Zhiyun’s new Smooth Q3 gimbal features a built-in rotating LED fill light
May 10, 2021
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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If you ever needed more proof that smartphone gimbals were primarily designed for vloggers and social media shooters who want to film themselves or others talking to the camera at short range, then this is probably it. Zhiyun has today announced the new Zhiyun Smooth Q3 smartphone gimbal and this one comes with a built-in LED fill light.
The Smooth Q3 is a 3-axis gimbal, boasting a range of new features over the Smooth Q2, including SmartMode, gesture control, SmartFollow 3.0 Object Tracking, Instant Dolly Zoom, MagicClone Pano and, of course, that built-in LED which can rotate from the front for selfies to the back for filming other people.
Zhiyun says that the Smooth Q3 has had a complete redesign over its predecessor, making it both lighter and easier to fold up when you’re not using it. It also features a new and more intuitive button layout for easier operation. But the biggest feature on this one is the built-in 4400K LED. This seems a little warm for general use, but I expect this colour temperature choice was made to help it better blend in with dim interior lighting.
After all, it’s a small LED built into this thing. It’s not going to be able to perform miracles. So, even if it was daylight balanced, it wouldn’t likely have much of an impact outdoors in the daytime. Indoors, though, I expect, or hope, that it’ll be at least as powerful as most smartphone LEDs, if not a bit brighter. The LED might seem redundant as smartphones do have built-in LEDs, but you typically can’t bring those around to the front when filming yourself.
| Number of axes | 3-axis (Pitch, Roll, Yaw) |
| Mounting clamp height | 55mm-90mm |
| Phone thickness | 7-10mm |
| Max payload | 280g |
| Rotation range | Yaw (pan): -150 to 150° Pitch (tilt): -260° to 80° Roll: -170° to 170° |
| Following deviation (Static) | Max: ± 0.04° Min: ± 0.01° |
| Following deviation (Motion) | Max: ± 0.3° Standard: ± 0.1° Min: ± 0.05° |
| Battery capacity | 1300mAh |
| Battery runtime | 7-15 hours |
| Mounting points | 3x 1/4-20″ female |
| Dimensions | 45*154*180mm (Folded) 90*127*279mm (Unfolded) |
| Weight | 340g |
As well as the built-in rotating LED, it contains all the usual features we’d expect from a gimbal these days, including gesture control, pano modes, object and facial tracking, timelapse, etc. and a couple of neat features that you might not use all the time, but could definitely help to add some creative flair to some of your work – like the new Dolly Zoom feature.
The Zhiyun Smooth Q3 is available to buy now for $89 and begins shipping in early June. You can find out more on the Zhiyun website.
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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