The iPhone 17 Pro has wowed us time and time once more with its wonderful nonetheless picture and video high quality. Its highly effective video setup, together with its trio of cameras, giant picture sensors (for a telephone), ProRes raw codecs and Log shade profiles for superior enhancing makes it comfortably one of the crucial reliable video shooters of any of right this moment’s smartphones.
Apple usually boasts about famous directors utilizing the iPhone to shoot films and music videos. The corporate even information its event videos for brand spanking new merchandise with the iPhone.
However is the iPhone actually adequate at capturing video to switch a conventional cinema digital camera? To see how good the iPhone 17 Professional is for skilled use, I gave it a correct check.
I put collectively a video shoot the place I pitted the $1,000 iPhone towards a full skilled cinema digital camera rig, value 1000’s of {dollars}, to see simply how properly Apple’s telephone can maintain its personal. I deliberate a video manufacturing at my favourite espresso roaster in Edinburgh, known as Santu, which relies in a surprising constructing that I knew would look superb on digital camera.
To offer each cameras the very best likelihood, I labored with Director of Images Cal Hallows, who has been accountable for manufacturing on main shoots all over the world, working with manufacturers together with Aston Martin, the BBC, IBM and Hilton Resorts.
Here is what occurred.
Our filming tools
We did not use any exterior lenses with the iPhone; as a substitute, we relied on both the built-in principal, ultrawide or telephoto choices. I shot my footage utilizing the BlackMagic Camera app. I had a Crucial X10 external SSD since I used to be recording in Apple’s ProRes uncooked codec, which creates giant recordsdata.
I additionally had a variable impartial density filter to realize a constant shutter pace. For some pictures, I used Moment’s SuperCage to assist in giving me a greater grip — and subsequently smoother footage. However for different pictures, I simply used the telephone by itself to make it simpler to get into tight areas. Extra on that later.
The BlackMagic digital camera, when totally rigged up, was large and weighed loads. It meant we needed to be extra selective over which pictures we used it for.
The iPhone’s competitors was the $3,300 BlackMagic Pyxis 6K. It is a skilled cinema digital camera with a full-frame 6K decision picture sensor and uncooked video capabilities. I paired that with some beautiful professional cine lenses, together with a set of Arles Primes, the XTract Probe lens from DZO Film and a few alternative cine primes from Sigma. It is a formidable and dear setup for any cinematographer.
The shoot day
We shot over the course of a single day. I would already created a tough storyboard of the pictures I needed to get, which helped me plan my angles and lens decisions. I needed to attempt to replicate some angles immediately with each cameras.
I like this angle and the nice reveal because the door is opened and light-weight hits the espresso luggage. Whereas it is a screenshot from the BlackMagic’s footage, the iPhone’s picture appears to be like simply nearly as good.
This shot of the shop room being opened (above), for instance — was a stunning scene, and I did not see a lot distinction in high quality between the iPhone’s video and the BlackMagic’s. This was the case with a couple of of the scenes we replicated. Apple’s ProRes uncooked codec on the iPhone supplied plenty of scope for adjusting the colour, permitting us to create stunning shade grades that seemed each bit as hanging as footage from the Blackmagic digital camera.
Certain, you can inform that they have been totally different, however I could not actually say if one was higher than the opposite.
The iPhone’s principal digital camera was too slim for this scene, and the ultrawide was too vast, leading to a lightweight stand — and one other worker — being seen alongside the sting of the body.
Different pictures have been tougher to copy. I like this low-angle of the roastery proprietor, Washington, pulling his trolley by way of the scene. On the iPhone, the primary lens wasn’t vast sufficient to seize all the pieces we needed however switching to the ultrawide was an excessive amount of the opposite manner and we ended up having spare gear and different individuals within the body.
This made a number of pictures a problem to copy because the mounted zoom ranges of the iPhone merely did not translate to the identical fields of view supplied by our lenses on the BlackMagic digital camera. In consequence, getting the correct framing for pictures from the iPhone was trickier than I anticipated. However focal size wasn’t the one cause utilizing “actual” lenses was higher.
The vast apertures of the DZO Movie cine prime lenses allowed us to get some stunning background bokeh on pictures like this.
The DZO Arles Primes are superior cinema lenses that provide vast apertures that allowed us to shoot with attractive pure bokeh. We used this to our benefit on a number of pictures the place we actually needed the topic to be remoted towards an out-of-focus background.
Secret weapons
That was particularly the case after we used our secret weapon: the DZO Films Xtract probe lens. This bizarre-looking, lengthy, skinny lens offers each a wide-angle perspective coupled with an in depth focusing distance.
The iPhone’s footage (proper) is nearly totally in focus which means that background parts are clearly seen and are fairly distracting. Utilizing the DZO Movie probe lens on the BlackMagic digital camera (left) allowed these background particulars to easily fall out of focus, retaining the eye solely on the topic.
I liked utilizing the probe lens for this shot, significantly the place we have centered on precisely the place Washington was utilizing the bean grinder. I attempted to copy it on the iPhone utilizing the close-focusing ultrawide lens and the shot appears to be like good, nevertheless it lacks the visible sophistication that I can get from an enormous, skilled digital camera. Particularly as a result of the shortage of background blur makes it simpler to see distracting background gadgets saved underneath the counter which are in any other case “hidden” within the blur on the primary digital camera.
However the iPhone has its personal secret weapon, too. Its dimension. The tiny dimensions of the iPhone — even with a filter and the SSD crudely taped to it — is so small that we have been in a position to get pictures that we merely could not have achieved with the massive cinema digital camera.
The iPhone’s small dimension meant it was doable to clamp it to one of many bean cooler’s arms — one thing I could not have carried out with the massive digital camera and lens. I monitored the footage utilizing SmallRig’s wi-fi iPhone monitor.
Particularly, this shot, the place I rigged the iPhone to an arm contained in the cooling machine in order that it travelled round because the beans have been churned. I like this shot — and a top-down view I shot of the arms turning beneath. Each angles give this unimaginable power to the movie and I feel they’re my favorite scenes of the entire manufacturing. It wasn’t simple to see the telephone display screen in these positions however SmallRig’s wireless iPhone monitor made it a lot simpler to get my angles excellent. Making an attempt to rig up a big, heavy digital camera and lens to get the identical pictures was merely out of the query.
How properly did the iPhone evaluate?
I am actually impressed with each cameras on this mission, however my skilled Director of Images, Cal, had some ideas, too.
“The factor I actually discovered with the iPhone,” Cal defined, “was merely the inventive freedom to get pictures that I would have by no means had time to arrange. There’s solely so lengthy in a day and solely so lengthy you may have entry to filming places or actors, so the truth that you may simply seize your iPhone and get these pictures is superb.”
The vary of DZO Movie primes we had for the cinema digital camera gave us nice flexibility on the day.
“I’ve used my iPhone on skilled shoots earlier than. One time particularly was once I was driving away from set and I noticed this nice sundown. If I would have frolicked rigging up my common digital camera, I would have missed the sundown. So I shot it on my telephone and the consumer liked it — it ended up being the ultimate shot of the movie. On the finish of the day, a very good shot is an effective shot and it does not matter what you shot it with,” mentioned Cal.
So was all of it good for the iPhone?
“The depth of discipline and the general look of the cinema lenses nonetheless come out on prime — you are simply not going to get that on a telephone,” defined Cal. “When it got here to grading the footage, I had to make use of plenty of little workarounds to get the iPhones to match. The standard shortly began to disintegrate in sure difficult scenes that simply weren’t an issue with the BlackMagic.”
So it is not a complete win for the iPhone, however then, I by no means anticipated it to be. The iPhone was by no means going to substitute the professional digital camera on this shoot, nevertheless it as a substitute allowed us to reinforce our video with pictures that we might in any other case by no means have gotten.
I like the inventive angles we discovered utilizing simply the telephone, and whereas Cal struggled to stability its colours as simply, the footage does slot in properly with the remainder of the video and makes it extra dynamic and fascinating because of this.
Director of Images Cal Hallows, seen right here pushed inside a espresso retailer room establishing the digital camera for a shot. Bless him.
And that is to not say the pictures we did not use from it weren’t good. I am truly impressed with how the iPhone dealt with a lot of the issues we threw at it.
So do not assume that if you wish to get into filmmaking, it’s essential to drop tens of 1000’s on a professional cinema digital camera and a set of cine primes. Your iPhone has all the pieces it’s essential to get began, and it will allow you to flex your creativity way more simply.
Our days of capturing, enhancing and grading have confirmed that the iPhone is not but able to be the solely digital camera you want on knowledgeable set. However combine its small dimension in along with your different cameras, and then you’ve got bought your self a very highly effective manufacturing setup.
