Okay, so as cheapest tripods are there is really just no excuse not to be using one tripod like this cost ten or fifteen dollars
And you can get the little [attachment] to mount an iPhone or any smartphone for about five bucks on eBay Brand-new
and it basically just works like this you just
Pop it in your iphone and it just holds [it] [there] for you and now you've got a stable platform
That you can get video from that's not all shaky
So for [$15] there's a difference between Shaky video like this, or nice fluid video like this
You can also get steadicams to help hold the iphone steady while carrying it
You should not hold the phone in your hand while video recording unless there's absolutely no other way to do it, [okay]
So the built-in microphone on the iphone is really not very useful beyond just a couple of feet okay
So this is what typical indoor audio sounds like at about eight feet away from the iphone and it's echoey and it sounds horrible
But you may notice that it now suddenly sounds a whole lot better. How am I doing that well the trick here?
Is that I have a hidden iphone in my pocket using the audio recorder which I am dubbing the sound in during post
Okay, so another option you can do to make a room like this sound better is just to hold a professional microphone now believe it
or not you can connect a microphone like this directly to the iPhones headphone microphone jack using an xlr cable converter and
These kind of microphones they seem like they would be expensive, but you can actually get them on ebay really cheap
But this is an audio technica. That's pretty nice microphone, and I bought it for $50 on [eBay]
So don't get too scared off by the price of these things
another option is
Using a shotgun mic like this if you don't want it in the picture you [can] just hide it slightly off
you know just outside of the picture of what you're recording and
You can pick up a nice one of these for like one to two hundred dollars a little bit more expensive
But they can definitely be worth it at times and again
You can plug these directly in to your iphone using the correct adapter. So why not?
For my videos. I typically use this zoom [eight] for in for my audio recording
Additionally you could just forget the audio that's recorded from the iphone and redub in a narration track, okay?
So the best place to go to record any narration is [in] [to] a closet full of clothes
the soft clothes and Fabric will dampen all of the sound course you'll want to close the door and just turn on your phone and
Use a professional recording app and record your narration then you can edit that in later
Also, if you're going to use the same room a lot consider installing some sound deadening foam
Okay, so you're probably going to want to download an actual professional recording app instead of just using the Built-in voice recorder the [built-in] version
Doesn't record very high fidelity [I] noticed the one at i/o s7 is a little bit better
But the older ones in ios, [four] [five] and six and you know those are actually pretty bad they they sound pretty terrible, okay?
[so] this is what a voice recording sounds like using the built-in app on the iphone okay?
And this is what it sounds like using a professional recording app. It should sound a whole lot clearer
Personally I've been using an app called itok which has different quality settings use the best setting which is 44 kilohertz
The Built-in video recording software is also very weak I use a paid app called movie Pro
this app allows me to do several things such as force the
orientation to Stay Horizontal and set a specific resolution and frame [rate] that I want to record and edit in and
Most importantly record in a higher bitrate for better quality video it also gives me the ability to lock the focus exposure and white balance
It's also worth mentioning. You'll need a decent editing software on your computer. I typically use Apple's final cut [pro]
So I can't find anyone who actually manufactures a lens hood for the iPhone, but you can actually make one
I just took this iphone tripod mount and I just taped a
piece of paper on to the top to kind to kind of prevent some of the sunlight from hitting the lens a
Lens hood is not absolutely essential
It's mostly
Going to be on those days where the sun is shining into your lens and hopefully you can avoid that by shooting with the sun
To your back, but you can always do that
So if the sun's going to shining an especially when you're filming a dark area you can you needle into it so sometimes
What I'll do if I'm out filming, and it's a sunny day, and I've got a scene
And I can tell if there's some glare [on] the lens
I'll just take off my cap temporarily and kind of just hold it over the phone like this in this example
You can see with and without the homemade lens hood
Okay, so the light pickup on the iPhone is pretty good
especially as far as smartphone goes, but it's not as good as a standalone camera and
So what you want to do to make it better is just add more light adding more light
Affects the photo quality in nearly every way, not [only] does it make it brighter and sharper and clearer more contrast and more colorful
But it also helps remove any of the graininess that you might get from having a [low-light] situation
One of the easiest ways is to use a cheap lamp stand like this one
You can position the light exactly where you need it to go I?
Have two directional bulbs and three for ambient all right, so if you're going to be filming in the same room a lot
[you] probably want to go ahead and upgrade your light bulbs if you're using light bulbs like this
Don't I mean besides the fact they're horribly inefficient. They put off a terrible color spectrum
you can compensate for it some and post, but it's
It's really just not necessary. Just just go ahead and replace them you can either use the the fluorescence or
Led I'm actually switched completely to led now
They just seem to work better for me
Mostly because they don't flickering
But the key is when you go to look for your light bulbs look on the package make sure it either says daylight
Or look for like a color spectrum indicator, and you want at [least] 5,000 kay preferably more you can get them up to like 7000
Okay, so [I] have reconfigured this room to look pretty much
just like Standard residential lighting using old incandescent bulbs
This is exactly the way [things] would look if I were trying to use my iphone at my parents or my grandma's house
This is would look like [now]
Let's change that up a bit
okay, and here is the same room having put good light bulbs back in the sockets and using my lamp stand to supplement that a
little bit drastic difference, isn't it
Believe it or not you can run an external monitor from the iPhone 5 and actually view it in real time
This is handy [because] you can run the camera app and see yourself in a preview monitor. I
Also, take an opportunity to plug in external power while doing this so that my iphone won't be eating [up] battery power during recording
So there's only one rule about using a digital zoom, and that rule is just don't use it. It's horrible
Let me show you why in case it wasn't obvious?
Let's say I have a scene. I want to zoom [into]
Here's what it looks like using the iPhones digital zoom
Now let me use my Galaxy cameras optical zoom to take that same shot. You can see how much drastically better this looks
Ok so there are two ways to get around the digital zoom problem. The first should be obvious
But I want to show you this funny scene from an old episode of red dwarf because I'm hoping this will help stick it in
your brain
My optical system doesn't appear to have a zoom function
Now human eyes don't have a zoom well, then how do you bring a small object into a sharp focus?
Well, you just move your head close to the object
See move your head closer
Yeah, so basically you [just] want to pick up the camera and tripod and move it closer to the subject that you're trying to record
That's the absolute best way that you can get a zoom so in the event [that] for some reason
You can't move the phone closer
There isn't another alternative you can buy an optical zoom attachment that you can stick on the front of your iphone it looks like this
Okay, so don't hold your phone like this
I know, it's comfortable to hold it like this, but it's not practical and I said should be common sense
But I still see people doing it all the time
Turn your phone 90 degrees there have even been songs made about this look some of them up on YouTube
They're pretty funny. So yeah turn it 90 degrees
There's almost no excuse for taking a video in portrait mode
Portrait mode just screams out that the video was done by an amateur
And it gives everyone online a headache trying to watch it now look how much better the same scene looks when shot in landscape mode
So this should be obvious, but this is a phone after all it gets put in pockets and purses
It gets rubbed all over your face you get oils from your hand and your face all over the phone and guess what?
The lens gets dirty so you need to examine the lens each and every time you get ready to shoot a scene
[use] a microfiber cloth and clean it in
A pinch if you can't find anything else you can use your shirt and clean the lens if you have to but just rub something
Over it. Make sure it's clear
have you ever heard the saying that a bad musician will always blame his instrument the same can kind of be said in photography and
You know the iphone actually has a pretty amazing camera in it
[but] it works a lot better when the person using it has some basic [photography] skills
So here are just a few more tips for you
Don't take video with someone's head next to a lamp and don't take video of someone standing in front of a window. It looks horrible
Also, you might want to be aware of any noises in your [environment] that your phone is picking up while you're recording like dogs
or [lawnmowers]
or air conditioners
So some people might be surprised to [find] out that in some of my previous videos the entire video was recorded on an iPHone 5
this actually happened because I was using a fairly expensive camcorder and it broke and
So I was saving [him] some money to get a new camera and so in the interim
I had to give something to record video
So I just decided to start using my iPhone and so in doing so I learned a lot of things about
Using the iphone for a recording professional video and most people were completely unaware that those episodes were in fact shot on an iPhone
So that's why I made this video because I thought you know I could pass along some of the information
[I] learned that during that process and hopefully some of the
Amateur videos I see out there on YouTube will improve a little bit as a result well
Hope you enjoyed the video and I'll see you [next] time