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Marketing aside, cinematic in this context means more or less "manual control". Something that makes a video look amateurish, it's the phone trying its best to
by javchz 3y ago
Marketing aside, cinematic in this context means more or less "manual control".
Something that makes a video look amateurish, it's the phone trying its best to prioritise a 'clear image', but that means changing parameters mid-recording.
Now, this isn't bad, it's ideal for someone who doesn't want to lose the moment without worrying about choosing the right setting (imagine a parent recording their child's recital or soccer game). But the trade-off is that it looks choppy.
But if you're in a controlled environment, you can set a fixed exposure (balance between ISO, shutter speed and aperture), framerate, bit-depth, focus distance, colour temperature and microphone gain depending on your intent.
As an example, image you want to have a high-contrast image with a dark silluette of someone and a bright background like a sunset, the default phone camera app will try to guess whether you want to focus on the subject or the background, and will switching between the two randomly. With manual control, you can chose, whatch you want.
- zimpenfish 3y ago> Something that makes a video look amateurish [...] changing parameters mid-recording A prime example of this is leaving autofocus on when you're moving about. There's many YouTubers who haven't yet learnt this lesson and it can make the video unwatchable.
- abm53 3y agoI’ve seen enough videos with otherwise high production values to make me suspect there is a valid trade-off to keeping autofocus on.
- astrange 3y agoIt depends if you have a cameraman or not. If you don't, and you're walking away from the camera, it's probably best to leave it on and hope it tracks you.
- KineticLensman 3y agoYes. It’s very rare to see the focus change during a movie or TV show. The main exception is when the focus switches between two people talking, when their positions are known in advance and dialled in so there isn’t any visible hunting
- kuschku 3y agoYou can actually see focus changes quite often in movies and TV shows - but they're usually done intentionally to accentuate something, e.g. a focus pull from a foreground object to an actor in the background. But it's a slow and smooth motion without any focus breathing intended to highlight an object or an actor, not just autofocus hunting to find something
- didntcheck 3y agoThis is probably an elementary question, but are those focal shifts still done manually, with a camera guy turning the ring by hand? Or do they set the two points in advance and hit a button to start a motorized transition?
- AtheistOfFail 3y agothere's a dedicated person usually called a focus puller.
- kuschku 3y agoKind of both? You've usually got a small motor connected to the lens that turns the focus ring. A dedicated person, called a focus puller, has a remote with a wheel on the side. By turning this wheel the focus puller can remotely control the focus ring of the lens. The remote usually allows the focus puller to set the maximum range of motion with A/B points. The system doesn't automatically execute the focus pull, but with the hard stops at the A/B points the focus puller can make sure they don't overshoot the target.
- thirdsun 3y ago
- AdamN 3y agoThe TLDR; version of this is the progression from amateur to expert: 1/ controls are set wrong in the first place, 2/ computer changes controls during the shot but it's distracting and obvious, 3/ controls are set right in the first place and everything looks good and consistent, 4/ expert modifies the controls mid-shot (and the shot requires this) and it looks awesome because everything is changing which allows the shooter's expertise to shine through.
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- 2143 3y agoTangent that kind of seems relevant here¹: Read the Foreword written by Gerald Sussman (SICP author) of the book The Little Schemer. The most beautiful Foreword I have ever read so far. ¹(The Foreword talks about photography a little bit).
- londons_explore 3y agoIf Apple wanted to put an engineering team on solving this problem, they could record all the raw sensor data for the video, with the regular 'auto' settings, then, after the clip is recorded, decide what shutter speed, iso, etc to use, and then reprocess that raw data to simulate what that moment in time would have looked like with a different shutter speed. I''m sure modern neural nets would do a decent job of simulating what a frame taken with one iso/shutter/focus would look like with a slightly different iso/shutter/focus.
- dannyw 3y agoFirst, I doubt users ask for this though. Those who want it, are going to use a manual videography app like OP. The 99.9% wants a camera that just works. Second, modern neural nets are good, but not perfect. I can reliably tell if something was shot with real bokeh, or simulated via software. For serious productions like a commercial shoot, nobody wants to change the shutter speed, aperture, etc in shoot: the DP already knows what look they want before they start filming.
- readbeard 3y agoHow could you change the shutter speed in post?
- londons_explore 3y agoI think a neural network could do it. You just train it on a bunch of videos with different shutter speeds, and then you ask it to convert a given video from one speed to another. I'm sure it would quickly learn to add/remove motion blur on moving things as appropriate.
- readbeard 3y agoBut in addition to determining motion blur, shutter speed also massively affects which areas of the images are above/below the brightness range the sensor is capable of picking up.