iPhone 15 Pro vs Sony a6700 - Which Camera is Right For You?

this is the iPhone 15 Pro and this is the Sony a6700 and today we're going to look at both of these cameras and see which one is right for you I don't want you to spend your hard-earned money on an iPhone when you could just get a flip phone and pick up the 6700 and I don't want you to pick up the 6700 and then I'll have all the benefits that come with the 15 Pro if you are a video creator then you're going to want to get the highest image quality and if you're a beginner then you're going to want to get a camera that you can just take right out of the box and start shooting with it I don't plan on diving too deeply into the specs because once you get out into the field and you start shooting with any camera specs don't really matter anymore yes both cameras are great but what happens when they start overheating and you can't use them anymore I'm going to treat this comparison like an actual use case and really focus in on the image quality we've all heard about the overheating on both of these cameras but the real question is how long does it take before they start to overheat in what frame rate and resolution and how much of the battery does it eat up while it's shooting video so it's stuff like that that we're going to cover today but before we get ahead of ourselves can you tell the difference between these two shots and before I tell you which camera is which shot let me tell you a little bit more about both of these cameras the iPhone 15 pro has a 48 megapixel sensor can shoot in 4k up to 60 can shoot in prores log and weighs 6.6 Oz it comes with a fixed lens with multiple focal lengths and has mind-blowing stabilization and starts at $999 us the a6700 has a 26 megapixel sensor can shoot in 4k up to 120 can shoot in s log 3 and weighs 17 o with the battery and media inserted it comes as an interchangeable lens camera and has mediocre stabilization and starts at 1398 us the 15 Pro was released in September of 2023 and the a6700 was released in July of 2023 so both of them were released fairly close to each other which means their technology should be about the same for where we are in history today we're going to look at the differences and similarities image quality put them under low light test out that autofocus look at the stabilization side by side we're going to test out the overheating I'm going to talk to you about my user experience also we're going to listen to the audio and see see how both of these cameras do as Vlog cameras and I'll be sharing with you Side by-side Video comparisons all along the way I shot most of these shots like a beginner would straight out of box so I left both cameras in program Auto and just let them do their thing so that we could have a good idea of that image quality but for a couple of shots to really nail that exposure I downloaded the Blackmagic camera app to give me more exposure control Focus white balance stuff like that the goal of this video is not only to give you Clarity on which one of these two cameras is right for you but also to draw a contrast between these two devices so you can see the differ between an iPhone and a dedicated content creating camera all right we got a lot to cover and I'd love for you to tell me which one of these two cameras you like better and why and that's what we're tackling today on the film Alliance all right if you looked at the image comparison at the beginning of this video and you knew which one of these two cameras was which from those shots then you have a good eye my friend I knew right off the bat which one was which because I'm the one that put this together but the further I got down into the rabbit hole I started to second guess myself on some not all the lenses that I used on the 6700 to try to match up those focal lengths with the iPhone 15 Pro are as follows I used the viltrox 13mm f1.4 for some of those wide shots the sigma 30mm f1.4 for the product shots and some portraits the Sony kit lens the 16 to 50 f3.5 to 5.6 as an all-around lens and the Sony 55 to 210 f4.5 to 6.3 for some of those telephoto shots I shot in all different lighting environments to really get a goodidea aidea of the strengths and weaknesses of both of these cameras let's first talk about the price of both these cameras cuz generally that's the first hurdle people have to jump over before they can even decide which camera is right for them the iPhone 15 Pro is coming in at $999 out the door but that's only with $128 GB of storage the a6700 comes in at 1398 and you have to get an SD card for it and a lens so you're looking about just under $2,000 to start shooting with this thing so right out of the gate looking at a basic lens setup you're almost d from what the iPhone would be I would however go with at least 256 GB on the iPhone which takes it to $10.99 or get the 512 GB which takes it up to $12.99 and then I'd also get a phone case for it and maybe a screen protector so now you're inching closer to that $2,000 Mark but you're still not even close to what the a6700 would be you might be saying well you could just get the kit lens with the 6700 there's a bundle price there and I would say to you if you're going to spend money on a good camera like this then just pay the extra money get a sigma 18-50 f2.8 and you'll have a solid setup it obviously goes up from there for both of these cameras you can get an external lens kit for the iPhone 15 Pro free well makes a lens kit I'll be reviewing that pretty soon and you could also pick up a variety of different lenses for the a6700 because the apsc lenses are fairly cheap compared to what you would spend if you were going with fullframe lenses but if you do have full-frame lenses lying around you could use those on the 6700 by the way if you don't already follow me and you like videos like this one where we compare cameras like this and how to get better at video creation then make sure to join the film Alliance by subscribing the ease of use and portability out of the iPhone is way smaller lighter and can fit right in your pocket it was fun and easy to use straight out of the box I was able to literally just take it out of the Apple Store go to camera without any prior research and just start shooting with it I did shoot quite a bit of 4K 60 proes log externally and the footage was amazing but it did add to the form factor of the camera body but if I was only filming stuff like family stuff or nonprofessional work then the iPhone 15 Pro was really nice if you look at the 6700 next to the 15 Pro there is a huge difference in body design in both size and weight and with that said if you're a travel videographer and you just want something quick and easy to go right out the door then go with the iPhone but if you want to be a little bit more serious about your image quality then go with the a6700 you will have a portability issue when you go to film with the a6700 and it a couple different lenses with that said I'm coming from a fullframe A7 S3 and if I was to put a fullframe lens on that and throw it up on a gimbal or even build a cinema rig out of it then I'm dealing with a pretty massive setup so coming to the a6700 it's like a literal dream because the image quality that you get out of this thing is so good and the form factor is so small unless you compare it to something like the iPhone 15 Pro so although it's a lot bigger than the iPhone 15 Pro to me it still qualifies as a small and compact setup that may be different for you for what you're filming I think the trade-off for having a bigger setup like this compared to a small fit in yourr pocket size setup like this is the image quality especially in low light don't worry we're going to get to all that if you are a beginner then the 15 Pro is going to be way easier to use right out of box I mean no prior knowledge or experience really you just pull it out and start shooting with it except for when you start shooting in prores log that's when you need to start having some of that experience the a6700 however is a lot harder to learn but has a lot more control and it even has a flip screen which isn't for most people but if you're a vlogger then this is going to be a huge benefit to you or if you shoot head shot like I'm doing right now I used to have the a73 and it didn't have a flip screen so I would always just guess on what my frame looked like and hoped it was right another good thing about the 6700 having a flip screen is that you can get tougher angles I noticed with the iPhone when I tried to get some low angle shots I couldn't even see the screen so I was just kind of blindly shooting holding my hand down or I had it on a Gimbal and it made it really tough to see but I can't tell you how often I use the flip screen when I'm going low angle or maybe higher up and I can kind of see what the frame is looking like just super helpful when it comes to usability also in Sunny environments both displays would be hard to see that gives an edge to the a6700 because it has an evf the a6700 has a lot more customization on the outside of the camera you can customize a lot of these buttons and dials to however you see fit I even made my C1 my record button because it's a lot easier to press whereas the iPhone you're kind of just dealing with the native camera app and the options that are inside of the app itself which really gives you limited control on not only focus but exposure and it just doesn't have a lot of options if you really are in it to become a better filmmaker but you do have to have a basic working knowledge of how to expose your image if you want to use the a6700 you can throw it in program Auto but your image won't look anything close to what it would look like if you just figured out how exposure works and then you manually set the exposure yourself too many times I've left my camera in program Auto maybe I was in a running gun situation and I didn't have enough time to manually expose it but once I got home and saw the images and the footage on screen I realized the shutter speed was cranked up too high and it looks jittery or the aperture is set to F16 because it was in a bright environment and everything is in focus and that's really what you get with the iPhone 15 Pro is you just get those higher shutter speed jittery digital looks if you don't have the ability to expose it yourself and that's where the Blackmagic camera app really comes into play because it gives you the ability to expose properly on your 15 Pro which definitely takes it a notch up closer to being more in control of your exposure settings like you are with the 6700 I did make a little free video on exposure a while back and if you need a refresher course on how to expose your camera properly I'll leave that one in the description the a6700 also has exposure meters but when you download the Blackmagic camera app for the iPhone you also get those same exact exposure controls and it has the ability to download Luts which the a6700 has also so the point is the Blackmagic app really helps take this camera up to another level that you could actually compare it with the zissy 700 the reason that you would want to upload your Luts to these things before you start shooting in prores log or S log 3 is that way you can see what your image looks like and you don't have to guess what the exposure is going to look like because you could easily overexpose your s-log footage out of the 6700 and when you come home to grade it you just can't do anything with it a lot of people will just shoot straight out of camera with the 6700 or even otone but what happens when you do that is you're pretty much baking in the colors and there's not really a lot of room to play you can mess around with the shadows and maybe the saturation a little bit and the same thing with the iPhone if you just shoot straight out a camera you're really just baking in your colors and you can't really do anything with it that's why it's such a benefit to be able to shoot in prores log or S log 3 you just want to be able to know how to expose it while you're shooting with it that's why uploading Luts is really nice because then you could be like oh I know what my images is looking like I don't have to just guess the 48 megapix sensor allows you to dial in three different focal lengths 24 mm 28 m M which is 1.2 times that 24 mm lens and 35 mm which is 1.5 time that 24 mm lens the ultra wide camera has a 12 megapixel sensor and it takes it back to 13 mm but the quality fallof is quite noticeable and if you want to use the telephoto camera that takes it to 77 mm it does take the image quality down quite a bit because it also changes to the 12 megapixel sensor when you use apsc lenses on the 6700 you won't lose any quality like you would with the iPhone 15 Pro because this does a lot of digital zooming and basically all that is is just scaling in whereas a telephoto lens on the 6700 it's actually Gathering the light and it's still getting spread across the sensor evenly without any digital crop that's why a 55 to 210 mm lens on the 6700 will looks so much better than zooming in all the way with the 15 Pro also the a6700 can interchange batteries whereas the iPhone you're kind of dependent on the charge that's within the internal battery you could use a MAG safe charger to wirelessly charge the iPhone while you're shooting with it but you'll probably deal with overheating issues if you're charging the camera and also say externally recording prores log 4K 60 and also the fact that you can interchange the SD cards is a huge benefit as well compared to you're stuck with the 256 GB that's inside of your iPhone Pro or you're going to have to hook up an external SSD drive to give you extra memory but that just adds to the form factor the frame rates and resolution that the 15 Pro can shoot in is 4K up to 60 and the 6700 can shoot 4K up to 120 but because the 4K 120 adds such a heavy crop it makes it virtually unusable in low light situations mainly due to the fact that the apsc sensor already has a 1.5 times crop and then adding that extra crop from the 4K 120 in low light you're barely using any of the sensor anymore so for now we will just compare the 4K 60 the 4K 24 and the 1080 1220 out of both of these cameras the iPhone can shoot in 422 10bit prores up to 30 frames per second internally and 4K 6D externally unless you're using the Blackmagic camera app and then it can shoot in 4k 60 internally the a6700 can shoot in 422 10bit 4K up to 120 which makes both of these cameras good components if you're into green screen work when we compare the prores log footage out of the 15 Pro to the s- log footage out of the 6700 I have more room to grade the colors with the 6700 mainly due to the fact that the sensor is bigger so there's more detail for me to grade but with that said the prores footage out of the 15 Pro is really nice to have and in a pinch I could match the prores log footage to the 6700s slog easily this makes the 15 Pro a potential great bcam for the 6700 or another dedicated content creating camera that you might have I found that the 10860 footage out of the iPhone was a bit softer and harder to grade than the footage I got with the 6700 there's still a lot of 1080 Shooters out there who like the easier workflow and smaller file size and then once they're done editing on the rigs they just upscale it to 4K and they upload it to YouTube as a 4K video both cameras have in bodybody stabilization but in my opinion the iPhone 15 Pro just blows the 6700 out of the water but both cameras do have drawbacks when it comes to stabilization when you're using action mode on the 15 Pro the stabilization is amazing but the image quality downgrades to 2.8k and in low light the image almost falls apart you even get a little warning message that says more light is required if it detects you've crossed over a low light threshold either way the action mode on the 15 Pro is way better than the active stabilization that you get with the 6700 the 6700 also crops in 1.1 times when you have stabilization turned on this is why I recommend picking up a gimbal if you want to get some smooth footage and then just go ahead and turn stabilization off so you don't lose any more of that focal length that you lost in that 1.5 times crop don't forget that every time you crop in you're losing sensor area so you will get poorer low light performance interestingly enough when you turn on action stabilization on the 15 Pro you actually get a negative crop because I think it actually activates the wide angle lens whether you're vlogging or just going handheld the footage from the 15 Pro looks close to gimbal like footage you do have to turn on enhanced stabilization on the 15 Pro because you lose that smooth footage effect if you don't the a6700 on the other hand is definitely not gimble like footage when you put active stabilization on I mean you could throw it through Sony's Catalyst brows I'm not a fan of doing that because it takes so long for it to export I don't know maybe it's just my rig but I like to be able to get the shots right in camera and then upload them to my editor and just start editing with them so both stabilization systems do have their advantages and disadvantages just know what those are before you make your decision on which one of these two cameras you like better based on the stabilization this is really where the a6700 will blow the iPhone out of the water when it comes to low light especially when you have a fast lens like the vro 133mm f1.4 prime or the sigma 30 mm f1.4 Prime when I shot that little cinematic video with the 15 Pro I ended up not using a lot of the low footage because it just fell apart mainly due to that smaller sensor size in studio lighting Straight Out of the Box the iPhone footage is pretty much unusable I also had the ability to manually expose both cameras using that Blackmagic camera app and obviously having the exposure controls at my finger chips and in low light the a6700 doesn't even compete with the iPhone keep in mind that the aperture is already fixed on the 15 Pro so we're already starting off on a bad foot when I throw the 15 Pro into proes log it does a lot better but it still gets beaten out by log footage out of the 6700 Apple always pushes the limit with technology and does things other people are like what but Sony does the same things with their Innovations especially with their autofocus systems and that AI processing chip that we've been seeing in Sony cameras that have been being released keep in mind while we're watching these tests that because the iPhone has a fixed aperture and everything's in Focus because of the smaller sensor the iPhone doesn't have to work as hard as the 6700 especially when I'm using the sigma 30mm f1.4 and I'm Dr down all the way to 1.4 but just to give the a6700 enough of an advantage I set up the autofocus to be the fastest responsiveness to up the Annie you tell me which camera you think has faster autofocusing systems and by the way that AI processing chip doesn't only focus on humans it focuses on insects airplanes cars trains animals just all different types of things and just [Music] mind-blowing I did shoot a little cinematic sequence with the iPhone where I literally didn't touch any of the exposure tools or use any third party apps and I just went out and shot with it got home put it in my editor I didn't touch any of the colors or color grade any of it and I exported that video and uploaded it to YouTube I'll leave that one in the description if you're interested to see what the image straight out of the iPhone 15 Pro looks like without doing any touches to any of the actual image or the coloring while I was shooting that video I brought the 6700 along with those different lenses that I mentioned and got some similar shots to see if I could tell a big difference and those are some of the comparison shots that you've been seeing up until right now the 15 pro has cinematic mode and although I loved using it it did come with some drawbacks while I was out filming with it when I watched the playback on the phone display I thought man that looks great but once I got home and put it on my big screen I saw that fake digital blur and when I compared that blur to the Natural bokeh that you get with the 6700 and say like an f1.4 lens there's a big difference now I don't know if someone who's not in this stuff all the time would ever be able to tell a difference but I sure could also when I was in cinematic mode It could only focus on one person so if I had two people in front of the lens I had to make sure that they were both at the same focal length because if they weren't then the camera kind of just pumped in between both of our faces but that is comparable to if you were using a real camera because the focal plane is so small when you're using something like f1.4 you can only have one face in the focal plane and you can't have another face in the background you can through somehow be able to go back and forth between the faces on the 15 Pro to see which one you want to focus but you can't focus on them at the same time I wouldn't use cinematic mode to shoot an actual cinemat IC movie sequence it's cool and fun but that's about it I would however absolutely use the 6700 with some proper lenses maybe some cine lenses to go out there and get a cinematic sequence you also cannot use prores log and cinematic node although I don't think I'd want to and you also lose that ability to shoot in 4k 60 I set my phone up to record cinematic mode in 4k 20 as a default I will test the audio in the next chapter but for now I wanted to talk about if you were actually handholding the camera as a vlogger what that would be like and what experience I had if you wanted to Vlog with either of these cameras then go with the 6700 because you can actually see your frame you could use the front-facing camera on the 15 Pro but the image quality and the sound quality drops off quite a bit I noticed what appears to be a little mic hole in the front by the camera here which would explain why the sound sounds better when you're filming with the rear-facing camera but when you're shooting with the rear facing camera all you can see is the little reflection on the glass and hope that you're pretty much in frame the 6700 on the other hand has two mic holes on the front here which theoretically would mean that you're going to get better sounding audio and it has the flip screen which is huge when it comes to vlogging this is super helpful especially if you're like me and you record head shot like I'm doing right now I told you before I use the a73 and too many times I thought my frame looked great from when I tested it out but then I found out that I wasn't in Focus so the flip screen is definitely a huge plus and if you get the 15 Pro you're going to have a consistent issue also the 6700 from that AI processing chip has some something called Auto reframing where it will crop in and kind of follow you around the frame as if you have a second camera person if you're a oneman band we're testing the native audio out of the a6700 with the vro 13mm f1.4 I just want to see what it sounds like compared to the iPhone 15 Pro all right let's check it out we're doing a native audio test with the iPhone 15 Pro to see how it sounds compared to the Sony a6700 I also don't really know how this frame is because I can't see myself I can kind of see myself in the reflection of the little uh glass that's on the camera but other than that if you wanted to use this camera is a vlog camera then you're going to need to maybe put like a mirror or something on the back of your camera so you can actually see your frame although I think both mics are decent if you want to have more professional content then you're going to need to pick up a road lav mic system or a micro shotgun mic for the 6700 you can get one of the intelligent mics that hooks up to the 6700 where it doesn't have any external wires and the audio gets input into into the signal I made a video on that and I'll leave that in the description if you're interested for the iPhone you would have to pick up a cage or something and be able to put a mic on top and then just have it go into your USBC people are complaining about the overheating on both of these cameras and yes they both get pretty dang hot and for me the iPhone never actually overheated the a6700 did only after 22 minutes of straight recording in 4k 60 and that's after the software update by the way I'll throw my results up on the screen so you can take a look but I was more interested in how much battery each one of these cameras eats up while I'm filming in these longer formats I don't think I can come up with a real use case scenario of shooting in 4k 60 straight for up to 30 minutes but at least we can see the difference in how fast both of the devices drains their battery in 422 10bit recording in the iPhone 15 Pro there's a reduced heat dissipation area inside from that new titanium frame which in my opinion is why we're getting overheating with it but I believe a software update will fix that or at least help the a6700 is made specifically for Content creators whereas the iPhone is made for iPhone users who would like to begin creating content if you're a beginner and you just want to go outside and start filming then pick up the 15 Pro and if you're at that point where you're growing out of your old smartphone because of the lack of exposure control then go with the 6700 all right so to finish off this comparison I put both the a6700 and the iPhone up inside of the studio lighting and I'm just going to talk about both of them I have the kit lens on the a6700 and we're shooting in 4k 24 and we're shooting in 4k 24 on the iPhone 15 Pro and I have that 24mm lens set as well I did underexpose the iPhone Pro by about negative 1.0 because once you leave it at 0.0 it just really falls apart in this low light environment so that will give you a little bit more of a side-by-side comparison in studio lighting you could go with either of these cameras when it comes to film making they both have their limitations and their strengths the a6700 has has a lot more customization and works way better in low light the 15 Pro is a lot easier for straight out of the box to get some pretty good image quality shots so it just depends on what you are using them for if I had a choice between both of these cameras and I was on a budget I would probably pick up the 6700 with the 18-50 sigma f2.8 and then I would just get a flip phone to make some phone calls so that's my conclusion and that's my comparison on both of these cameras I hope you enjoyed it let me know what you think about both of these cameras and which one you like better until the next video I'm Joe with the film Alliance thanks for [Music] watching

Channel: The Film Alliance

Views: 513,295

Keywords: a6700 vs iPhone 15 pro, iPhone vs sony, a6700 vs iphone, a6700 cinematic iphone, iPhone 15 pro cinematic

Id: HapPgf7iKwk

Length: 23min 39sec (1419 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 06 2023