Exploring iPhone 13 Pro Cinematic Mode

That's pretty good right? You know when I first used cinematic mode on the iPhone 13 Pro I was like this is pretty cool this is cool technology but the other part of me was like you know dang this looks super fake and in most cases I wouldn't recommend you even use it because it does look so fake but I'm not your So you can use cinematic mode all you want. By default, Apple has it set to a really shallow depth of field and I think that's why it looks so fake. If you don't know what shallow depth of field is, the easiest way to think of it is how much background blur or foreground blur is in front or behind whatever you have in front of your focus. And if you have it set to a really shallow depth of field, it's gonna look kind of fake because it's trying to smooth out the edges. It's trying to emulate like a shallow depth of field and you're gonna see all the artifacts and glitches. All that said, I feel like the bokeh or background blur is really good on cinematic mode. I think it actually looks better than photo portrait mode. And if you lower the effect to like F5.6 to F7.1, it actually looks pretty realistic. Okay, so let's unpack cinematic mode because there's a lot to talk about. I want to kind of give you some pointers on how to use it right. First off, it's only 1080p 30 frames per second, which is a good and bad thing. Movies are usually shot in 24 frames per second. That's what I'm shooting this video in right now. But 30 frames per second has a different feel to it. It doesn't. have that proper cinematic motion that they use in films. And I'm sure some of you out there would disagree with me, but the cool thing with 30 frames per second is you can actually slow it down to 80% while you're editing, and that's if you're working in a 24 frames per second timeline, and it gives you kind of like a dreamy, flowy, slow motion look, and that's what I use for my intro clips. I also like that Apple lets you control how much of the effect you want, so you can change this after you've actually filmed it. All you have to do is go up to the top right, hit edit. Then click the f-stop on the top left and you can adjust it like you would kind of like an aperture on a real lens The other cool thing is that you can actually edit in keyframes and focus points if you want to lock in a shot Instead of just the ai taking over and tracking for you So I just kind of want to show you what it's like to keyframe something So as you can see here, it's tracking aaron's face. It's got her face selected and it's going to follow her down the stairs here She's coming down the stairs. It's pulling focus because it's tracking her face, but as she leaves frame it kind of flickers And it goes back to the stairs. Now what if I wanted to stay at the focus point where she was last at and not focus back to the stairs? Because in a real cinema world, like in a real case scenario, you wouldn't focus back to the stairs. You would just stay out of focus a little bit so that it would continue the frame. So the cool thing is you can go in here and scrub the timeline. As it's tracking her face, as she leaves the frame, it loses the track. So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to click and hold down on her shoulder here and it's going to say AF locked at 0.5 meters. And what it's supposed to do is stay locked off at that spot. So it won't see her anymore, but it's just going to hold the focus at that spot. And perfect. So as you can see, it stayed locked off where her shoulder was last. So didn't focus back to the stairs. So now you'll see that it tracks her face coming down the stairs and as she leaves frame, the focus stays there. So that's going to look a little more natural. That's going to look a little bit more realistic. So it's cool that we can set different focus points. For any reason at all. So say you wanted to select something else in the distance or come back to the person you can do that You can actually do that on the fly too just by tapping the screen You can also track objects or people you can let it choose what you want to focus on But honestly, I think it does a really good job at just using AI to determine when a face or objects in frame It just chooses the closest thing to the camera I'm sure you've probably seen the demo clips from Apple's press event where they showed how If a face was closer to the camera and they looked away that a rack focus to the next closest face That's pretty cool that it can do that on its own and it actually looks very human. It doesn't look like a robotic focus pull, it looks really real. And as I said it's only 1080p and I think the reason for that is just because of the stabilization as well as the file size but it's got to be hands down the best digital stabilization I've ever seen. All the shots I took were handheld and you'd swear that I was using like a steadicam. I'm not going to say gimbal because it has more of a steadicam look to it. So I'm just assuming they're using like the 4k image. to do all the post stabilization. And when you're previewing it and when you're filming, it's not actually as smooth until you hit stop record. And I think it just processes the stabilization on the fly. And then when you play it back, you see how smooth it is. Half the footage you saw was actually shot on the iPhone 13 mini, which is what I decided to go with this year. I decided not to get the pro, but on the pro you can actually use the telephoto lens as well. But I found that it didn't look as good and you're better off just using the main camera. You know the main camera on the 13 Pro is amazing It's got some nice natural bokeh already because of that bigger sensor and the wider aperture of f1.5. Just want to jump in real quick and talk about my good friends over at GearFocus.com. I've been using GearFocus now for about two years and it's obviously the best place to buy and sell used camera gear. If you've got extra camera gear laying around like a camera or a lens to sell, GearFocus is a good place to start to make some extra cash or if you're looking to buy a camera or lens you might find a good deal on something used versus buying it new. Once you've set up an account with GearFocus you can start listing your items right away. You need to make sure that you take some good quality images of the actual items that you're selling so that the buyer knows exactly what they're getting. Then fill out the description, the category and price you're looking to get from your item, and once you're done and the item's listed, it's that easy. The cool thing is the buyer and seller can actually message each other to ask more questions about the sale, which is super helpful. I've actually sold a ton of stuff on there and recently I just sold some flash stuff, so it's been really nice not having the hassle of trying to sell stuff in person. GearFocus handles all the transaction and money side of things, so know you're safe compared to selling gear in person through Craigslist or Marketplace because things can get a little sketchy sometimes. GearFocus takes a small 3.5% transaction fee per sale, which is way better than eBay's insanely high fees. So make sure to check out my shop at GearFocus.com. Link is in the description. The biggest tip I can suggest is to make sure that you have good lighting and not a lot of crazy motion. The more still the subject is, the better it's gonna look. And as I mentioned, dial that effect way back to like F1.7, unless you're shooting something further away then open it up a bit more. It's gonna look more realistic that way. But basically I shot in ideal conditions. The lighting was even and there wasn't a lot of motion. So my stuff looks good because I shot it in the right situation. You could also try and think of some creative shots like locking off focus on a foreground object while the subject stays out of focus in the background. That looks a little bit more realistic. And the coolest part about this is you can change it all after you filmed it because you have the ability to change it after. And also if you have time, grade the footage, add a little bit of film grain, it's gonna add a little bit of extra pop to it. And you know then it's gonna look like it wasn't shot on an iPhone. And lastly shoot short clips because you know you're gonna want to bring this in your computer to edit it. Apple said in the future Final Cut and iMovie are gonna get an update to allow you to use the metadata which will allow you to change the focus points inside of the editor which would be awesome but for now you have to send the files to your computer and the focus information set where it's at and it has to process it and send it so as you're transferring there's a bit of time there and so that's why I'd suggest shorter smaller clips because it's going to send faster. Anyway, that's it. I hope you learned something. I don't know if I'm ever going to use cinematic mode that much because I have real cameras to shoot with, but if you didn't have a real camera to shoot with and all you had was the iPhone, I don't know if you use it correctly. It could look pretty good. Most people are just going to be watching on their mobile devices anyway, and that's where it looks best on the iPhone pretty much. Anytime you shoot something, it looks good on the iPhone, but maybe I'll revisit this later in the future when it gets more improved, but what do you guys think? You like cinematic mode? Are you team 24p or team 30p? Thanks for watching. If you liked it, give it a thumbs up. If you dislike this video, give it a thumbs down twice. Don't forget to hit that notification bell and I'll see you guys in the next one.

And if you have it set to a really shallow depth of field, it's gonna look kind of fake because it's trying to smooth out the edges. It's trying to emulate like a shallow depth of field and you're gonna see all the artifacts and glitches. All that said, I feel like the bokeh or background blur is really good on cinematic mode. I think it actually looks better than photo portrait mode.

And if you lower the effect to like F5.6 to F7.1, it actually looks pretty realistic. Okay, so let's unpack cinematic mode because there's a lot to talk about. I want to kind of give you some pointers on how to use it right.

First off, it's only 1080p 30 frames per second, which is a good and bad thing. Movies are usually shot in 24 frames per second. That's what I'm shooting this video in right now. But 30 frames per second has a different feel to it.

It doesn't. have that proper cinematic motion that they use in films. And I'm sure some of you out there would disagree with me, but the cool thing with 30 frames per second is you can actually slow it down to 80% while you're editing, and that's if you're working in a 24 frames per second timeline, and it gives you kind of like a dreamy, flowy, slow motion look, and that's what I use for my intro clips.

I also like that Apple lets you control how much of the effect you want, so you can change this after you've actually filmed it. All you have to do is go up to the top right, hit edit. Then click the f-stop on the top left and you can adjust it like you would kind of like an aperture on a real lens The other cool thing is that you can actually edit in keyframes and focus points if you want to lock in a shot Instead of just the ai taking over and tracking for you So I just kind of want to show you what it's like to keyframe something So as you can see here, it's tracking aaron's face. It's got her face selected and it's going to follow her down the stairs here She's coming down the stairs.

It's pulling focus because it's tracking her face, but as she leaves frame it kind of flickers And it goes back to the stairs. Now what if I wanted to stay at the focus point where she was last at and not focus back to the stairs? Because in a real cinema world, like in a real case scenario, you wouldn't focus back to the stairs.

You would just stay out of focus a little bit so that it would continue the frame. So the cool thing is you can go in here and scrub the timeline. As it's tracking her face, as she leaves the frame, it loses the track. So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to click and hold down on her shoulder here and it's going to say AF locked at 0.5 meters. And what it's supposed to do is stay locked off at that spot.

So it won't see her anymore, but it's just going to hold the focus at that spot. And perfect. So as you can see, it stayed locked off where her shoulder was last. So didn't focus back to the stairs.

So now you'll see that it tracks her face coming down the stairs and as she leaves frame, the focus stays there. So that's going to look a little more natural. That's going to look a little bit more realistic. So it's cool that we can set different focus points.

For any reason at all. So say you wanted to select something else in the distance or come back to the person you can do that You can actually do that on the fly too just by tapping the screen You can also track objects or people you can let it choose what you want to focus on But honestly, I think it does a really good job at just using AI to determine when a face or objects in frame It just chooses the closest thing to the camera I'm sure you've probably seen the demo clips from Apple's press event where they showed how If a face was closer to the camera and they looked away that a rack focus to the next closest face That's pretty cool that it can do that on its own and it actually looks very human. It doesn't look like a robotic focus pull, it looks really real.

And as I said it's only 1080p and I think the reason for that is just because of the stabilization as well as the file size but it's got to be hands down the best digital stabilization I've ever seen. All the shots I took were handheld and you'd swear that I was using like a steadicam. I'm not going to say gimbal because it has more of a steadicam look to it.

So I'm just assuming they're using like the 4k image. to do all the post stabilization. And when you're previewing it and when you're filming, it's not actually as smooth until you hit stop record. And I think it just processes the stabilization on the fly.

And then when you play it back, you see how smooth it is. Half the footage you saw was actually shot on the iPhone 13 mini, which is what I decided to go with this year. I decided not to get the pro, but on the pro you can actually use the telephoto lens as well.

But I found that it didn't look as good and you're better off just using the main camera. You know the main camera on the 13 Pro is amazing It's got some nice natural bokeh already because of that bigger sensor and the wider aperture of f1.5. Just want to jump in real quick and talk about my good friends over at GearFocus.com. I've been using GearFocus now for about two years and it's obviously the best place to buy and sell used camera gear.

If you've got extra camera gear laying around like a camera or a lens to sell, GearFocus is a good place to start to make some extra cash or if you're looking to buy a camera or lens you might find a good deal on something used versus buying it new. Once you've set up an account with GearFocus you can start listing your items right away. You need to make sure that you take some good quality images of the actual items that you're selling so that the buyer knows exactly what they're getting.

Then fill out the description, the category and price you're looking to get from your item, and once you're done and the item's listed, it's that easy. The cool thing is the buyer and seller can actually message each other to ask more questions about the sale, which is super helpful. I've actually sold a ton of stuff on there and recently I just sold some flash stuff, so it's been really nice not having the hassle of trying to sell stuff in person.

GearFocus handles all the transaction and money side of things, so know you're safe compared to selling gear in person through Craigslist or Marketplace because things can get a little sketchy sometimes. GearFocus takes a small 3.5% transaction fee per sale, which is way better than eBay's insanely high fees. So make sure to check out my shop at GearFocus.com.

Link is in the description. The biggest tip I can suggest is to make sure that you have good lighting and not a lot of crazy motion. The more still the subject is, the better it's gonna look.

And as I mentioned, dial that effect way back to like F1.7, unless you're shooting something further away then open it up a bit more. It's gonna look more realistic that way. But basically I shot in ideal conditions. The lighting was even and there wasn't a lot of motion. So my stuff looks good because I shot it in the right situation.

You could also try and think of some creative shots like locking off focus on a foreground object while the subject stays out of focus in the background. That looks a little bit more realistic. And the coolest part about this is you can change it all after you filmed it because you have the ability to change it after.

And also if you have time, grade the footage, add a little bit of film grain, it's gonna add a little bit of extra pop to it. And you know then it's gonna look like it wasn't shot on an iPhone. And lastly shoot short clips because you know you're gonna want to bring this in your computer to edit it. Apple said in the future Final Cut and iMovie are gonna get an update to allow you to use the metadata which will allow you to change the focus points inside of the editor which would be awesome but for now you have to send the files to your computer and the focus information set where it's at and it has to process it and send it so as you're transferring there's a bit of time there and so that's why I'd suggest shorter smaller clips because it's going to send faster. Anyway, that's it.

I hope you learned something. I don't know if I'm ever going to use cinematic mode that much because I have real cameras to shoot with, but if you didn't have a real camera to shoot with and all you had was the iPhone, I don't know if you use it correctly. It could look pretty good. Most people are just going to be watching on their mobile devices anyway, and that's where it looks best on the iPhone pretty much.

Anytime you shoot something, it looks good on the iPhone, but maybe I'll revisit this later in the future when it gets more improved, but what do you guys think? You like cinematic mode? Are you team 24p or team 30p?

Thanks for watching. If you liked it, give it a thumbs up. If you dislike this video, give it a thumbs down twice. Don't forget to hit that notification bell and I'll see you guys in the next one.

Transcript for:Exploring iPhone 13 Pro Cinematic Mode

Transcript for:
Exploring iPhone 13 Pro Cinematic Mode