The iPhone 4 as a Filmmaking Tool

By Sean on June 28, 2010

I was very excited when I refreshed Engadget for the 283rd time on the morning of the WWDC and officially knew the new iPhone would be getting 720p video recording. I knew it wouldn’t come close to our 7D, but it might actually be useful for something. Who knows. So no sooner than I got my “phone” in the mail, I had it covered in gaffer’s tape, attached to our 7D and Steadicam Merlin.

The iPhone 4 has a fixed f/2.8 aperture and a relatively large 3.85mm lens (which seems to be approximately the equivalent of 35mm on a crop sensor or 56mm on a FF). It has an automatic, variable shutter speed between 1/15 and 1/10000; an automatic ISO of around 80-1000; and the sensor is 1/3.2″ and has some new backside illumination tech to capture more photons (although, in low light, it’s still noisy as heck). Oh, and it records 1280×720 footage at 30fps (just like the original 5D Mark II firmware, it’s 30, not 29.97). The bitrate is about 10 mbps (not bad) and the audio is a low mono 66 kbps at 44.1 kHz. Here’s a good article with more comparisons and statistics, if you’re interested.

To adjust the exposure (and focus at the same time) you just tap an object in the frame. It’s pretty handy, I sometimes wish our 7D had a feature like this. You can focus in video mode, even during recording (it pulls focus way too fast to do any racking, though). The auto exposure and focus sometimes kicks in during recording automatically if too much changes in the scene (annoying).

Here’s a quick test I did with Lainey playing with her cat, Hemlock (who used to be so small). Shot and edited completely on my iPhone in the iMovie app:

Day 2, I wanted to really test the quality and see how far I could push the phone so I went out on my own and shot a little Bokake*. I failed. I realized because the rolling shutter is so apparent, you absolutely have to have good stabilization. Any sort of movement that is too rapid causes distortion and it just looks awful. You also need to pay attention to what is going on in a scene. Again, if you move too quickly, the auto shutter and ISO and focus will kick in and you’ll notice it. Day 3, I borrowed my sister. I put on my rollerblades and had her push me at walking speed. Static shots work the best, but eventually I got the hang of it and was able to get some decent moving shots (note the basketball backboard POV shot in the video below). These shots are graded. I figure if I’m to be putting this to the test, I would use it like a normal camera and go through the whole process, CC and grading included. One thing that really helped was conforming the iPhone footage to 24p. 30 fps looks ugly to me, so pretty much anything I shoot on my phone will always be conformed. It’s really subtle slow-motion and definitely helps smooth out the movements a bit.

Please watch in 720p, fullscreen if possible. :)

So, do I believe this is a viable filmmaking tool? No. I think without at least some real control over exposure, you would have to make some huge compromises in the way you tell your story. But that isn’t to say the iPhone is useless in filmmaking. Having such decent quality in your pocket will make it that much easier to frame up shots, scout locations, and even document the process. It’s a great little camera.

Finally, since I had my iPhone connected to my 7D (mostly for added weight), I recorded both at the same time for fun. Please please please take note that I was mainly focusing on the iPhone and didn’t really check the exposure or even the focus in some shots on the 7D so don’t take this comparison to heart. It wasn’t my intention to shoot video with the 7D at the same time, but here it is anyway:


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15 Comments on “The iPhone 4 as a Filmmaking Tool”

  • Layton says:
    June 28, 2010 at 1:32 pm

    This is great! glad too see a post again! :)

    Reply
  • Angelo says:
    June 28, 2010 at 1:33 pm

    Good to get you back blogging ! I am amazed by the quality of a such small -supposed weak- device. Will be a tough time now for the Flip cameras !

    Reply
  • Al says:
    June 28, 2010 at 8:21 pm

    I think you did very well. A few months ago, I would never have guessed you shot this on a phone. Looks like the footage can take a bit of CC too without looking too shabby.

    Reply
    • Sean says:
      June 28, 2010 at 8:39 pm

      Thanksya. It’s fun to shoot with, but I doubt I’ll use it for anything serious. Took quite a bit of effort and careful planning/testing to get this quality.

  • Gautch says:
    June 29, 2010 at 12:27 pm

    Did you guys see this at all?
    http://www.tuaw.com/2010/06/29/video-shot-and-edited-entirely-on-an-iphone-4/

    “shot and edited entirely on an iPhone 4″

    Reply
    • Sean says:
      June 29, 2010 at 1:53 pm

      I saw the actually short film. Decent quality. The most impressive part was how they managed to ADR the audio. I shot and edited that video of Lainey and her cat completely on my phone, but it’s not as impressive. :P

  • freediverx says:
    July 5, 2010 at 6:40 am

    Your article mentions the iPhone 4′s camera has an f2.8 lens. The EXIF data on all my photos indicates an f2.4 lens. Which one’s correct?

    Reply
  • freediverx says:
    July 5, 2010 at 6:46 am

    Also, you note the max ISO is 1000, but I’ve taken numerous low light photos indicating ISO 2000…

    Reply
    • Sean says:
      July 5, 2010 at 10:27 am

      You’re probably right, just looked at the EXIF data of mine and both the front and back cameras are at f/2.4. I got my information from that site I linked to. Although, all my low light shots seem to be ISO 1000. Not sure why.

  • VIdiotEIC says:
    July 10, 2010 at 6:02 am

    Thanks for the post. VERY impressive; some of the better youTube footage out there… Did you CC and grade the Canon footage?

    Here is the (unfortunate) way I see it. The simple fact that you CAN create a rather impressive piece (albeit time consuming) using a $500 “camera”, and about $2500 in hardware and software means for about $3000 (ya know, about a summer working at BestBuy… then add the employee discount ;) you are a film maker. Web distribution is free (relatively speaking)… so does it spell danger for the motion picture companies?

    Lastly, why not write an app to get better control over the capture parameters of the camera?

    Sorry for the long post.

    Reply
  • Nat Julian Belza says:
    July 17, 2010 at 8:53 pm

    Hi, there’s a new camera app in the app store that can lock focus, exposure, and white balance separately. It’s called “almost DSLR”

    I bought this app and it’s something that you would never want to miss if you’re in photography and filming if you have an iPhone.

    It can shoot videos at 720p while on the fly adjusting the exposure and white balance separately!. how’s that? :-)

    It just have few quirks. (initial release) It’s probably most photographer friendly app. It runs on iOS4 only, so probably it’s using the new camera APIs. Give it a go guys!.. I totally recommend get it..!

    -Nat

    Reply
  • Radovich says:
    July 20, 2010 at 8:13 pm

    You did a great job! haha, did you use imoive?(edited completely on my iPhone in the iMovie app) iMovie is a simple, easy to use video editing program that comes free with the Apple operating system (it has no Windows PC version). Despite its simplicity, iMovie offers many of the same features – dropping clips on a time line, cropping them, adding transitions between clips, etc. – as more advanced video editing programs like ifunia(mac PC version) or aneesoft(Windows PC version).

    Reply
  • pedro says:
    July 31, 2010 at 9:05 am

    Impresionante. Amazing! I’ve loved EVERYTHING, even the song. It’s great to see creative people like you.
    Congratulations.

    Reply

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