Video with a mobile phone

[Peter B]

Having finally decided to change my old flip-phone for a nice new smart phone I decided to see how good, or otherwise, its HD video feature was. So while I was at the Mid-Hants Railway's steam gala this weekend I used the phone as well as my Nikon D90 to take the video shots.

From the results I have learnt three things.

1. The phone can take video that's as good, if not better in some cases, than my D90.

2. While I can hand-hold my D90 steady as I film, I can't hold the phone steady enough, probably because it's much smaller and lighter.

3. Whichever way round you hold the phone the picture on the screen is the right way up, however there is a wrong way round for the phone's camera as I found when I viewed the videos on my PC, some of them are upside down!!

[tom hardwick]

No problem with the upside down footage, as any NLE will flip it with one click. I agree about the footage though - my Canon 60D can give horrible artifacts in the movie mode but my Samsung phone avoids this completely. Of course the phone has no image stabilisation, and this might account for a lot of the wobbles.

tom.

[Roy1]

Does anyone think the worse in that Camcorders will stop being made and we will all have to make our videos via cell phones. It makes me cringe thinking about the possibility.

[col lamb]

I've seen quite a lot of video footage of a HD Camcorder and an iPhone 4S where the same shot has been taken side by side and the resultant movie is a split screen with video from each side by side

The iPhone 4s producing very watchable HD even though the colours are slightly muted and the edge difinitions slightly blurred.

A movie produced only on an iPhone would be perfectly viewable and you would not know what it was shot with

[TimStannard]

A movie produced only on an iPhone would be perfectly viewable and you would not know what it was shot with

Oh yes you would! Simply because every movie I've ever seen produced on an iPhone is accompanied by the maker proudly announcing (either in person or via titles on the film) "I made this on my iPhone"

[Peter B]

A quick google found me a nice little free utility that will flip the video over, so I don't have to worry if I'm holding the phone the wrong way up again!
As for the 'wobbles' I see Amazon lists a vast array of tripod mounts for mobile phones, so I'll be getting one of those soon. It'll have the added advantage of leaving both my hands free to take stills.
When I finally find the time to edit my film I have no intention of telling anyone which parts where shot with the phone and which with the DSLR.