The recent Apple event was not at all the way it should have been. It wasn’t high-profile and didn’t have much you weren’t aware of, thanks to the rumors that were rife over the last few weeks. Is there any hardware change in the iPhone 13 and the iPhone 13 Pro? Well, there were hardly any that you would expect from the usual yearly updates. What could have been a cool announcement is the software aspect of the iPhone 13 that has been enabled by the brand new A15 Bionic processor. You can call it the Cinematic mode and this certainly is going to usher in a change in the way you have been coming up with video content through your smartphones. Here is everything you wanted to know about iPhone 13’s cinematic mode.
A Short Film Was Shot With It
By just looking at it, you wouldn’t notice anything special. Many of us knew well before that the portrait mode is going to arrive sooner or later. However, android manufacturers have introduced the feature much before Apple. That’s quite normal for iPhones. They are often late to a feature that has already been brought into the market by the android competitors.
However, the cinematic mode seems to be more intriguing than what you would see on phones from other manufacturers. Whodunnit has been shot on iPhone 13 in Cinematic mode, and those who have watched the 87-second short film made by Apple will vouch for the fact that it’s freaking awesome.
The Focus Pulling Feature
Instead of adding a blur in the background of the subjects in your video, Apple has emphasized how a similar feature can be made useful, especially for the videographers. Therefore, the makers thought of replicating a particular technique called focus pulling that filmmakers use essentially when there is a shift in the focus and the camera makes a subject blurred at one depth to divert your focus to another subject at a different depth.
You might not have paid attention to this, but don’t be surprised as it is used in maximum films you have seen till now. Doing it right is not an easy task though. If you visit a film set, you notice a person, known as the first assistant camera, whose only job is to work on the focus ring of the camera.
Shifting Focus Is A Cakewalk
Okay, the depth of field is shallower for any professional camera. Therefore, focusing in the right manner becomes more crucial than for maximum mobile videos where the subjects tend to be in focus. With that being said, you get plenty of technical opportunities too and that’s what Apple has thought of replicating. The company has put more stress on making the feature easy. Suppose there is a subject in the background and there is an entry of another subject in the foreground.
Automatically, the camera will tend to shift the depth of field effect. If the subject in the foreground shifts out of focus, the camera will focus back on the subject in the background. To start a rack pull, all you have to do is tap on different subjects. Once you do it, the camera will smoothly start changing its focus instead of jumping to any other subject in a rather uncinematic manner. Aside from getting control over the depth effect, altering the rack focus after shooting a video is also easy. A regular camera won’t be able to do that. This seems to work better on Apple.
It's Going To Get Better
It will be a bit obvious to an individual who has handled a high-end camera. Edges can be rough in the case of portrait mode. Therefore, the effect in the real world might not be as perfect as the curated clips on Apple. In videos, the rough edges might be less distracting as compared to photos.
The quality of videos on YouTube and other social media platforms is lower in comparison to the quality of still images. The Cinematic mode is going to improve with time. The depth illusion is bound to get more realistic. You might get additional creative effects such as the anamorphic mode in the times to come.
The anamorphic mode and the ProRes compression might make the quality of raw video better. The iPhone 13 can be a really useful tool for creators of video content as well as filmmakers.