It seems that phones have been coming out every couple of days this year and OnePlus with a still nearly brand new and fully relevant flagship on the OnePlus 6 is now releasing the updated OnePlus 6T which has a slightly larger screen, smaller notch, a few photo features and an in-glass fingerprint reader which may be reason enough to get one as it may cause friend envy.
The video modes remain as good as the OnePlus 6 which uses the same exact camera configuration in hardware but with some software tweaks to photo modes for better people, food and text capture. The Slow motion component is kept the same as well with 1080p 240fps and 720p at 480fps with a one minute or 60 seconds playback at regular 30p speed from the 480p initial capture. That translates to 1800 frames captured or 3.75 sec at full speed.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
The Chinese tech company Xiaomi has released it’s latest high-end flagship phone the Mi 8 which has the highest ever specs for a Xiaomi Phone with great benchmark scores to boot. It has up to 8GB of RAM with a Snapdragon 845 chip at 2.8Ghz which should perform admirably. The phone is targeted for under $500 in Asia for the lower version spec and under $700 USD for the highest Explorer version.
The video modes are what you would expect from a competitive flagship with UHD 30p 4k and 1080p up to 60fps standard with the option to go 120fps and 240fps in both full HD and regular 720p HD modes. 240p is becoming a standard for full HD and it is encouraging to see that phones all over the globe are adopting these specs as near standard now at least in the higher end. The 4k 60p spec is missing here so the iPhone and other phones that can do it are still preferable for high-end phone video capture.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
The new HTC U12+ bucks the trend in the latest flagship phones that offer extreme high frame rates like 480fps and 960fps for short time frames. Instead, the phone touts 240fps at 1080p and 4k 60p as the main frame rate specs. This is competitive with the iPhone X & Samsung Galaxy S9 series where 4k at 60p is now the default offering for the UHD format on the high end and 240p at full HD on the SlowMo feature front.
This U12+ phone has dual cameras in the front and back which allow it to do interesting bokeh out of focus effects on all types of shots including video mode which may be a first. As to the quality of the effect in video, it will have to be scrutinized to see where it lands and if its good enough to use as a narrative video capture device. The phone has all the top specs of today and the camera has gathered a 103 score on the DXOMark test which is the 2nd best camera on a phone ever after the excellent Huawei P20 Pro at 109.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
The new Mavic Air may actually be the drone you have been waiting for. It has most of the technologies that have evolved on pricier drones like the Inspire series and Phantom high-end consumer offerings like obstacle avoidance, awareness sensors, and now at this tiny size, a 4k 30p 3-axis gimbal stabilized camera. The 4k recording ups the ante at 100mbps compared to the Mavic Pro’s 60mbps which was a big issue for motion artifacts and clearly separated the quality lines on phantom and Mavic series.
The new drone also has the ability to shoot 120fps Full HD 1080p video in what looks like improved quality “but still a little noisy” which is also a plus. The sensor is the same as on the Mavic Pro with a 1/2.3″ size at 12MP with HDR still shooting mode and an 85°-degree FOV. The main feature of course is the size which is slightly bigger than last year’s spark but with finally 4k image quality. Portability is probably the most important drone feature today.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
In a recent video release of what is rumored to be the Huawei Mate 10 phone, we noticed several clips cut in the teaser shot in slow motion with good quality. If these are shot with the new Leica branded dual camera module from Huawei; it may be the slow motion phone to show Sony competition this year.
The cameras on the rear side of the phone hint at a 12MP color module and a 20MP monochrome detail module. The 12MP sensor will probably be used for the slow motion recording if it pans out. Huawei has not been at the forefront of high speed video on mobile phones or even competitive but this new handset could change all that.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
We have received quite a few messages about how to shoot the solar eclipse next Monday, August 21st 2017 in slow motion. After all the more frames you capture, the more temporal detail that will be preserved but there is a threshold when diminishing returns from shooting high fps take a toll on image quality, dynamic range and color accuracy.
In short, the rule of shooting the total solar eclipse at high speed will be based on timing on one hand and detail retention on the other. We have found in our research that you really do not need more than 120fps in order to get a great solar corona snapshot with enough detail and variance. 24 and 30fps regular frame rates are also good and perfectly acceptable.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
