Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Why iPhone is the KING of video”.
I’M sure you’ve all heard people call iPhones the king of smartphone video capture. But why is this? And what about the iPhone’s footage makes it the best, because it’s not an obvious answer. Let’S talk about that: hey guys, I’m Ryan, Thomas and I’m predominantly an Android User, but I have one of these bad boys for shooting video on social medias. But why is that? Well straight out of the gate. The auto video from the do camera app balances, exposure, dynamic range movement, stabilization and focus the best in my extensive testing that I’ve evaluated in a separate video for most people, who will only ever film the Basic normal modes. This footage comes out looking fantastic with a very natural color profile, with decent contrast that you can upload straight to socials or online video hosting, and it will look great, no tweaking needed. No grading, no processing Apple’s image processing pipeline takes the Ultra HD 4K image at up to 60 FPS and spits out footage that doesn’t look overly sharp or overly processed, like some of the other smartphone footage and the ability to jump straightens. The camera app hit record and get great footage without any extensive knowledge needed is what makes the iPhone’s video recording capabilities great for your average consumer. But it’s not that crazy far ahead of what the pixel 8 Pro is doing right now, again, trust me, I did the testing myself being able to film in Auto and then switch between all three of the rear lenses in the same clip is also very handy. If you’re in a dynamic environment and want to capture as much stuff in as higher quality as possible by using the optimal focal length without having to stop, recording and then switch focal lengths and then hit record again, but again, this isn’t the big reason why the Iphone is King. You have modes like cinematic that aim to create a natural depth of field, and I have to say I’m just not the biggest fan of portrait.
Video though it is nice to have it just, doesn’t do a super convincing job in my eyes as someone who does video professionally, it’s similarly to portrait mode, video found on other smartphones, not just the iPhone and then action mode, obviously Smooths out motion further with a Higher shutter speed to capture sharper motion across the scene, which again is nice to have and yield some pretty impressive and unique results, but isn’t the main factor in making iPhone footage the best out there comparatively video boost on the pixel 8 Pro does a great job Of making its footage look richer with enhanced dynamic range, of course done artificially and then Samsung’s Galaxy s24 Ultra video looks solid as well in its auto mode, with, of course, the option to record in up to 8K. If you hate having free space on your phone for professionals and those looking to edit their video after the fact, this year’s iPhone 15 pro and pro Max bought a brand brand new mode with them called pror log. And let me break this down into two parts, because it’s important that you know exactly what this means. The prores part is Apple’s own video format and the iPhone specifically shooting pror 422, with the three digits denoting the subsampling spec in layman’s terms, it’s a 10bit image, meaning that it can capture 1 billion colors compared to 16 million covered by 8 bit so gradients and Subtle, color transitions. Look a lot cleaner Pro files also contain a lot of information and, as a result, are huge compared to your regular video. This is so that when you do choose to edit your video after the fact you have more substance to play with, and so you can push and pull the colors and the contrast more before you start getting strange, artifacts and ugly results, as you might do, with The regular Auto video from most smartphones, proes being Apple’s format, also handles way better on its computer hardware.
So, even though these files are absolutely huge compared to the Reg smartphone, video Macs have a better time decoding, especially if you’re using a machine powered by Apple silicon. Like the M1, through M3 powered computers, as they have dedicated Hardware designed to decode the footage, the log part of proes log takes this further and essentially strips back a lot of the processing that the iPhone is doing in its regular auto mode. That everyone is used to so sharpening is fully pulled back. The colors haven’t been accentuated or messed about, with and crucially Apple’s Dynamic tone mapping hasn’t been applied here, see when you record video with your phone.
A big part of its processing pipeline is detecting the bright and dark areas of the scene and then pushing and pulling the exposure to create a high dynamic range artificially that the camera won’t be capturing by default. This is actually one of the big reasons why smartphone footage can look fake or unnatural as it’s boosting those shadows and pulling those highlights in camera, where most normal cameras don’t do that. But this processing can also look great for those who don’t want to play around with their image and editing, as you can really just publish your phone’s video clips straight away with no bother in automatic modes, but for professionals and those who want more creative control. This Dynamic tone mapping the automatic local exposure adjustments can be a real obstacle, pretty much every phone doesn’t let you turn this off, meaning that, even though you might have a manual camera video mode on your phone, the camera will still apply this tone mapping without your Control and by recording in a log format Apple turns this off entirely, and so you get a completely natural image that you can then choose to adjust yourself after the fact.
If you want more Shadow detail or lowered highlights, this is the sort of control that you have with bigger professional cameras and it’s absolutely huge for pros who are looking for a quick and convenient yet powerful and robust way to record video on the go. There are apps out there on on Android. They, let you record log, but these simply flatten the standard already processed video that comes through the image Pipeline and essentially leave out the reason why you would use log in the first place for that stripped back more raw image for lack of a better term. It’S not actually raw, this prores log footage being more malleable and more tunable means you can employ creative, Luts or essentially Advanced color processing packages that give your foot a more stylized look. These can be made by yourself or found online in heaps of different packs, and using Lots is a big part of the creative film making process. Recording in prores log is all in the stock camera app by the way, and if you want to take things further with more control, something like Blackmagic designs, free application offers more control when it comes to audio color spaces, time code, anamorphic, desqueeze and shutter speed with That last one being crucial to those who want to shoot as natural looking video as possible setting the optimum shutter speed is going to get rid of that jarring movement.
The auto video with cranked shutter speeds, tend to give you and the storage handling of this footage is also really versatile. For instance, you can record directly to USBC ssds, should you want more storage and an easier transfer process, and, speaking of if you own, a Mac which many video professionals do airdrop is incredibly useful for pinging across files to and from your phone, without having to wait For accepting and fiddling with cables and all of that nonsense, this is one of the main reasons I switched my work phone over to the 15 Pro Max as its file transfer with my Mac is just seamless on my PC. It’S still a bit of a mess.
I still use Google Drive, which is yeah a little Annoying. I just have to say apple for the love in all of Tech. Can you just let us drag and drop our footage across from our phone to our PC with a cable come on? It’S not hard. There someone who has shot video for over a decade and who’s used a DSLR, mirrorless cameras and Cinema cameras. Smartphone video has become great, but prores log has changed. How I think about mobile video shooting with an iPhone is no longer a big compromise when it comes to image, quality and malleability, it’s a powerful pocket, videography tool.
It’S unlikely that Samsung and Google are going to pay Apple, serious money to use its program as format and that’s fine. But if the s25 ultra and pixel 9 Pro could offer a basic h264 video option with 422 10bit color and a log setup like the iPhone. Maybe hidden away in their camera options, it would balance out the competition, because, right now the iPhone 15 Pro Series is the Undisputed king of video.
Let me know what you think of Apple’s Pro res log recording modes in the comments. Are you a fan, or do you not care at all? I get both sides for most people. It’S not even going to cross their minds to record in this format, but for pros it’s huge.
Thank you all so much for watching. Please do hit like if you enjoyed today’s content and hit subscribe too. If you never want to miss another upload, I’ve been Ryan, Thomas and I’ll catch.
You later cheers .