With the iPhone 13 and iPhone 14, Movie Mode lets you apply a bokeh effect to video shots in different locations before and after the shot. In this tutorial, NexPit shows you how to shoot amazing videos with depth of field, then edit them on your iPhone and other devices.
It’s often easy to immediately determine whether a video was shot with a smartphone or a “real” camera. The biggest difference is selective focus, where the photographer can choose to blur the foreground or background so that the focus is pointed directly at the subject.
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How Movie Mode Works
What once required a sophisticated camera or a professional camera with a large sensor to achieve effective bokeh, blur can now be created through software processing in modern smartphones. Yes, some Android smartphones have offered portrait mode for years: but the latter simply doesn’t work as intuitively and effectively as the iPhone 13 and 14’s Movie mode against the competition.
The biggest trick is that the iPhone saves the depth map with the video. The raw video recorded by the smartphone is clear from foreground to background. However, if the iPhone itself or the user is focusing on a video, Movie Mode blurs the foreground or background depending on the situation.
Since the iPhone saves the original video, depth map, and defined focus separately, the focus of the video can also be changed after the fact, on the iPhone itself, as well as on other devices. other devices.
As for the actual recording, movie mode is currently available on the rear wide-angle and telephoto cameras, as well as the selfie camera. The following iPhones support Movie Mode:
How to use Movie Mode
Movie mode is featured prominently in the iPhone camera app, between Video and Slow Motion. Just press it once to activate the mode, then press the record button to start shooting.
By default, the camera app marks all faces, as well as animals, it recognizes during recording. During recording, Movie Mode tries to identify the most active person and adjusts focus accordingly. However, the focus can be changed manually by touching the screen.
In the video below you can see that the focus only changes automatically when Ben is speaking to the camera in the foreground, otherwise, the movie mode keeps the focus on the Fabi until we manually change it by pressing the screen.
By the way, “manual focus” is not only for people, but also for objects. Movie mode will then follow them and keep them in focus. A long press will lock the “Virtual AF” at a distance, keeping focus on people or objects in the foreground, etc., regardless of what’s going on in the background.
Long press on the screen to activate AF Lock in movie mode. He could have been talking to the camera for as long as he wanted, and his attention would stay on Fabby. / © kwgeek
Movie mode provides the following settings:
- The curve “f” in the upper left corner represents the focal ratio. The lower the number, the stronger the bokeh effect. So, for the iPhone 13, the “f2.0” value provides the strongest background blur, while “f16” provides the weakest background blur.
- Using the flash icon in the lower right corner, you can set the video flash to “always off” or “auto”. With the last setting, the iPhone will notify you before recording whether the flash is about to fire.
- The small “<" arrow is used to call up the two settings above on the right side of the screen, as well as the "±" symbol for exposure compensation when shooting in movie mode.
- You can switch from a wide-angle to a telephoto lens on the iPhone 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max with a single press of “1x”. The double arrow on the top right switches to the selfie camera. Movie mode is not (currently) supported on ultra wide-angle cameras.
- Movie mode also supports Dolby Vision HDR.
How to enable and use 4K resolution
When movie mode is activated, the resolution is limited to full HD at 30 fps. However, with the release of the iPhone 14 series, Apple has improved this feature and can now shoot bokeh-rich video in 4K resolution.
Users will be able to go tocamera app then select movie mode. However, the default resolution is 1920 x 1080 pixels at 30 fps. You need to enable 4K resolution directly in the settings.Here are the steps to activate and use the mode Movie better quality.
- Enter set up
- go to menu camera
- press film recording
- choose 4K 30 fps or 4K 24 fps
You can enable Movie Mode from the Camera section of Settings / © kwgeek
Finally, 4K video offers more detail and sharper image quality. However, there are downsides to this option, including larger file sizes, which can be a problem on any iPhone 14 with a paltry 128GB of storage. We recommend sticking to full HD, which will reduce the file size by a third.
Movie Mode: How to Edit Video in Post
The biggest advantage of Cinema Mode over current competing solutions is the ability to adjust focus even in post-processing. This way, you’ll be able to perfectly adjust the focus-to-action transition. By the way, editing videos is not only available on the iPhone 13 and 14, but also in the Photos app on the following Apple devices:
For macOS, Apple allows editing with Final Cut and iMovie on the Mac. We’ve also explained how to use iMovie to edit your videos in movie mode in this article.
Editing captured video in movie mode on iOS
Editing videos on iOS is very easy. Just open the clip in the Photos app and click Edit. You will then see the video below with a thumbnail timeline. New is an additional timeline that is displayed when changing focus automatically and manually in movie mode. Here you can make new changes to the focus or remove existing ones as needed. The following video shows you how it works:
Important: If you want to edit your videos on other devices, you’ll need to send them via iCloud Photos or AirDrop. Otherwise, you will lose the depth information recorded by iPhone in movie mode.
Edit videos shot in movie mode in iMovie
The first thing about editing videos on other devices like MacBooks is that you need to send the clips via iCloud Photos or AirDrop. Otherwise, you will lose the depth information that your iPhone stores in movie mode.But before you do that, make sure the option All photo data Activated. That’s it:
- in L’photo app from your iPhone, Open the video in movie mode or select from multiple and press share button
- press Options At the top of the screen, activate the option All photo datathen press Finish (You will need to enable this option every time you transfer using AirDrop)
- press airdropthen in the device list select Apple Computer in which direction you want to transfer video
ensure options All photo data Enable before sharing files in movie mode on macOS / © kwgeek
Also note that for every Movie Mode video you transfer using AirDrop, a folder with four files will appear on the receiving Mac. In this file, MOV files found that do not start with “IMG_E”and then import it into iMovie.
Always import “IMG_” files instead of “IMG_E” for a better editing experience / © kwgeek
Once you’ve imported video files into iMovie from a compatible iPhone, it’s easy to edit your videos with Apple’s free video editor. Just open the correct clip as a new iMovie project, drag and drop the clip into the video timeline, and select the camera icon at the top of the video preview.
Then just select the Depth of Field box and you can manually change the focus. Here, you can add new focus transitions or delete existing transitions at will. All steps are explained in the following video gallery:
in conclusion
In the 90s and 2000s, amateur photographers still made depth-of-field adapters to create bokeh effects in their videos. In the 2010s, DSLRs and DSLRs democratized depth-of-field photography. Now it’s the turn of the smartphone. Granted, Huawei has offered this feature since the Mate 20, and Samsung has offered it since the Galaxy S20 series. But let’s be honest: did you notice?
If you want to see how other manufacturers have developed the video bokeh feature, check out our Movie Mode comparison of the iPhone 13, Vivo X80 Pro and Galaxy S22 Ultra and draw your own conclusions on image quality.
This article was updated in September 2022 with a tutorial on how to enable and use 4K Movie Mode.