So you have an iPhone and want to get the best video possible out of it. Should you stay with Apple’s camera implementation or should you branch out and look for better capture apps? Those that do the best job at compressing your footage and extracting the utmost quality from it.
For years the App to flock to if you own an iPhone is the FiLMiC Pro for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch by Cinegenix. It was used in the Zacuto revenge of the Camera shootout in 2012 to capture the segments with the iPhone which rivaled, according to the audience of judges, cameras much stronger in specs and capture quality. It tied with the Canon C300 and beat the Sony FS100. That test was highly subjective with a lot of light to fill in the soft spots of the camera, however that did not detract from the fact that FiLMiC Pro did an amazing job at delivering a more grade-able and professional looking footage than Apple’s stock implementation on the then iPhone 4s. You can see the test here!→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
The Ono U1 Smartphone reported in a post at HSC earlier this year was stuck between scam-land and outright vaporware with it’s claim of 1080p 480fps video mode based on the Mediatek Helios X10 chip. However it seems the Ono team has persisted and a phone that has been evolving with new features like a fingerprint reader, laser AF, 4GB of RAM, NFC and now Android Marshmallow might see the light of day as soon as the third or fourth week in November.
There has been a lot of interest with this particular phone and with good reason, it could become the phone to beat regarding portable slow motion capable devices. As a Smartphone it will be no slouch is the specs are solid and the phone eventually ships which is still up in the air.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
Now that the Nexus 6P has been getting into the hands of reviewers you can clearly see that the slow motion mode has great quality. It has audio same as the iPhone and the resolution in 240fps mode is on Par or might be better than the iPhone 6s. Testing side by side will be a way to put that to rest but it is clear Google and Huawei have made the camera in the Nexus 6P a real contender for quality.
It is easy to see that the quality at 240fps has very good color rendition, line resolution and very very low artifacts. We can finally see an alternative to the iPhone line when it comes to slow motion in the Nexus 6P phone. Samsung has 120fps in their flagship phones which isn’t bad but at 720p and with aliasing artifacts it is no real contender. Look at the samples below to check the Nexus 6P showing it’s prowess when it comes to high frame rate video recording.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
DJI Has announced a portable 3-Axis Gimbal camera system called DJI OSMO that rivals the best handheld camera options from the competition with an integrated ZENMUSE X3 camera “Same as the one found in the DJI Inspire 1 drone. You get a ton of standard features like an intelligent panning mode and auto panorama with also a timelapse & intervalometer to boot. You will need to supply a Phone or other portable device with iOS or Android in order to have a live preview screen and set up the camera / adjust settings.
Specs for the DJI OSMO portable stabilized camera:
Video Resolution:
UHD: 4K (4096 x 2160) 24/25p
UHD 4K (3840 x 2160) 24/25/30p
2.7K (2704 x 1520) 24/25/30p
FHD: 1920 x 1080 24/25/30/48/50/60/120p*
HD: 1280 x 720 24/25/30/48/50/60p
Sensor:
Sony Exmor R CMOS; 1/2.3”
Effective pixels: 12.40M
(Total pixels: 12.76M)
Still Photography Modes:
Single Shot
Photo Burst Mode: 3/5/7 shots
Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB):
3/5 bracketed frames @ 0.7EV bias
Interval
Timelapse
Auto Panorama
Selfie Panorama
The VR of the 1990s was a certified gimmick ; technology wasn’t there for the most part and a simple system then by today’s standards was worth millions of dollars. Fast forward to 2011 when an inventive young man “only 18 years old then” Palmer Luckey built the first prototype of a VR headset in his parents garage. By the 6th generation prototype he named it the Rift and had a Kickstarter project to be able to launch to the gadget gamer community “raising US $2.4 million or 974% of its original target”.
John Carmack the genius programmer of ID software fame had an Oculus prototype headset and was blown away by it; he modded it to better performance and was able to run a Doom 3 edition on the headset in 2012. Carmack is now the Chief technology officer CFO at Oculus VR. The interest in VR intensified and blew up right after the adoption of the technology by some of the best minds in the gaming industry. Mark Zuckerberg was so into it and the possibilities it could bring to the future of social media that Facebook acquired Oculus VR for 2 Billion USD in March 2014. Talk about a successful meteoric rise for such a young company! → Continue Reading Full Post ←
Now that a couple of weeks have passed it is clear that the camera in the new iPhone 6s is better than the previous model in every single way. It has 12MP instead of 8MP, it has UHD 4k recording in video and has 120fps 1080p slowmo which is up from 720p. The dynamic range is on par with the previous model but with the added feature of less noise and artifacts due to new in sensor technology and software processing. While most users will not notice much in the way of improvements; they are there and especially if you look at the video mode the new iPhone is a fantastic upgrade from the regular 6 model.
The 120fps 1080p mode is very good and the detail is retained as long as there is not a lot of minute detail and extreme numbers of objects/changes in the scene. It is not as good as regular 1080p but it is close as there is not a lot of detail loss especially when using Macro mode. If you want it to shoot a single water drop it should do great but if you are recording assorted splashes the codec will break apart and macro-blocks will start to invade your scene. It works very well for people and large scene objects and a lot of detail is preserved. The 240fps mode is also improved in the artifacts and noise which means the processing is improved as you can see much less aliasing and moire. It is still not true 720p but it is very close. As of now we think the iPhone 6s has better slow motion quality than the GoPro Hero 4 Black and the Sony Action Cam Sony FDR-X1000V . It is the best slowmo phone available in quantity as of today. The New Nexus 6P has 720p 240fps to compete with the iPhone but no realistic samples besides the Hummingbird Video which is still unconfirmed exist. This will change in the near future when users get their hands on it.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
