Usually, to record a professional video, a high-quality camera with a great lens is required such as a DSLR. However, as technology is evolving, mobile phones especially iPhones are being equipped with cameras capable of high-quality video recording. Moreover, they now have added features such as slow motion video, exposure and focus control, and many more. In our article, we will talk about tips and tricks that will help you in professional video recording with just an iPhone. These tips will drastically benefit you in the long run to improve your video quality, may it be for marketing or may it be just a general video you want to upload on your social media platforms. Moreover, for health professionals who want to market their private practice, we will also link our own course that will hugely help you in generating high-quality videos for your website and social media platforms even from your iPhone. Without further ado, the following will be some of the tips we will discuss in our article.
- Lighting
- Stabilization
- Using Filmic Pro and other video enhancer apps
- Improving Audio
- Using external Lenses
- Health Professional’s Guide to making better videos
Lighting
Correctly lighting your video is the most crucial part of making a high-quality video. If it is too dark, even a high-quality camera such as a DSLR will suffer and if it is too bright, your video will be blown out and the subject will be silhouetted. Whether you used stylistic color gels to inspire various moods or pinpointed light to feature explicit highlights of your set, lighting should always be your utmost priority. Further, in the lighting topic, we explain about importance and use of soft light. Moreover, we recommend some of the external lights that you can use to light your videos while recording with an iPhone.
Use of Soft lighting
Lighting videos can be quite challenging especially when you are video recording with an iPhone. Although, Apple iPhones usually take great shots and record videos brilliantly in low light. But still, there is almost always a bit of shakiness in the video because of recording in low lighting. In the future, they might introduce a new feature to tackle this issue but as of now, let’s look at some external lights that can up your videography skills. Furthermore, we also have a tip to make the harsh LED lights soft.
For instance, Genaray LED-2100 is an LED light that is relatively much smaller in size, but it lights up your iPhone videos brilliantly. Another one, Lume Cube 1500 is also a small but powerful external LED light that can easily fit in your pocket. However, external lights are usually very harsh. So, we provide you a solution to tackle this issue. Simply apply a light diffuser cloth or sheet over the LED light and you will be amazed by how much the overall video quality is improved. Basically, it diffuses the harsh light coming from any external lights that you might be using ultimately making your final video look very well lit in terms of quality.
Try Shooting in areas with better lighting
Suppose that you want to record a video and all that you have with yourself is an iPhone. Now, your top priority is to make the most of it. If you shoot in areas with better lighting such as near a window or maybe outside when lighting is perfect, it drastically improves your video quality. Plus, the time of the day has a great effect on your overall video quality. You can easily see the difference when you record one video at night and the other one during sunset or sunrise. It will be literally a night and day difference. On top of everything, great lighting makes your videos look sharp and the colors look vivid and bright on your iPhone.
So, try to always keep lighting in check to improve your overall video and image quality on your iPhone. Moreover, use softbox lighting where you feel necessary to reduce the harshness and intensity of light in your videos.
Stabilization
Stabilization of your shots can prove really beneficial for overall improvement in the quality of your video. Although, iPhones have great built-in camera stabilization. Still, Apple has made further improvements in the stabilization tech of their new iPhone 11 and 11 pro cameras. However, you still time to time need to put your iPhone flat on a surface to stabilize your shots. Moreover, you can always use a gimbal or tripod to stabilize your video.
Make your shots still with the tripod
Although iPhones especially the newer ones have great built-in optical image stabilization which makes the overall footage look really good and enhances the image quality, nothing is close to the good old-fashioned tripod when it comes to providing stable footage throughout. However, tripods for phones are quite big and can become a hassle to carry around everywhere when you are shooting outdoors. So, to tackle this hassle, we recommend you the best tripod that you can carry anywhere, Adonit Photogrip. Adonit Photogrip fits in the pockets of your trousers easily and costs only $39.99. On top of that, it has an integrated Bluetooth remote which you can use to start recording remotely.
Using iPhone’s software-based video stabilization
Now, you don’t always have a tripod available with you. So, Apple now offers built-in software-based cinematic video stabilization in their newer iPhones i.e iPhone 11 and 11 Pro Max so you do not require any external equipment. Previously, the iPhone XR also had this feature but it featured this in 1080p videos. However, the new iPhone 11 and 11 Pro Max features 4k cinematic video stabilization. On top of all that, this feature is present in both, the front and rear-facing cameras of the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro Max.
Using Filmic Pro and other Video Enhancer Apps
Filmic Pro is an iPhone camera app or a video editing app that is basically designed to turn your phone into a professional video camera. Filmic Pro records the videos with both, the front and rear-facing cameras simultaneously for the Multicam effect. It allows for full manual controls over the video settings such as manual exposure control so you can adjust the brightness of the video if it’s too low or too high. Moreover, it allows iPhone users to adjust the ISO of their iPhone videos but the video gets noisy when you tweak it up. You can use Filmic pro to control the shutter speed which proves great if you are video recording at night or if you want a clear video. Additionally, this camera app also allows its users to adjust the focus of their subject while recording video. Users have great control over the depth of field. For instance, you might want to lower the depth of field or tweak it up while recording video up close or from far.
Filmic Pro supports many aspect ratios so you can choose the best that suits your video. It also has a wide variety of frame rates which when combined with the iPhone’s highest quality cameras, provide great slo-mo (slow-motion) footage. Moreover, this camera app can give you live scene analytics of the iPhone video that you are recording on your iPhone. If all of that is not enough for you, Filmic Pro has third-party hardware support available.
Filmic Pro Drawbacks
With all of these features, Filmic Pro has some drawbacks. This camera app uses a lot of the iPhone’s battery and there is no post-shoot editing option available in the application. So users have to use third-party post-processing applications to edit their videos recorded with an iPhone.
You can download the Filmic Pro application which costs about $14.99 on the app store. This camera app runs on both, iPhones and iPads. Also, one thing that we would like you to know is that even though it is already $14.99, there are still some in-application features that are paid.
Using other video editing apps on iPhone
Video enhancer apps on the iPhone can drastically improve the overall quality of the video. They are useful for improving the video resolution and reducing shakiness in the footage. Moreover, they remove the background noise and are useful in enhancing the lighting and contrast of your iPhone video. Below listed are some of the best video-enhancing apps for your iPhone that will improve the video quality:
- InShot
- Emulsio
- LumaFX
- Enlight Videolap
Using Premiere Pro to edit your video
Many mainstream videographers use Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere Pro to edit their videos. Adobe Premiere Pro is a video editing app that can help you to enhance the video quality and do all sorts of post-processing. Moreover, this video editing software allows for fully non-destructive editing. You can start importing your clips to Premiere Pro and start editing from there as soon after downloading the application.
Improving audio
A video with a lot of background noise and audio lag is not the best to listen to. So, audio is one of the very basic things you need to get good at while recording videos with an iPhone. The built-in sound system and microphones on iPhones are great but it doesn’t always record and sounds like a charm. There are tips and tricks that can help you get better audio control over your videos. This will drastically affect the overall core quality of your iPhone video. Following are some of the tips you can use:
Know your environment
Knowing your environment and understanding how it sounds while shooting video can help you get the best out of your iPhone’s microphone. Try to utilize your environment and avoid crowded places while filming to avoid as much background noise as possible.
Adjust the App settings
You need to adjust the audio settings of your camera app that best suits your editing afterward. Moreover, you need to be aware of the sound and video settings and the compatibility with your editing app.
Using external mic
Although iPhones have great microphones for phone calls when you are trying to shoot video, more specifically higher quality videos, the device’s own microphone will barely do the work for you. In times like these, you ought to be getting an external mic that attaches to your iPhone and records the audio for your video brilliantly. Below are some of our recommended mics for iPhones that provide a High-Definition audio quality ultimately improving the overall video content.
All these mics provide the best portable sound booth. If you are on a tighter budget and don’t want to spend too much on an external microphone. Try to get a Movo PM10. Priced at $15 only, it does the job and acts like a lavalier microphone that can be clipped onto your shirt.
Using an external mobile camera lens
With all this videography getting mainstream, external mobile lenses are now being made for iPhones. A camera lens like Moment’s anamorphic lens mounts on your iPhone and makes your footage look sharp and wide. Although external lenses are slightly expensive, if you compare the videos recorded with an external lens clipped on your iPhone with a normal video taken from its back camera, you will be amazed to see the difference in results. Additionally, there are various other external lenses that you can use with your iPhone. Below, we have listed some external lenses along with their brief description and prices.
- Olloclip iPhone 11 Pro ElitePack: Priced at $129, it works perfectly with both, the front and the rear-facing cameras of your iPhone. Moreover, it provides great video quality and supports various devices at this price.
- Moment Anamorphic: Priced at around $149.99 and regarded as one of the best iPhone lenses for recording videos, the moment anamorphic lens gives the best results an external lens can achieve. Although it is slightly expensive when compared to other external lenses, it does a great job at improving your video quality.
- Xenvo Pro Lens Kit: Xenvo Pro is priced at $39.99 and comes with an external LED, two lenses and proves to be a great addition to your accessories for anyone who has a low budget. Xenvo Pro Lens is cheaper than most other external lenses and does quite a decent job while shooting video.
Health Professional’s guide to making great videos
We have our own course that helps you to generate more high-quality content as a health professional, even from your iPhone. You might have seen many health professionals who create videos for their Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube channels to market their private practice. The key here is to increase your brand awareness by generating more high-quality video content and attracting potential new clients to your private practice.
Our course has a total watch time of 3 hours. Furthermore, we have divided our course into five foundational lessons. These lessons will dramatically improve your video content quality even if you are recording from an iPhone.
Click here to learn more about the course
Each of our foundations consists of two separate activities; Lesson activity and Action activity.
- Lesson activity: In this, you basically watch a learning content of hardly 30 minutes. In these 30 minutes, you will be guided along with real-life examples with Anytime Psycho to demonstrate specific concepts.
- Action activity: In this, you will put everything that you have learned from our Lesson activity to use and then shoot video content showcasing it. This will ultimately lead you into the habit of shooting video more often and that too of high quality. On top of everything, by the time you complete our course, you will be able to share five high-quality videos regarding your private practice with your viewers. Doesn’t matter what device you are using to record (even an iPhone) but we ensure you that they will provide you with a professional quality video.
What you learn in our course
In our course “Health Professional’s guide to making videos”, you will learn the basic videography skills that will help you in creating better content even if you are video recording from an iPhone. Following are some of the aspects that we will teach you in this course:
- Deciding where to film
- Setting up your camera
- Overview of basic camera settings
- Recording professional-tier audio
- Lighting up your video
- Editing your video recording
You can download our course “Health Professional’s guide to making videos” from our website for $300. Lastly, you will be able to get full lifetime access to our course on Mobile and TV.
Conclusion
As videography is becoming mainstream, so is technology being evolved. Smartphones, specifically iPhones have much better cameras in them that can benefit you in generating more video content. Although, you still need a few tips and tricks to achieve the top video quality from your iPhone. These tips will help people from every field to record better quality videos from your iPhone. Moreover, feel free to get the course that we have mentioned above if you want to market your private practice by generating more high-quality video content. You can use the guidelines learned from our course to make better quality videos in general that will help you in the long run.
