higher-end photography and videography continues, this could be a powerful tool.
Smartphones aren't replacing dedicated cameras and they aren't going to any time soon either. However, they are wheedling their way into the kits of photographers and videographers, with many of the newest phones allowing the capture of exceptionally high-quality footage. At the time of writing this, there are already three phones on the market capable of recording in 8K. For b-roll and additional angles on your video shoots, phones are certainly viable.
The issue is, IBIS on phones isn't great a lot of the time. While it has come along leaps and bounds, it's still lacking the level necessary for it to be usable in proper video productions. As a result, there have been a number of new gimbals aimed at phones. Zhiyun's latest release is just that, but comes with a twist.
The Zhiyun-Tech Smooth-Q3 smartphone gimbal is a compact, folding, 3-axis stabilizer with built-in LED video light, landscape and portrait modes, smart tracking, live streaming, and long battery life, among other things. While it is clearly aimed at bloggers, it has the spec to be useful for lots of other capacities too, particularly behind-the-scenes work, for instance.
The best part about this gimbal to my eye is not the light, but the price. The Smooth-Q3 is just $89; that's a lot of kit for very little outlay.
Images courtesy of Zhiyun-Tech
From that video, it looks like the target audience is TikTokers