A Hollywood film studio in your pocket. Photo: Apple
Apple on Wednesday rolled out its third iOS 15.1 beta, bringing ProRes video recording to iPhone 13 Pro for the first time since it made its debut. The feature can be enabled inside the Settings app.
But be warned: ProRes video takes up a lot of storage space. Apple says just one minute of footage shot in 1080p weighs in at approximately 1.7GB, and switching to super-sharp 4K will balloon that file size to a whopping 6GB.
A new iOS app lets users simultaneously record video using multiple iPhone cameras. DoubleTake is created by the makers of popular camera app Filmic Pro.
In the words of the app’s makers, DoubleTake transforms your phone into a multi-cam studio — although you’ll need to be running an iPhone XR, XS, or iPhone 11 to be able to use it.
Filmic brings live analytics to its new camera app for iPhone. Screenshot: Filmic/App Store
An app developer putting out a camera and photo editing app today is in for a steep, uphill climb. Dozens of apps populate the category and those at the top are holding that place for a reason.
But the name Filmic should grab the iPhone photographer’s attention. The maker of Filmic Pro, the go-to app for mobile filmmakers, now offers a unique camera experience for stills called Firstlight.
Multi-cam recording won't be exclusive to the 2019 iPhone lineup. Photo: Apple
One of iPhone 11’s hottest camera features is also making its way to older devices.
The ability to record from multiple cameras simultaneously will be available on iPhone XR, iPhone XS and XS Max, and the 2018 iPad Pro when iOS 13 rolls out to everyone later this week.
What a festive feast of apps we have for you this week. Photo: Cult of Mac
Oh man, just Darkroom for iPad is enough for this week — it’s that good. If you only use it to browse your photo library it’s worth the download. Also check out Audiobus’ new MIDI learn, Filmic Pro’s crazy, storage-filling new high-Bitrate option, and Agenda’s image and file attachments.
'Appy weekend everyone! Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
A Google app which lets you earn real money for basically no work is just one of the picks we’ve made for this week’s “Awesome Apps of the Week” roundup.
In addition, we’ve got a great artificial intelligence-themed puzzle game, a nifty email app update, and a camera app which lets you double the number of videos you can store on your iOS device. Check out our selections for the week’s most notable apps below.
iPhone filmmakers get HEVC support in Filmic Pro update. Photo: Filmic
Filmic Pro, the gold standard iPhone app for filmmakers to achieve near-cinematic quality, released an update today to support the new HEVC format in iOS 11.
HEVC stands for High-Efficiency Video Coding (also called H.265), a compression standard that reduces the file size of videos while retaining much of the quality. This means users can store twice the number of videos on their iPhones or iPad Pros.
Learn all you need to know to get the most out of your iPhone's camera. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
While iPhones have pretty much replaced standalone video cameras, they don’t offer the same level of polish that a dedicated video camera or DSLR produces. It’s true that “the best camera is the camera you have with you,” but you can almost always spot a video shot on a phone.
The quality gap isn’t purely due to the lenses and tech within our phones, though. Bad habits make plenty of iPhone videos look lackluster. To show just how good an iPhone video can be, I put all my filmmaking knowledge to use for the montage below.
Instead of using my $3,000 video camera, I picked up my iPhone. With a minimum of accessories, I managed to produce what I think is a pretty cinematic video. You can see the results below — and then I’ll give you some useful tips and tricks for shooting iPhone videos like a pro.
Tangerine was filmed with the iPhone 5s, but its cinematic feel comes from an app, a lens adapter and several hours of post-production work. Photo: Sean Baker
There was the buzz going into Sundance and the applause of satisfied audiences at the end of the movie’s screening. But there was also a collective gasp as the last line of the credits rolled past.
Shot on the iPhone 5s.
Sean Baker’s Tangerine, the story of two transgender sex workers in Hollywood, was a break-out hit at the renowned film festival in January. The Hollywood Reporter said the film stands out as “crisp and vigorously cinematic.”
Oft-praised for the rich fringe characters in his independent films, Baker did not set out to change the filmmaking landscape by shooting with a cellphone. Like most indie filmmakers, he had no money.
There seems to be a lot of noise made about the still camera abilities of the iPhone 4S recently, and for good reason; but let’s not forget that it’s also a very competent filmmaker (and the 3Gs and 4 aren’t slouches either). And if you’re even semi-serious about shooting video on your iPhone, you might want something like FiLMiC Pro, a video-production app with real video-production muscle and features.