CinemaP3 VS iPhone Stock Video Application

Of the nearly 5 1/2 million apps on the app store, at least a few of those can be used to film footage on your Smartphone. So what should you be using - an app on the App store or the native application that comes with your phone? Today we’re going to compare the advantages and disadvantages of both types of filmmaking applications!

Filming on a Smartphone gets better every single year. As processors and cameras improve, the gap between a smartphone and a high end film camera shrinks ever so slightly. When I first had the vision for Smartphone Storytellers, we were using the cameras on the iPhone 4 and an iPod Touch. Needless to say, quality was lacking. In the years since then, the image quality has jumped so significantly that these cameras have been used to capture Hollywood films. The biggest thing that’s held the smartphone back is lack of control over the cameras. Enter applications like FilmicPro and CinemaP3 - these unlock many of the features on your smartphone and allow you to have full control over the camera settings. So if these apps allow you to unlock all of the features of your camera, shouldn’t you film everything with those applications? Not necessarily - let’s look at the positives and negatives for the native application vs my personal favorite, CinemaP3 in order to see when you should use each application. CinemaP3 is only available on the iPhone, but there are similar applications available on Android phones that give you full control when the native application does not.

Native iPhone Application

The native App is surprisingly great considering it’s basically the green “auto” mode on your typical camera. Out of the box, the phone handles all of your settings for you, giving you basic controls over exposure and focus. Things like shutter speed, white balance, aperture, and ISO are all handled by the processor in the phone. That being said, the phone does a surprisingly great job of helping you to get a great looking image in most settings. The advantage the iPhone has over standard cameras is that it’s a camera with a VERY powerful processor built in. As a result, it’s able to use machine learning to immediately take the video you shoot and enhance it based on a number of factors.

When in video mode inside the application, you have a few controls. You can change the frame rate and resolution of the video. On newer phones, you have something called action mode which helps with stabilization when moving the phone around with some minor quality loss, but it requires a good amount of light to excel. You can toggle ProREs video on if your phone supports it, and you can activate the flash if you’d like to use it as a spotlight. Additionally, you can switch between the different focal lengths and lenses, as well as adjust the exposure of your video. The best source of control is through tapping the screen, where you can pick where you want the camera to focus as well as what you want to be properly exposed. You can then lock in these settings so the auto mode at least knows what you’d like to best capture, but you’re still just in automode.

Finally, on newer phones you have something called “Cinematic” mode, which essentially is “portrait mode” for video. What’s that mean? On higher end film gear, when at the correct settings, you are able to blur out the background on your video so only your subject is the sharpest part of the image. This allows you to not only guide your viewer’s attention through framing, but also helping them to know exactly which part of the image you want them to pay attention to. This normal requires a low aperture lens as well as larger camera sensor to pull off. The iPhone has a great sensor as well as a lower aperture lens, but it still doesn’t get as shallow of a depth of focus as other cameras can. Enter Cinematic mode, where it uses the processor in the camera as well as a 3d map of the subject to determine where to blur the image and where to keep it in focus. There also may be a bit of magic in there, but that has not been confirmed. In short, it creates the image of a shallow depth of field without needing the same sensor size as what are in higher end cameras. It’s not perfect, but I’ve been VERY impressed with some of the results and have used it on numerous videos on this channel. It seems to perform well in brighter environments when there’s minimal movement. When I use it, if I talk too much with my hands and bring them into frame, it tends to have trouble determining what to blur. But if my movements are a bit more controlled, I’ve had it work great. Finally, you can adjust your level of focus as well as which portion of the image are in focus. It’s pretty impressive and only gets better with each release, so it’s well worth keeping your eyes on this feature.

Finally, you have features like Slo-Mo and Time-Lapse making it incredibly easy to use those styles of shooting. On my iPhone 14 Pro, I can shoot 120 or 240fps video in HD. Additionally, you can easily adjust the speed ramp after you’ve shot it, allowing you to slow down only the portions of the video that you want in slow motion. Timelapse automatically complies a timelapse video after you shoot it, so it makes the art of capturing timelapse pretty painless. You only have control over which lens you use as well as well as adjusting the exposure meter, which means you can tell the phone if you want it to push the image a certain number of stops darker or brighter than it normally would default to.

All in all, the native application is incredibly solid, so what does an application like CinemaP3 bring to the table?

CinemaP3

CinemaP3 is one of many apps that give you full control over your phone’s camera. While this won’t be a full deep dive into HOW to use the app, we’re going to explore some of the options the application offers that can help you bring your filmmaking to the next level. There’s quite a bit here, so here goes nothing.

You can change your white balance, which basically tells your camera what type of lighting you’re shooting in. 5600, or blue lighting, is normal daylight, while 3200 is tungsten, the orange lights you typically see in your house at night. If you filming in the wrong lighting, the colors of your image will be all off.

You have controls over your exposure bias similarly to the stock app, but then you can also manually dial it in through the ISO and shutter speed. ISO essentially controls how sensitive the camera’s sensor is to lighting. Shutter speed is a holdover from the days of film cameras when they had physical shutters, but it essentially changes how the virtual shutter of the camera stays open while filming. This essentially effects the motion blur of your video, which can give it a more cinematic look when optimally dialed in. For reference, you typically want this to be double your frame rate, OR at 180 degrees. Depends on how your camera measures it. So if you’re filming at 24fps, you want your shutter to be 1/48. If it’s at 180 degrees, the camera automatically sets it to 1/48.

You have full control over your focus, either setting it to auto focus on a subject or you can rack the focus similarly to a regular camera lens. This allows you to shift where the viewer is paying attention to, possibly from something in the background of the image to an item in the background.

You have the ability to jump between the physical lenses on your camera, but you also can digitally zoom in on your image at an interval that you choose. This simulates using a zoom lens on a camera, but you do lose some quality from the native framing on the lens as you’re just enlarging pixels and not actually zooming.

Beyond that, you’re able to switch the look of your camera to any number of other looks. If you want, you can dial in your own look and color science, but it also has a mode called C-Log or D-Log. These looks emulate what’s called “log” mode on more professional cameras, and they give your image a bit more latitude and flexibility if you plan to color grade the image while editing it in post. Often when I shoot on cameras, I’ll switch to whatever their version of LOG is so that I can get the best possible image in post.

Finally, you have the ability to toggle more professional tools that help you to dial in your tools even further. You can change the exposure mode so that only certain tools are on auto such as ISO priority or Shutter priority, you can change your default white balance, focus modes, how the auto focus behaves, what level of stabilization you use, tone mapping, how each camera handles individual settings, video resolution, frame rate, color science, where your videos are stored, audio source, manual audio settings including gain and which microphone on the phone to use, and so many other minor tweaks to ultimately make the app work the way YOU want it to work.

And that’s just a very brief overview. The application has the potential to let you fully control your image, similarly to using a higher end camera. So now you might be thinking that if this gives you that much control, shouldn’t you use it all the time? Let’s look at the pluses and minuses for each camera and then explore which one you should be using!

Positives and Negatives

Both applications are a solid option, but it ultimately depends on what you’re shooting. I personally use both regularly.

The stock application is quick and easy to use. Since it handles the majority of the details for you, you mostly just need to pull out your phone and shoot. It even is just a swipe away, as you can quickly jump there without even unlocking your phone. Additionally, since it’s automatic, you don’t need to take a minute to make sure your settings are correct. If you’re trying to capture something quickly, you can’t beat the convenience and speed. It also will frequently give you a great image

Additionally, the stock app offers cinematic mode. While this seems like just a feature to sell new phones, as I mentioned I’ve been pretty impressed with it. If you go back and look at the video I shot while I was in Brazil, I filmed all of my portions entirely on my iPhone in Cinematic mode. You’ll see it break down a few times, but overall it made for a very pleasing image. It would have been a bit better if I played with the exposure meters, but even so it made for a great image.

One other selling point for the native app? It’s free. Comes with your phone, so the only price of entry is buying the phone.

Downside to the stock application is that it can make the “wrong calls” for how to best expose your image, and as a result give you less than stellar results.

CinemaP3 meanwhile gives you full control over the controls on the phone. As a result, you can dial in your image to EXACTLY what you want. It helps you to bridge the gap between looking like it was video shot on a phone to video captured on a higher end camera. You can also customize the experience to work exactly like you’d like, giving yourself as many or few of the professional tools and controls.

One downside is that it’s a bit slower to jump in. If you’re just jumping into the application, you may not have everything set perfectly for the environment. As a result, you may need to take a minute to set your white balance, shutter, exposure, and whatever other settings you want to tweak. There are auto modes so you can jump in quickly, but that somewhat eliminates the perks of using the application.

You also need to know what you’re doing when using CinemaP3. There’s a slight learning curve as you go from fully automatic to fully manual, but that’s what brings the footage to the next level. You’re going to make mistakes, though, and those mistakes may look worse than if you were on automatic. So if you go the route of CinemaP3, take it out on some test shoots where you can make mistakes without worrying about missing shots due to bad settings.

The application also has a cost. When I last downloaded the application, the base app was free, but some of the more professional features were locked behind a $12 in-app purchase. Honestly that’s a bargain for the controls you’re getting, but since the stock app is free this is a slight barrier. There is a free 7-day trial though so you can dive in and see if it’s worth it to you. It was a no brainer for me, and I have zero regrets for making the purchase.

So long story short - which app should you use? If you want speed, convenience, or cinematic mode the stock app is hard to beat. If you want full control and want to bridge the gap between phone footage and higher end cameras, CinemaP3 is well worth the cost.

I have CinemaP3 as one of only 12 apps on my home screen and use both applications frequently. If I’m working to get the best looking footage I can, I jump into CinemaP3. If I’m trying to quickly capture footage, I open the stock app and capture the shot. Either way, you can’t go wrong.

That’s all I’ve got for this week, but make sure you like and subscribe, as I’m going to announce something exciting next week. Let’s just say in rhymes with Smon-test.

Remember, though, regardless of which application you use, it’s ultimately not about the gear - it’s about the story!