As a professional videographer, I’m always a little hesitant to use Smart Phones for video production. I mean, obviously I’ll use it for home videos because it’s super convenient since I always have my iPhone with me but I don’t always have my Sony HD Camcorder!
The other day was a special Martial Arts seminar at NX Martial Arts and I was taking pictures and video with my iPhone 5. I was not really intending to do anything with the video… mainly just upload the raw vids to Facebook for the Dojo members to see. As I filmed away, I started thinking: I haven’t really explored the potential of this camera so maybe this is a good time to test it.
The next morning, I uploaded the footage to my Mac, threw it into Adobe Premiere and started playing around with it. I already had some templated NX Martial Arts Action Logos for the intro and outro so that was simple! I found some good free stock music and started cutting my short vid.
About 30 minutes later, I was done and uploaded to YouTube. 🙂
httpvh://youtu.be/wyAume8OJa8
My thoughts on the iPhone 5 video camera:
All and all, the video capabilities of the iPhone 5 are not that bad. The pictures quality is good, providing you have enough lighting. You’ll notice the playback is a little choppy, especially when shooting something fast (therefor it’s not at all ideal for shooting action scenes). The lack of a zoom capability is a bit annoying but excusable for a cell phone camera.
Don’t be fooled by these smart phone cameras; yes, they technically shoot HD 1080p but frame resolution isn’t everything… you have to look at the optics, and the iPhone 5 lens just won’t cut it!
All this to say, I was impressed with the iPhone 5 camera and I will definitely be using it again for video blogging and small video montages like this NX seminar video. I will NOT be using it for anything that requires Professional Production Quality