Is the famous iPhone cinematic mode really that good? Is it time to make a switch to smartphones
for photo and video or are there still things that an iPhone just can't do? Or maybe you're
thinking about stepping up your video and photo game and buying finally a dedicated camera.
We're going to compare photo and video capabilities of an iPhone 13 Pro and a Canon M6
Mark II and we'll see are there things that one can't do and the other can't and vice versa.
Zach do you think the cinematic mode in the iPhone is really that good? Yes! Hi i'm Jakob from MPB
and I have two cameras with me today. One is a camera that's built into an iPhone 13 Pro and
the other one is a standalone dedicated camera a Canon M6 Mark II. I'm going to have a closer look
at them both especially at the famous iPhones portrait and cinematic mode and I want to see
how it compares against a footage shot on a real camera. I'm going to have a look at their handling
and ergonomics and then we'll move on to side by side comparison of their photo and video features.
But before we jump into that let's have a look at tech specs of both of today's contenders.
The iPhone 13 pro was released in September 2021 it immediately became known for its innovative
cinematic mode which allows filming with the background blur and picture characteristics we
know from the big screen beside that is a great photo and video camera with a 12 megapixel sensor
three built-in lenses and even a lighter scanner to help with creating the depth on your pictures
it shoots 4k video it shoots slow motion and has all of the additional features the smartphone has
our dedicated camera is released in September 2019 mid-range mirrorless Canon M6 Mark
II this canon has a much bigger APS-C size sensor with a resolution of 32.5 megapixels it has an
interchangeable EM-M lens mount shoots raw photos and 4k video with continuous autofocus and face
tracking it also has a great low light sensitivity up to 25 600 ISO and a flip out screen making it a
great choice for all kinds of content creators as for handling and ergonomics there are differences
you'll notice even before you turn on any of the devices smartphones are devices designed to
fit the palm of your hand they are designed not only to take photos but they do lots of
different things and they need to do all of that while being able to fit in your back pocket not
all of them not the biggest smartphones and it's a whole different story with a dedicated camera
it was designed from the beginning to take photos and videos it has all of the additional dials that
you can quick access even without looking at them you don't need to tap everything on screen
but you can't like on this Canon M6 Mark II there is a touch screen and you can operate the camera
using only touchscreen without using any of the top dials a dedicated camera like this canon is
a part of a bigger system of lenses accessories you can use to adapt it to your shooting needs
so for example I have here a tiny pancake 22mm lens but if you'd like you can switch it to
something bigger and more versatile like 11-22 zoom and if you're shooting in low light you can
choose one of the great Sigma lenses like this one it has 1.4 Apertures so it will allow you to
shoot in really bad lighting conditions and if you already own a previous Canon camera like a regular
Canon DSLR you can still use your old regular canon EF Mount lenses via adapter like I have
my trusty 85mm 1.8 and I can easily mount it to use on this little mirrorless Canon
We're on a Brighton seafront and again I have an iPhone 13 Pro with me and a Canon M6 Mark II uh
with 22mm lens it's a F uh two lens so it should allow me to achieve this shallow depth of field
i'll take a few pictures of Zack we have a beautiful light behind you
so yeah we'll start with the iPhone iPhone is in portrait mode let's see what we can do it's
actually looks really good so first picture iPhone and now and maybe a horizontal one
This is a quite difficult lighting situation because
the portrait is back-lit so there is extreme contrast between backgrounds and the foreground
so it's another thing that we can test how those cameras perform in such a harsh
lighting conditions and now with the canon camera so we'll start with vertical portrait
The raw capture on Canon M6 gives me the flexibility to adjust the look however I like
I can lift the shadows up and bring the highlights down to make it look like it was captured on an
iPhone but I can also grade it more to my taste and the 32.5 megapixels from Canon give me enough
resolution to crop the image without losing too much quality now we've moved to a place where
we're getting a little bit of direct sunlight so we'll see how pictures from both cameras look
taken in such conditions on the cannon I have ability to change lenses so for now I
swapped uh the previous 22mm lens F2 to a beautiful Sigma 16mm 1.4
and now i'm going to take a picture with an iPhone first picture will be with F 2.8
I think 2.8 on an iPhone looks a little bit artificial so i'm changing it to 5.6
because I think it looks much more believable
We'll start our video capabilities test with regular 4K video recording so both canon and
iPhone are set to 4K 25p as iPhone records in cinematic mode only in 1080p 30 frames per second
so we have canon with 22mm lens on it an iPhone as you can see is
mounted on a magic arm which is a little bit closer to Zak and the whole scene it's because
iPhone standard lens is a little bit wider than the 22 on Canon so to match them as close as
possible uh they are set in this way on the iPhone I can only adjust exposure compensation so I can
make the scene brighter or darker but without adjusting the ISO Aperture like I can do on Canon
and now let's switch iPhone to cinematic mode to see how it performs in this mixed lighting
condition because we have natural daylight coming through the window behind me and there is some
artificial lights mounted on the ceiling and so there is some yellow light in the background
so
so now we're going to prepare like a night scene it will be a scene
in which Zach pretends to be working late so canon is recording in 4K 25p again
this scene is really contrasty so I switched picture style to neutral which is a little bit
flatter because i want to retain as much detail in the shadows and in the highlights as possible
an iPhone does the same thing automatically because it always tries to compress highlights
and shadows to make the scene as evenly lit as possible I think on the iPhone I will turn down
the exposure to make the scene a little bit darker it's minus zero seven quite like how it looks now
in this video we're comparing iPhone 13 Pro against a specific camera Canon M6 Mark
II but remember that most of the things i'm talking about like ergonomics handling or
being able to accessorise your camera they apply to different other cameras as well
so if you're thinking about buying like Sony A6400 or Canon 90D or other bigger camera
most of the principles will still apply so for my taste the quality of photo and video and the
artificial blur that an iPhone can't produce it's still not quite there yet but when the portrait
mode first appeared in smartphones it wasn't good at all and it's getting better and better
but there are still things that an iPhone just can't do one thing i'm sure one change is that
an iPhone will still be flat and a dedicated camera will be designed to fit your hands and to
be firmly held by you and also you just can't beat the experience of shooting on a real camera let me
know what do you think do you think the iPhone cinematic mode is a match to a dedicated camera
let me know in the comments and stay tuned for more videos on the channel see you next time you.