6 ms·

Somewhat surprisingly, it's actually easier to get good-looking footage on an iPhone than say a mid-level mirrorless camera. The iPhone has better built-in stab

by janekm 5y ago

Somewhat surprisingly, it's actually easier to get good-looking footage on an iPhone than say a mid-level mirrorless camera. The iPhone has better built-in stabilisation and handles high dynamic range more conveniently (built-in tone mapping and HDR capture by taking multiple real captures per video frame). Taking full advantage of a "proper" camera takes additional equipment (tripod/gimbal / lights / microphones / decent lenses).

ghaff 5y ago
Definitely. A modern iPhone can do a pretty fantastic job at capturing a somewhat cinema verite sort of video--with appropriate eye and editing. For relatively modest expenditure, you can take that to the next level. But it probably requires hauling around a lot of gear and being less spontaneous. I was fairly interested in video at one point when film (Super-8) was just transitioning to video. But it was all such a hassle that I pretty much just kept to still. An iPhone (or a videocam that's a few hundred dollars) would have been so great.
orbital-decay 5y ago
A single clip that looks somewhat good, sure. A set of clips with a consistently good look, without any additional gear? Not so much. That permanently enabled tone mapping and noise reduction is actually a huge obstacle in post where you have to give your video clips the look you want and match them to glue into a single video. And you should always use a gimbal, even just a simple mobile one: no matter how good the built-in stabilization is, without a gimbal you'll have parallax and shaky uncorrectable motion blur when shooting handheld on the move, especially in closeup shots. And external lenses and especially ND filters are a thing too in mobile video making, in fact they are super useful. Vendors like Apple spend a lot of money marketing the idea of effortless video making to consumers, but the reality is that even a high quality video blog requires a lot of attention to detail and careful planning. Point and click and "one size fits all" philosophy works much worse for video than it does for photo.
- janekm 5y ago
  Yes of course, if it's for a professional production (and these days even many Youtube videos are professional productions) a (semi)-pro camera has a lot more headroom. But it will require knowledge, experience and additional equipment to better what an iPhone will do out of the box. This video is quite a good illustration, pitting an iPhone 12 Pro against a Sony A7iii (a quite respectable camera): https://youtu.be/TrEdAKCHSZg https://youtu.be/TrEdAKCHSZg With these default settings the A7iii is blowing out the highlights in the sky, the church and the swan. Which could have been prevented by choosing one of the Log settings but then it would have required making adjustments during video editing. If it's for taking a video of family / kids and sharing it immediately with friends/family, the iPhone will produce better results with minimal effort (and that's not to mention having to bring a heavy camera, lenses, tripod/gimbal, accessories).

by janekm 5y ago

ghaff 5y ago

Definitely. A modern iPhone can do a pretty fantastic job at capturing a somewhat cinema verite sort of video--with appropriate eye and editing. For relatively modest expenditure, you can take that to the next level. But it probably requires hauling around a lot of gear and being less spontaneous. I was fairly interested in video at one point when film (Super-8) was just transitioning to video. But it was all such a hassle that I pretty much just kept to still. An iPhone (or a videocam that's a few hundred dollars) would have been so great.

orbital-decay 5y ago

A single clip that looks somewhat good, sure. A set of clips with a consistently good look, without any additional gear? Not so much. That permanently enabled tone mapping and noise reduction is actually a huge obstacle in post where you have to give your video clips the look you want and match them to glue into a single video. And you should always use a gimbal, even just a simple mobile one: no matter how good the built-in stabilization is, without a gimbal you'll have parallax and shaky uncorrectable motion blur when shooting handheld on the move, especially in closeup shots. And external lenses and especially ND filters are a thing too in mobile video making, in fact they are super useful. Vendors like Apple spend a lot of money marketing the idea of effortless video making to consumers, but the reality is that even a high quality video blog requires a lot of attention to detail and careful planning. Point and click and "one size fits all" philosophy works much worse for video than it does for photo.

janekm 5y ago
Yes of course, if it's for a professional production (and these days even many Youtube videos are professional productions) a (semi)-pro camera has a lot more headroom. But it will require knowledge, experience and additional equipment to better what an iPhone will do out of the box. This video is quite a good illustration, pitting an iPhone 12 Pro against a Sony A7iii (a quite respectable camera): https://youtu.be/TrEdAKCHSZg https://youtu.be/TrEdAKCHSZg With these default settings the A7iii is blowing out the highlights in the sky, the church and the swan. Which could have been prevented by choosing one of the Log settings but then it would have required making adjustments during video editing. If it's for taking a video of family / kids and sharing it immediately with friends/family, the iPhone will produce better results with minimal effort (and that's not to mention having to bring a heavy camera, lenses, tripod/gimbal, accessories).