Best Smartphone for Video Recording & Filmmaking

another year has passed and it's been a year where a multitude of new smartphones have come out with new camera features and capabilities so what were the big innovations this year and did they live up to the hype has the new iphone's cinematic mode changed the language of film will the pixel 6 pro's crazy zoom make you a better filmmaker is the sensor on the xperia pro i really a one-inch sensor and has xiaomi taken over from samsung as the best android video shooter as well i'll talk about last year's innovations and whether they turned out to be the world-changing revolutions in videography that were promised so let's look back and see which of the best smartphones for shooting video the iphone 12 range came with dolby vision as the big innovation this allowed iphone users to shoot video with the enhanced dynamic range as well as in 10-bit color the video looked beautiful so why isn't the world full of dolby vision already the problem was dolby vision is a little bit tricky to edit and color grade for example adobe premiere pro still doesn't really handle it very well final cut pro and lumafusion are both fine though as you would expect from apple only platforms the other problem is that to view dolby vision you need a compatible monitor and a compatible platform and people viewing with non-compatible monitors might get a bit of a poor viewing experience and this was enough to persuade most people that it wasn't really worth the risk that said i do think tech like dobby vision is the future and if you've been lucky enough to view a movie at the cinema in dolby vision i think you'll know what i mean the innovation which made all the noise after the launch of the iphone 13 range was the introduction of cinematic mode one major quality of video shot using a regular camera with proper lenses is what has become known as the bokeh effect this is when the subject is in focus but the background is blurry thing is you still really do need a big sensor a wide aperture and a big long lens to achieve this which is pretty much impossible in a device which is flat and fits in your pocket we've already had portrait mode for video in various devices which attempts a very kind of crude imitation but cinematic mode is a bit more advanced with apple even claiming it would change the language of cinema essentially this mode was already available in the iphone 12 if your device came with a lidar scanner and you downloaded an app called focos live so for the iphone 13 apple decided to use the idea for themselves whilst making some big improvements to the technology cinematic mode uses the iphone's lidar scanner to create a 3d map and that in turn to create a fake shallow depth of field apple's demo videos were impressive and the automatic focus pull feature looked really fun and potentially game changing but then came the downsides firstly cinematic mode is currently limited to 30 frames per second and 1080p resolution which just seems wrong when just about every movie in the cinema is shot at 24 frames per second as well you're not able to lock white balance in this mode and ultimately the 3d scanning tech is not 100 accurate things like hair and glasses worn by a subject aren't mapped correctly leading to a less than ideal look also like with the focus live cinematic mode simply doesn't work when the subject is too close because it's using the fake blurry background combined with that created by the camera for me just like dolby vision i do find this to be exciting technology and of course it can be used very effectively for social media work and vlogging but something i believe will have more impact in the future it's still not quite there yet for serious work at least while cinematic mode took most of the headlines as well as inspiring the most youtubers to make videos either proving it was awesome or terrible less noticed was the addition of apple's pro res video format normally smartphones produce video in a highly compressed codec either avc or hevc while these codecs are great for producing high quality video in small files they're not great if you want to apply color grading four to zero chroma subsampling discards three quarters of the color information and shooting in log format can't change that the addition of prores which is an industry standard codec means the iphone 13s are the first smartphones to produce a pro level video file it's still compressed but the 4-2-2 chroma sub-sampling means that only 50 of the color information is thrown away and now for the downside prores files are huge when compared to h.264 or h.265 files so huge that apple only allows the full range of resolutions and frame rates in devices with 256 gigabytes storage or above some users have complained about how long it takes to get the files from the iphone to their editing setup waiting for several files at five gigabytes each to transfer over wi-fi or airdrop is not fun but if you don't mind dealing with the extra size then prores is far better for grading it's smoother to edit as well as retaining more detail putting those two features aside is there a big difference between the iphone 12 range and the 13. not really which explains why so much was made of these features during the launch one thing to note is that whereas the iphone 12 pro max had a bigger sensor than the iphone 12 pro the iphone 13 pro and pro max actually have identical cameras therefore all you're really paying for is the extra screen size in recent years sony has been aiming directly at the filmmaker market and photographers too with the xperia range of devices after red tried and failed epically sony is pretty much the only successful camera maker which has also made a successful smartphone sony brings their knowledge of making high-end cameras into the smartphone arena in 2021 sony released the third version of their xperia range the sony xperia 1 version 3 and the sony xperia 5 version 3. the new devices come with a periscope lens which offers two different telephoto lengths the lengths can switch between 70 millimeter f 2.3 and 105 millimeter f 2.8 for two different telephoto options which come out at around 3 times and 4.4 times both are optical telephoto lenses and both feature optical image stabilization the xperia 1 also comes with a 12 megapixel main sensor which has a nice wide aperture of f 1.7 allowing for better low light performance and a natural shallow depth of field in fact all the flagship devices from apple samsung and sony to carry a similar wide aperture continuing from previous versions is the native cinema pro app which has a more pro camera feel and function developed by sony's cinematography division cine alta another achievement from this device is being able to shoot 4k video at 120 frames per second while its competitors are mainly limited to 60 frames per second at that resolution and as well if you're a filmic pro user the xperia 1 and 5 devices are recommended and filmic even works with sony to optimize the app for those devices but these are not the most headline grabbing xperia models to arrive in 2021 that honor belongs to the xperia pro i with the eye standing for imaging the device which looks more like a camera that's also a phone rather than a phone that also happens to have a camera in it again the xperia pro i can shoot in 4k up to 120 frames per second so what's the big difference first the smartphone comes with a one-inch sensor a slightly modified version of the one inside sony's rx100 7 compact camera the camera comes with a dual aperture last implemented by samsung on their s9 and 10 and note 9 and 10 devices before being abandoned what is so good about a dual aperture the main advantage is being able to control the amount of light hitting the sensor without pushing the shutter speed too high which then creates harsher looking video a dual aperture just gives you a little bit more room to play with however the truth is that not all of the one inch sensor gets used because the lens cannot be placed far enough away from the sensor to cover it so while it is a 20 megapixel sensor it's only listed as 12 megapixel which is the same as the iphone main sensor this means that the extra shallow depth of field we might hope for isn't there and is in fact a little less than the iphone 13 pro and pro max that said the surface area of the sensor used for photos is 59 greater than used by the iphone 13 pro's main camera sony has also marketed a second screen called a vlog monitor which can be added allowing easier monitoring when filming yourself so that's good for vloggers if you can cover the extra cost talking of cost the sony xperia pro i is not cheap going for eighteen hundred dollars in the us and sixteen hundred pounds in the uk while i think this is a great looking phone or camera whatever you wanna call it the claim this gives the best shallow depth of field from a smartphone isn't really true i'm yet to really see anything beat my samsung note 20 ultra to be honest that said to my eyes the xperia pro i does benefit from this one-inch sensor when shooting video there's a little bit more clarity and less artifacts than you get in other smartphone shot videos the detail looks like real detail and not algorithmically ai enhanced extra sharpened detail oh one last notable feature this camera that's also a phone has a dedicated shutter button on the side now i think it's cool but maybe not as much as this guy having a dedicated shutter button on the camera changing the game and by the way if you're vlogging with your smartphone don't use the front-facing selfie camera i mean just don't it's always worse quality sometimes dramatically worse even the samsung s21 ultra's high quality selfie camera it's still not really a match for its main camera i know it's more convenient for framing but why would you buy a phone for over a thousand dollars and then use the camera that you'd get and like a 300 smartphone in 2020 samsung introduced smartphones capable of shooting in 8k resolution nobody had an 8k monitor to watch it on but still and the reason for including this feature had absolutely nothing to do with samsung coincidentally selling 8k tvs but in seriousness the s20 and note 20 ultra devices packed some serious video shooting punch did i mention that i still love my note 20 ultra apart from the 8k video they could also shoot 4k at 60 frames per second had optical telephoto lenses which beat the iphones and came with their own manual controls in their native app what could samsung do in 2021 first they completely abandoned the note range of devices and then included the pen with the s21 ultra instead then they added even more power to the telephoto camera as well as packing the selfie camera with a high quality sensor it certainly has the best front-facing camera i've seen in a smartphone the device also comes with two telephoto lenses extending the zoom range and allowing up to 10 times optical zoom one thing i didn't like was that to add extra dynamic range samsung turned up the computational effects such as tone mapping the problem is on bright contrasty days this means the s21 ultra can produce extra digital noise in the shadows and that said you can always opt for the tone mapping free pro video mode which gives you a full range of manual controls too bear in mind though that you'll then lose the extra dynamic range that's not just with samsung devices because when you use filmic pro or any manual control app with an iphone you'll lose some of that tone mapping too xiaomi and google's pixel both inhabit the price range just below the iphones and samsung's and sony's you're gonna get a good phone with a good camera for a couple of hundred bucks less do they compete with the iphone 13 pro the sony xperia pro i or the samsung s21 ultra in my opinion not quite there's just something a little nasty digital about the video you get from these devices with extra sharpening and some unflattering details when you're shooting portraits iphones and samsung's also use plenty of computational processing but to my eyes they do it better it comes out slightly more natural looking xiaomi really pushes the filmmaking angle on their phones they even have a xiaomi studios where they invite filmmakers to shoot cinematic short films with their devices as well xiaomi phones come with a pro video mode very similar to samsung except xiaomi also includes their own log profile meanwhile google's pixel phones are improving all the time the recent 6 pro has a very impressive telephoto camera with a long zoom range but for me that's not the most important feature when i'm shooting video that said both flagships the xiaomi mi 11 ultra and the pixel 6 pro have large main sensors with great low light performance as well as adding a shallow depth of field comparable to the more expensive iphone samsung and sony phones i found with the xiaomi devices like with samsung's using pro video mode helps to reduce the digital processing at the expense of some dynamic range as well the pixel 6 range seems to work pretty well with apps like filmic pro which you can use instead of pro video mode one neat little innovation on the xiaomi mi 11 ultra is the inclusion of a little monitoring screen on the back of the phone which allows you to frame yourself while using the much better quality main camera but one of the big complaints about this feature was that it only works in photo mode and that still seems to be the case which is a shame because that would be very useful for people using their smartphones for vlogging purposes when it comes to faster frame rates the xiaomi mi 11 ultra and pixel 6 pro match the top flagship devices in being able to capture 4k video up to 60 frames per second the xiaomi mi 11 ultra also has 8k video capability at 24 frames per second while the pixel pro 6 doesn't now if you're a filmic pro user the google pixel pro might interest you when the pixel was first introduced back in 2016 filmic said it was their favorite android device and it seems the love affair continues its filmic pro is actually able to get more out of the 6 pro than google's own native app which is quite unusual using filmic pro you're able to turn off the noise reduction and digital sharpening as well you're able to shoot 4k 60 frames per second on all cameras while in the google native camera app you can only shoot 60 frames per second at 4k with the main camera on the downside you cannot use the cine kit on this device so no filmic pro log now this is worth noting that samsung has recently been more restrictive in what they allow third-party apps access to in fact in samsung's own pro video mode you cannot even access the telephoto lenses for example so if you're a filmic pro fan and an android fan then the google pixel pro might be one of your better options oneplus is another company like xiaomi that likes to push the filmmaking side of their devices while they started to get some traction in that area around about the oneplus 7 they started to fall behind the competition to try to win back some of the camera phone territory in 2021 oneplus teamed up with hasselblad for their oneplus 9 pro so why is nobody talking about the oneplus 9 pro now it seems that oneplus has not jumped on the dynamic tone mapping bandwagon like samsung apple and the others like samsung apple xiaomi and google this means their photos and videos appear to have less dynamic range in comparison in other words they tend to look like iphones and samsung's when the tone mapping is reduced or switched off as well their inbuilt stabilization just doesn't match the ois the optical image stabilization of the big flagships of course the 9 pro comes at a lower cost although still 900 pounds in the uk but the oneplus 9 pro doesn't match the photography and cinematography capabilities of its second tier rivals either like the mi 11 ultra and the pixel 6 pro the vivo x70 pro and pro plus are devices that are not exactly cheap but they're not the most expensive either this device comes with four cameras a main wide an ultra wide a two times telephoto and a five times periscope telephoto on the pro plus the main camera has a sony 50 megapixel main sensor with an f 1.6 aperture which is nice and fast in photography terms fast means big which means better low light performance and a shallower depth of field the lenses use zeiss optics and coating the quality from this device is pretty good with some eye-catching high contrast video as well as impressive low-light performance but compared to the iphone 13 pro the quality of the video is kind of less filmic and doesn't match in all the areas so this extra contrast might make the video jump out of your phone screen but it doesn't necessarily look good on other screens this device also has pro video mode and an 8k video shooting option except this time at 30 frames per second instead of 24 frames per second myself i would prefer 24 frames per second to keep closer to the film look like the other top devices the x70 pro plus can shoot at 4k up to 60 frames per second oppo built themselves a niche early on as a budget alternative with some of the best video shooting capabilities and was another on filmic's fave list but the oppo x3 pro released in march 2021 is not really a budget model in the uk the device was priced at 1099 pounds on first release so that puts it only a little way behind an iphone 13 pro or pro max the find x3 pro has really strong videography features one interesting feature of this device is the fact that it has two high quality cameras rather than one with most smartphones the main camera is much better quality which becomes apparent in low light situations but with the x3 pro both the main wide and ultra wide cameras have basically the same quality sensor and this means you can switch between the cameras without worrying about loss of quality there's also a telephoto option with two times optical zoom and up to 20 times digital zoom in this respect the device is maybe a little underwhelming for the price for available frame rates we can be happy with 4k at up to 60 frames per second and 1080p at up to 240 frames per second the last of the four cameras has a three megapixel sensor which captures close-ups at a microscopic level i don't think you'd use that too often for videography but it's fun to have anyway the oppo find x3 pro has its own pro mode called movie mode which comes with a log color profile there's some limiting features though such as a fixed widescreen aspect ratio and no 4k 60 frames per second video however all in all this is a nice device and i'm pretty impressed with the colors and the overall quality it produces huawei are a chinese tech manufacturer who were making the kind of impact that xiaomi is now before they got banned in america that is as well as blocked from google play store which is a major drawback for an android device but are americans missing much my answer is well no i don't think they are at least when it comes to shooting video that's not to say the latest huawei flagship the p50 pro isn't very good at shooting video because it is but for the price i could put it on a par with other devices here which sit just below the major apple samsung and sony flagships to my eyes the video also still comes out heavily processed and that tone mapping really pushes extra noise into the darker areas of the video in bright daylight one feature about the p50 pro which is a bit different is the slow motion which can output 960 frames per second slowed to 30 frames a second at 1080p in comparison the samsung s21 ultra still limits 960 frames per second video to 720p other than that i think it does have very decent cameras but nothing you can't get from comparable devices in the same price range lg is also a company that made an effort to provide features for filmmakers such as pro video mode and log color profiles so what have they brought to us in 2021 well nothing turns out lg has decided to stop making smartphones altogether the lg v60 which was released in march 2020 is the last in the v range which was the more filmmaker oriented i think we have to give lg credit for trying out weird and wonderful designs such as the lg wing aurora but that aside that is the end of smartphones from lg so if you want to learn more about smartphone filmmaking you can join us as a member on patreon where i've got all kinds of extra material so you can learn about the basics of smartphone filmmaking you can learn about color grading you can learn how to get the film look and all kinds of other behind the scenes podcasts inside information and also you can get the video lut app free for your iphone or ipad so if we had to choose one smartphone that was the best in 2021 which one would it be well i think i will probably go for the iphone and i would say that because we've had quite a few little minor changes uh here and there to smartphone devices from in terms of shooting video but the inclusion of the apple prores it really is something a little bit different to what other devices are offering there are some developers who are currently working on an app that allows you to shoot raw video on an android that's not really anything to do with any particular device so what do you think do you agree with that or when you are there enough there to make you doubt it does the file size put you off let us know in the comments and that's it for me so i'll see you in the next video ciao

Channel: Simon Horrocks

Views: 178,517

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Id: sBUH_ci3nXo

Length: 24min 22sec (1462 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 10 2021