("Dreaming Out Loud")
- It is a beautiful day here in Toronto today.
It does not feel like winter at all.
So, what better excuse to go ride for a bit.
("Dreaming Out Loud")
So, a bit of an interesting thing
or I guess realization happened the other day.
And I'm slightly surprised that more video
or tech people aren't talking about it.
And, no, I'm not going back on my word
about smartphone filmmaking.
I'm still not really a fan.
But you know how smartphones have a way smaller sensor
than DSLRs like the one I'm using right now?
Smartphone sensors are somewhere, like, seven millimeters
to five millimeters, like, their like, their tiny.
Whereas a full frame sensor is 36 millimeters
by 24 millimeters, at least that's what I looked up online.
I hope those figures are right.
Anyways it's a massive difference.
And the bigger the sensor, the better the image is gonna be
especially for dynamic range.
There's gonna be a lot more dynamic range
for a bigger sensor which is a massive plus.
It's actually one of the biggest things
for having a nice image in filmmaking.
But then my friend Vinnie sent me a message on Facebook
and he's like, "Why is my smartphone taking
"a better picture than my DSLR sometimes?"
The photo that he sent me was kind of
a high contrast situation.
There was a bright sky and then darker trees.
The DSLR was blowing out the sky
or then it would have really dark trees.
Whereas the smartphone was able to capture
both at the same time.
So, it looked like the smartphone had way more
dynamic range than the DSLR.
So what's going on here?
Well, the answer is HDR.
Now, HDR is not really a new thing.
It's used in photography all the time,
basically just using different exposures,
putting them together and using software
to increase the dynamic range of your photo.
But in video it's a lot less used
until the iPhone XS came out.
Now, I could be wrong, maybe all smartphones
are doing this nowadays but.
Future Matti here, upon further research it appears
that there are other smartphones
with HDR video recording also.
It is a brand new thing.
In 2018, I believe, it was implemented.
And also I don't know how much
the other companies are using it.
Is Apple using it more aggressively?
Not sure, but mystery solved.
iPhone XS had the whole beautygate thing.
It looked like they were putting on some sort of
beauty filter to smooth out skin and that kind of stuff.
Now, that kind of died off really quickly.
And I never really found out what that was.
But what I think it is, is that
they implemented HDR video or at least in a more
aggressive way than they had before.
And this is why sometimes your iPhone
will actually look better than your DSLR.
Because there's more dynamic range.
Its actually absurd how much dynamic range there is
for such a small sensor that's in the phone.
Good example right now.
This is a really harsh situation.
There's this sun here, it's really bright.
Really hard for this DSLR, even in a log profile
which is quite a bit of dynamic range to handle this.
And with my iPhone I pull it out.
It looks kind of the same at first when you
first switch it on but then as soon as I tap the background
all of a sudden the whole sky is perfectly exposed
and so is my face and even this super bright part.
Still a lot of exposure going on there.
So, what the heck is happening?
What is going on?
So, it's really interesting how with software
they're able to get that much more dynamic range.
And in some cases it ends up looking better
than a DSLR that has a way bigger sensor.
And how I know there's definitely some HDR video
going on is if I just click on my face
and I try to turn down the exposure,
bring down the exposure, my face darkens up a lot.
The background is exposed now.
But my face is really dark also.
But if I just click on that background a little bit
now my face is exposed and the background
is exposed at the same time.
My face is no longer really, really dark.
So, they're definitely, definitely doing some HDR.
And I think that's why sometimes the face ends up
looking all plastic-y and kind of gross, fake.
Like, in this case, it just doesn't really look natural.
This frame, there's a lot of dynamic range
but it doesn't look natural.
It's like, too much dynamic range.
It's too HDR.
We've all seen those photos where it's just
way too much HDR and yeah, it doesn't look good.
Future Matti here again.
One of the things that I don't like about HDR video
is that it kind of looks unedited.
It feels like it needs a little bit
more contrast a lot of times.
Especially with things like the skin tones and the shadows.
If you're wearing a black shirt for example,
a lot of times it comes out kind of gray
or even silver and that's definitely not true to life.
You want that black shirt to look black.
So, it almost feels like you need to edit the video clips.
Which isn't something that I wanna do.
When I film on my phone I want it to be quick and fast.
I want the look to be baked in.
I wanna film myself and be able to post it
onto Instagram Stories or wherever right away
without having to tweak the colors and all that stuff.
That's a bit of a downside for me with HDR video.
Maybe they are de-noising the skin tones,
the mid tones a lot and that's what the whole
beautygate thing was about.
But really I think it's the whole
dynamic range and HDR video.
And I haven't really heard anybody talking about this.
So, I could totally be wrong here
but I think I'm on to something.
Then on top of that the whole background, fake bokeh.
Instagram can actually do it even in video.
Which is really interesting.
There's just a lot they're doing in software.
Because the hardware's limited,
they're doing with software to make the image
look a lot better, like, a lot better.
But even with all this new software that they're using
inside the phone, is the quality gonna be
as good as a DSLR?
No, there's still a lot of limitations
because of the smaller sensor size.
For example, the bokeh, it's never gonna be as nice
or as organic looking as with a DSLR.
Using a wide open aperture with a big sensor
you're just gonna get really nice background blur.
And also the smartphone doesn't always know
what's supposed to be in focus and what's not.
It's kind of just guessing.
Low light performance is gonna be
way better with a big sensor.
That's just how it is.
Again, they could fix some of it
with de-noising and all of that stuff.
But yeah, the bigger sensor's always
gonna be better in low light
and then that also means overall just less noise.
Again, bigger sensor means less noise.
And then lastly, probably the hardest thing
to overcome is the crop factor.
You can never get really nice big wide shots
because the crop factor is just so much on these
tiny little sensors compared to the full frame.
So, no, smartphones are still not as good quality
as DSLRs with bigger sensors.
It's just the limitations of the hardware.
("Dreaming Out Loud")
Whoo!
Always out of breath carrying the one wheel up the stairs.
So, it really was kind of a realization for me
that something like this, a small little smartphone
through some little software upgrades, perks
could potentially, someday be as good as something
like a DSLR or mirrorless camera.
Little bit of fake bokeh whatever it is,
noise reduction, better low light performance,
higher dynamic range with the HDR, stabilization.
And, yeah, you got this little gimbal of a camera
with crazy dynamic range all of a sudden.
Future Matti one more time.
I'm surprised actually mirrorless and DLSR cameras
haven't implemented more kind of software upgrades
or enhancements like HDR video yet.
Maybe it's a downside of having massive sensors.
Maybe it's really hard.
And there's a lot of ghosting and blah blah blah.
I don't know.
I remember actually Magic Lantern
which is kind of like hacking your Canon camera
it could enable this thing where it would
flash different ISOs so you would get
different exposures for video.
And then you could kind of combine them or some, I.
Memory's a little hazy.
But essentially you could kind of get an HDR video.
But it had some ghosting.
I'm curious to see when other companies,
actual camera manufacturers
will start using stuff like HDR video.
I'm thinking back to the first phones with cameras.
The quality was absolute garbage
especially compared to what you get now.
And I guess that's the thing with technology
is that there's things that you think
will never, ever happen, you'll be like, nope.
Then five years goes by and you're like,
eh, maybe, it could happen.
And then another five years, you're like,
why hasn't it already happened.
Or it's already happened and you're like, it's so obvious.
Of course, smartphones are gonna be
the filmmaking tool for everybody in the future.
Right now that seems absurd still but who knows?
Might happen.
I don't know.
I just really like tech and the things
that new technologies allow us to do.
Oh and, no, I still do not really enjoy using
a smartphone for filmmaking.
I just don't.
("Dreaming Out Loud")