What if we only shot on iPhone cameras?
Mac Address
·Mac Address
·2022-05-05
·
1,344 words · ~6 min read
0:00
- Where's Andy? Hello?
0:03
(pensive music) It appears that Andy is out on an on location shoot.
0:09
He was going to help me shoot this video. So if I want to make a Mac Address video, I'm on my own.
0:14
Where are the cameras? He must've taken them all.
0:20
Oh look, a camera.
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So what can we shoot with?
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It does support ProRes.
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iPhones are the best smartphones for shooting video, but they're no proper video camera,
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which has built in ND filters, loads of buttons and controls, as well as audio inputs.
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So if I want to do this in any way properly, I'm going to need some things.
0:53
What I have here are some mounts for putting the iPhone on a tripod,
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a very underrated use case. Or you could use something like this DJI OM 5,
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which is a gimbal to make smooth handheld shots.
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Audio is another really important part of shooting a video on an iPhone.
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And so you're going to need some sort of external microphone to help up the production game.
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You can use something like this road microphone and hook it up through a dongle.
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Also there's the app. You can use the camera app and it will shoot in ProRes
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but you have no control over white balance or audio
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or anything like that. An app that many people recommend is FiLMiC Pro.
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What equipment I use depends on the type of shot I'm making.
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Perhaps the easiest example to make would be using this DJI Osmo image stabilizer.
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I'm ready to shoot something. Something, what do I have to shoot again?
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(pensive music)
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The camera updates to the iPhone 13 are mighty impressive.
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The wide camera lets in more light with an F 1.5 aperture.
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The telephoto lens zooms farther now at three times,
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which might be a bit too much. And the ultra wide now has auto-focus
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which can pull incredibly close macros. It's why the module is now so big
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that it spans halfway across the back of the small 13 Pro.
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And it makes these models so heavy too. Nevertheless, put together these three lenses
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offer the perfect variety of focal lengths for shooting quick video sequences.
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But this is still a phone, and having to faff with a touch screen
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to adjust controls and start video feels a little unnatural.
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And don't forget those apps. FiLMiC pro can be a bit of a fickle app.
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I've had it not save files on occasion. But it does give you a lot of control
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like pulling a smooth rack focus. Perhaps the most compelling reason to shoot professionally
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with an iPhone is the discretion. If, unlike me,
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you stay away from sturdy looking tripods and microphones,
2:54
people will think you're just another influencer making a TikTok or YouTube video.
3:00
And like an influencer I'd like to thank Volta for sponsoring this video.
3:03
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3:08
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3:14
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3:19
so it's even compatible with the latest iPhone 20 watt charging standard.
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Right now there's a special offer for Mac Address viewers. The first 50 customers to click on the link
3:27
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3:33
Not bad. (chill music)
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Ingesting footage, meaning getting it off the phone and into a computer,
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is the big weakness to Apple's professional camera workflow
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on the iPhone 13 Pro. Because in 2021, the iPhone through Lightning
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does not support USB 3 speeds.
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That's right, this iPhone Pro can only quickly transfer files
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using technology from 20 years ago.
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If you have network storage like we do here, you can try and get faster speeds through Wi-Fi
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but that's unlikely because in my test it took almost four times longer.
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So hopefully all this extra data is worth it because there's only one person
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for whom ProRes actually matters, the editor Hoffmann.
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- My expectation's too high. If you were to give me a blind test,
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I wouldn't be able to tell unless I really have to pixel peep.
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And that's the issue. Especially with the substantial amount of storage
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that you need for ProRes, it makes it a lot more expensive. - Just look at this chart to see the bit rate differences
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over other professional codecs we use here at LMG.
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At 700 megabits per second, the tiny iPhone records a massive output.
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One of the benefits you get is with color resolution.
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ProRes has a 4:2:2 chroma sub sampling.
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That means you get one color pixel for every two black and white pixels.
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The HEVC codec has half the color resolution with color spread over four black and white pixels.
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- I was surprised by how nice the color looks when you're shooting under office lights.
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I was able to correct it and give a lot more natural look.
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- It's not all perfect though, because despite the increases in color resolution,
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when we intentionally shot some footage with the wrong white balance, we couldn't fix it.
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- It just doesn't want to balance even when I click the white swatch right here.
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Just a little disappointed. But it is a very extreme test.
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- The next benefit comes with motion and performance.
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ProRes is what's known as an intraframe codec.
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This means that every frame is written as a whole entire frame.
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That's different from the video you're watching right now, which is encoded using an interframe codec.
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These codecs contain a long group of pictures from which only the changes in the group are actually saved.
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It's very efficient, but also very hard to edit because any cuts you make
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require the computer to do intensive calculations just to show the frame.
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So ProRes is so much easier to edit with.
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- One thing that I have noticed so far is that Premiere hasn't crashed.
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- What? - Not a single time. There was no need to restart Premiere
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to get things working again. Everything has been smooth in full resolution.
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- In a professional editing environment that's a pretty big deal because Premiere always crashes.
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ProRes on the iPhone 13 Pro doesn't bring the huge quality increase I was hoping for,
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but it does mean that you're getting the absolute highest quality the phone can give,
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which kind of shows that there are limits to these lenses, sensors and expectations.
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But in a professional environment like ours here at LMG,
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we might need to use an iPhone to shoot in a tight space or because we need to be discreet.
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And when we use it, we'll shoot in ProRes because why not?
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We can. Also, what I learned in this piece
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is that I really hate self shooting. It's really anxiety inducing, a royal pain,
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and takes so much longer just to get the shot.
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It really makes me appreciate having a shooter.
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Andy, you're back! I missed you so much!
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Shooting on my own is so hard. Please don't leave me again.
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I really did miss Andy. (phone beeping)
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Oh, it looks like Hoffmann has edited the video and we can watch it now.
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Well, let's see how this iPhone video turned out.
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Where's Andy? Hello? Thanks for filming this Mac Address.
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You're welcome. If you think that Andy should shoot Mac Address videos
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from here on out, give this video a like, and if you think I'm better off without him,
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why not subscribe? Now I'm curious how long it took you to figure out
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that this video was being filmed a little bit differently. Put your answer in the comments below.