Hey folks, I know that I am not supposed to give the lead away in a title but articles that require me to hunt to see what they are saying just piss me off so I won’t do that to you.

In this article I will introduce you to the best video recorder for the iPhone (and other iOS devices) that I have ever encountered. It comes from the great people at Blackmagic Design and is called Blackmagic Camera.

I made a short post when this product was released and I had tried it for ten minutes. Now that I have used it a lot, it’s time for everyone to have a look.

iPhone Video

First, this is an iOS only app. I have no idea if there will be an Android version, and for me, that’s fine. While the iPhone camera app is perfectly capable of shooting video, as hundreds of thousands have proved with asinine uploads to Instagram and TikTok. I don’t use either service but some people think that I need to see these “great” videos. I don’t and they aren’t. Anyways.

You download and install Blackmagic Camera from the Apple App Store. It costs NOTHING. Every chargeable video app just got kneecapped.

The app just works, but it works like a serious video camera app. There are all the controls that you would expect in a professional video camera, but on your phone. While I don’t use my iPhone camera for stills very much, it is my primary video recorder for casual stuff and this app just made things WAY better for me.

It offers a view of available space based on selected resolution (I use 4K for everything), allows choice of focal length (if the phone as multiples), frames per second, shutter speed or shutter angle, iris (which is fixed on iPhones), ISO, White Balance (A and B options) and tint. It also provides a full RGB histogram and stereo meters for the iPhone microphone or an alternate microphone if one is used. There is a Slate function, and zoom of course, controls for guides, safety lines, and viewing grids as well as the capability to shoot not only vertical and horizontal video, but to force landscape framing regardless of phone orientation.

You can also load LUTs and apply them if you wish. You can also choose the recording and compression model. I set mine to 4K HEVC for the best quality out of the phone and while I can load a LUT, as a video professional, I only use LUTs in post production, never baked into the original video file. You can do what suits you best.

Your uploads can be set to full files or proxies only and the complete files are stored in the iCloud Photos app. From there you can pull them into whatever editor that you prefer, whether that is iMovie on your phone, or the video editor on your computer.

To record some clips, I put the phone in my old DJI OSMO 3 gimbal and used it to help manage camera shake and improve smoothness in camera movements. I’m not expecting awesome audio from the iPhone microphones and external microphones are cumbersome when using a gimbal. If I need really good audio, I will use a field recorder.

Cloud Storage and Project Interaction with DaVinci Resolve

When you sign up at cloud.blackmagic.com you get 2GB of storage free. That may not sound like a lot but it is a convenient place to store proxies to your originals that live in the Apple cloud ecosystem. Moreover, for $5 CAD per month, you can purchase a DaVinci Library and use it with DaVinci Resolve, Blackmagic Design’s Hollywood studio grade editing suite. If you use DaVinci Resolve (it’s the only high end editor that I use) you also have access to the clips shot on Blackmagic Camera and can use those clips in your professional level edits. It makes moving from casual video to serious editing so simple. I love it and only shoot video on my iPhone now with Blackmagic Cam because I have more control when I want it, and high quality footage to use wherever I want.

Quick Sample

Two clips shot on the iPhone using the Blackmagic Camera app, and quickly pulled together in DaVinci Resolve for export.

Summary

It could not be simpler. It’s free. Download it from the App Store and use it for all your iPhone video. Thanks as always for reading. Post a comment or send in a a question. If you shop at B&H Photo Video, please use the link on the main page. It mays me a small commission and costs you nothing. Until next time, peace.