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Review: Insta360 announces its first gimbal – The AI-tracking Insta360 Flow

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Insta360 is most famous for its 360-degree cameras and action cameras. It looks like they’re taking a little change of direction and expanding out into helping you get great video with your smartphone, too. Insta360 has now officially announced the Insta360 Flow (Buy here). It’s its own take on the now ubiquitous smartphone gimbal, and having played with one now for a little while, I think it’s pretty good.

In a gimbal market dominated by companies like DJI and Zhiyun, it’s interesting to see Insta360 enter it. We’ve seen many other companies come and go in the gimbal world, but Insta360 isn’t just some random no-name brand that pops up out of nowhere and disappears just as quickly. If they’re going to have a go at something, they’re going to do it properly. And properly is exactly what they seem to have done.

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Insta360’s new teaser says they’re entering the gimbal market

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The teaser above was just posted to Insta360’s YouTube channel. In it, we can see various close-ups and details that all lead towards one conclusion. Insta360 is entering the gimbal market. It seems to take a few pointers from other gimbals on the market, such as a magnetic mount, while managing to retain what appears to be a very unique appearance. And appearance with lots of sleek curves.

Given the talk of helping you “master your mobile shots” in the video description – not to mention the aforementioned magnetic bracket at the end – this suggests that this is a gimbal for smartphones and not the action or 360-degree cameras we’ve become familiar with from Insta360.But we’ll find out soon enough, as it’s expected to be announced on March 29th at 9am Eastern.

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This guy built his own AI-powered robot camera operator to follow him around and you can too

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James Bruton is one of the biggest names in robotics on YouTube. He’s made all kinds of crazy contraptions and robots that work on a seemingly endless number of mechanical and physics principles – not to mention a lot of electronics wizardry. In this video, he takes a look at the one problem that plagues YouTubers shooting videos on their own. Eliminating boring static camera shots.

So, he made a robot with a camera to move and follow the subject. Given James’ history, though, he doesn’t just stick a camera on a gimbal and use the app to track a subject like most of us might. Oh no, he builds one with a full AI vision system that’s on wheels. It can literally follow you around. It doesn’t just turn to look towards you from a fixed position. Is it overkill? Absolutely. Is it really freaking cool, though? You bet!

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Zhiyun adds more lighting options and 25 hour battery life with the new Smooth 5S smartphone gimbal

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Zhiyun has announced their newest 3-axis smartphone gimbal, the Zhiyun Smooth 5S. It offers some nice improvements over the Smooth 5, including a built-in LED light on the mounting arm, superior anti-shake performance and new motors to help with more extreme shots and camera angles. It offers up to 25 hours of use and when it does go flat, takes only two hours to charge back up from flat to full over a USB-PD fast charging connection.

As well as the new built-in light on the camera mount, you also get the option of two magnetic fill light fixtures, allowing you to either add more light in front of you or to have lights pointing away from you and towards you for when you’re regularly switching cameras in your device or when shooting dual video, utilising both front and rear cameras simultaneously.

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The DJI Osmo Mobile 6 supports larger smartphones and has new ActiveTrack 5.0 and Quick Launch features

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DJI has announced their newest handheld smartphone gimbal, the DJI Osmo Mobile 6. Over its predecessor, DJI says that it comes with a larger clamp for supporting the ridiculously large smartphones that companies seem to be releasing these days (for real, how big do they think our pockets are?) along with a new Quick Launch feature as well as the updated Active Track 5.0 subject tracking features.

A new built-in status panel allows you to quickly see and set your mode – of which there are four – as well as being able to easily keep an eye on your battery levels. A new Side Wheel allows you to adjust zoom and focus without touching your phone while the more powerful motors help to keep your smartphone’s camera steadier than previous Osmo Mobile gimbals.

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The Zhiyun Smooth Q4: a solid smartphone stabiliser built for travel vloggers

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Whether we like it or not, video has become a part of our everyday lives. We now take it for granted that the ability to shoot good enough quality video resides in our pockets. But shooting stable video is still very difficult to do handheld. That’s where a good stabiliser or gimbal becomes an essential piece of equipment.

I was very excited to try out the Zhiyun Smooth-Q4 smartphone stabiliser and see just how good it was. I ended up taking it on a few short trips to see how it would hold up quite literally ‘in the field’. I tried it using my rather geriatric but still going strong Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 Android phone.

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[GIVEAWAY] We are giving away a gimbal for smooth shooting

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Update: This giveaway has now ended, jump to the end of the post to see if you won.

For this giveaway, we’ve partnered with Zhiyun to give away a Smooth-Q4 gimbal to a lucky winner.

We chose this gimbal because it is amazingly small, and it folds to fit in your pocket. This makes it perfect for those times when you travel or explore and just need something better than a selfie stick. All you have to do to enter this giveaway is to let us know what color you prefer for your gimbal (assuming you could get them in any color of the rainbow).

The giveaway ends on July 22nd!

Win a Smooth Q4 Gimbal by telling us one color
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Zhiyun’s Weebill 3 comes with a new, lightweight Sling 2.0 form factor and a built-in microphone

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It seems like only 11 months ago since Zhiyun announced the Weebill 2 (review here) but already were’s seeing another announcement from Zhiyun in the form of the Weebill 3. It incorporates what Zhiyun calls a new and updated Sling 2.0 design for DSLR and mirrorless cameras, with improved ergonomics, a built-in microphone, fill light and a powerful built-in battery that Zhiyun says supports “all-day use”.

It doesn’t have the flippy-out LCD of the Weebill 2, which suggests that Zhiyun may continue to sell both models concurrently – at least for a little while – but its new design is geared towards long shooting sessions and keeping things as light as possible while providing more support to your wrist carrying your camera rig.

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Watch this beginner’s gimbal guide and learn how to get smoothest footage possible out of your camera

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Gimbals are more popular now than they ever have been and their popularity will no doubt continue to rise in the future as they become more advanced, more accessible and higher-end features come to lower end and lower-cost models. But if you’ve never used one before, they can be a bit of a learning curve to get used to so that you’re shooting nice smooth steady footage.

That’s where Josh Morgan at Momentum Productions is here to help with this beginner’s guide to getting smooth and stable footage from your gimbal as quickly and easily as possible. In the video, Josh uses the Zhiyun Weebill 2 (review here) along with the Sony A7S III and Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 Art lens to demonstrate some exercises to try in order to learn how to use your gimbal effectively.

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Zhiyun announces the Crane M2S – A lower budget alternative to the Crane M3

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Zhiyun has today announced their new Crane M2S gimbal. Targeted towards the same audience that would go for the Crane M3, this one is even smaller and lighter, weighing in at only 549g(~180g lighter than the Crane M3). But don’t be fooled by its size. This thing caters to everything from a smartphone to a Sony A7S III and includes many of the Crane M3 features, like a built-in LED, USB-PD fast charging and “flagship-grade” quick release tech.

The Crane M2S, Zhiyun says, is a more cost-effective alternative to the Crane M3, and as such is priced at $269 for the basic gimbal and $349 for the Crane M2S Combo package which includes a backpack and smartphone bracket. This is significantly less expensive than the Crane M3, which is priced at $369 for the basic gimbal, $449 for the Combo package and $649 for the Pro package.

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