- My name's Tom, this is the Enthusiasm Project,
and today I'm in New York City's Central Park
on basically an absolutely perfect summer day
to talk about how you can use your phone
to film much more professional looking, cinematic videos.
Phone cameras have gotten really good
over the past few years and most of us pretty much always
have our phones with us and they're shockingly capable.
Most of the time, when you first get a phone,
the camera is set to do everything automatically,
but you can set it to do things manually
and you can even download apps
that will give you more manual control
over your camera's function.
I downloaded an app called ProCam to give manual control
which is okay. It's not perfect,
but it gives you some more options
than just the built-in phone app.
What I wanna look at today are a couple things
from PolarPro.
The people at PolarPro sent me this ND
or neutral density filter system called Iris
along with this counter weight
and they did send these to me at no cost
so that I could do an objective review.
I'll be as objective as possible,
but it is worth knowing that they did send these to me.
First and foremost,
the Iris system are ND filters for your phone,
which is pretty cool.
The box has a picture of an iPhone 10,
but they don't seem too proprietary.
I think pretty much any iPhone will work with them
or any phone where the camera is mounted off
to the upper corner rather than in the center.
Basically what ND filters are
are like sunglasses for your phone.
Just like on a sunny day when you put on sunglasses
to protect your eyes and to help you see a little better,
cameras kinda need the same thing.
I'm using an ND filter on my 6D Mark II right now
that I can change and you can see without it,
everything is kinda bright and the camera would have
to increase the shutter speed to compensate.
With the ND filter,
I'd get natural colors at a lower shutter speed
which gives more natural movement.
If you're filming at a higher shutter speed,
the movement becomes really choppy and stutter-y,
and it doesn't look super natural,
so that's why ND filters are really important for video.
They come in a pretty neat little pouch.
When you open the pouch,
there's all the filters.
I do use PolarPro filters on my Mavic Pro
which I bought when I got the drone
and they're really great.
The way that this works is there's this little clip
which clips onto your phone
and then you can swap out the filter that's inside the clip.
There is an ND8, an ND32, and an ND16,
so you have lots of options.
You can film really cinematic footage even
on the brightest of days.
Right now, it's kind of partly cloudy.
I'm in the trees, so the light is changing like crazy.
It makes sense to swap between filters.
Now, they also sent me this counter weight
because I've been doing a lot of videos
about the DJI Osmo Mobile 2.
I guess if you're using this filter system on your phone,
since it makes the phone heavier,
if you want to put in the Osmo,
you need a counter weight to balance it out a little more.
The counter weight just attaches to the other end
of the Osmo and then keeps everything really balanced.
I actually really like that by itself
because I use my phone in the case a lot with the Osmo
and that still just keeps it a little more balanced.
Everything you're about to see was filmed
on the iPhone 8 Plus
using the PolarPro neutral density filter system
and a DJI Osmo Mobile 2 with the PolarPro counter weight.
Ugh, that sounds like a lot of stuff,
but everything you're about to see was filmed with that
which realistically are all things that you can carry
with you pretty much all of the time.
(upbeat dance music)
There you go.
These filters are a super cool way to get a lot more
out of your phone if you're trying to film with your phone.
It's pretty impressive what these small cameras can do
that we carry with us all the time.
Even though it is kind of a hassle to have
to carry more things with you,
this is a pretty small thing
that can really improve the overall quality
of your film making, your phone making,
phone film making?
Whatever you wanna call it.
I hope this was helpful.
If you haven't subscribed, make sure to do so.
Make sure to let me know what you think in the comments
and I really can't emphasize enough how nice this city is
on a great summer day.
It's incredible.
(upbeat dance music)