Apple just released 3 new iPhones and a 4th generation watch. These are all about the screen and speed and not really big new capabilities. It is all refinement and flawless execution but video fans will look at these phones as a continuation of last year’s specs with a better codec and possibly better bit rates and image quality but not much else. The iPhone X and 8 still remain relevant which is expected in an “s” upgrade cycle.
Gone are the big leaps of frame rates and Apple is capping at 1080p 240fps while completely ignoring rivals like the Galaxy S9,OnePlus 6 and Sony Xperia XZ series when it comes to super slow motion video. Apple was at the forefront of these technologies with the iPhone 6 but now have really rested on their laurels while the competition leapfrogs in video capabilities when it comes to frame rates. Others will point out that even when the high speed is restricted you will now get better quality footage in all modes which is certainly an upgrade.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
People waited with extreme patience for the Canon Full Frame Mirrorless line for several years. The Verdict? Pretty good start but feels like a mid-range product. It lacks IBIS stabilization on the body sensor which has become one of the most coveted features for camera enthusiasts. It lacks dual card slots and most important of all for us it is 2014 frame rates for a camera of this class.
The camera does shoot 4k up to 30p but it has the same crop that has made the Canon 5D Mark IV a bad proposition for videographers that want 4k footage. The crop is 1.7x which is essentially a Micro 4/3rds sensor size with a speed booster but without all the benefits of those bodies like IBIS and very low rolling shutter with the added benefit of better frame rates. This feels for all intents and purposes like a base product for a line that needed to be released to compete but is still evolving technologically.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
The ASUS ZenFone 5Z (ZS620KL) Phone is a new addition to the company line but seems it was a little rushed in the camera department. IT has just started shipping to customers worldwide and there is already a firmware update. The phone is a flagship device with a starting price of $499 which is not bad at all considering it sports some of the best hardware features in Android land. With dual cameras, 6GB of RAM and the latest Snapdragon 845.
The 5Z Phone is a midrange slow motion performer with 120fps and 60fps 1080p recording and the super slow motion mode capping out at 720p 240fps. The improvements in the new firmware improve the recording quality overall and codec bit-rate of the 240fps 720p mode. Since ASUS does not give out the particulars in the bit-rate department it is hard to say how much better it will be.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
Ever wondered how to use slow-motion footage effectively with Premiere Pro CC from Adobe’s Creative Cloud? This quick tutorial by YouTubers Becki and Chris will go through the basics of capturing, editing and organizing the footage for a consistent workflow. They used cameras like the GoPro Hero 5 Black, Sony a7s II, and the DJI Osmo to capture the footage.
Their techniques will apply to any camera that shots high frame rates like 60p and above. Maybe in a future tutorial, they are able to use higher frame rate footage from more capable cameras and even use the optical flow feature to really slow things down in post. You can subscribe to their channel here and support them!→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
NVIDIA has been hard at work on the problem posed by high frame rate interpolation of video data shot on lower fps. We have had this tech since the late 1990s with the advent of Twixtor and refined over the decades in systems like Twixtor Pro and Adobe’s Optical Flow in After Effects. You are still not getting real temporal detail data since the frames are created by extrapolating velocity and direction vectors plus pixel values between frames to get the result.
We explored this technique in our post on interpolation here and why it is no substitute from a real slow motion camera solution. NVIDIA’s new method uses machine learning along with 11,000 videos to arrive at a more convincing result. Considering the relatively small sample size we can imagine a future where hundreds of thousands or millions of footage samples are used to generate near flawless interpolation. This technique takes some serious computation and data sets so as of now it is not really ready for the mass market but that could change with the cloud very soon.→ 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 ←
