Blackmagic Camera App - Feature Requests

By the way, just eyeballing the Timelapse clips, it appears to be one frame every seco

Thank you @rick.lang for your information about Timelapse. On the monitor I see NO indication that Timelape is activated. This sounds like a dangerous bug for me, because maybe I see it only in post. I also hope that BMD will improve this feature as I miss it.

Perhaps someone who knows iOS app development better than I can confirm, but my understanding is that the HDMI output of Lightning-equipped devices is always 1080p, while *fast* USB-C and Thunderbolt-equipped devices are *capable* of UHD “4K” output.

Also to confirm: that the output directly from apps over HDMI may have some Apple-imposed constraints.

An option to overlay the screen guides to the HDMI clean feed would be great. I don't trust the guides on my cheap field monitor.

I second this along with the fact that HDMI clean feed is very hit or miss. It seems that no matter what your framerate is set to, the phone will always output at 3840x2160 59.94hz. This is an issue with certain adapters where you'll always get a black screen. I've tried many cables and it's just not consistent at all, 1.4, 2.0, different dongles and docks. HDMI Clean Feed should be at the framerate and resolution you're set to, not a constant 59.94 @ UHD.

It would also be nice to have a "fall back" option where when the "HDMI Clean Feed" setting is disabled, it just defaults to the iOS screen mirroring feature that seems to work on any type of display.

It would be great to have an option to monitor the audio with AirPods when using an external audio source.

I don't seem to have Auto ISO or Auto Shutter Speed on my iPhone 12 Mini. I have a lock button for the SS, but enabling/disabling it doesn't change anything, and there's no button on the ISO at all. Both work fine when adjusted manually.

Am I doing something wrong, or is it a bug perhaps? I've been through the settings and can't see anything. It's been the same with V1 and V1.1.

AFAIK only Tint and Temperature offer an Auto selection button as well as the ability to Lock the setting value you select.

AFAIK only Tint and Temperature offer an Auto selection button as well as the ability to Lock the setting value you select.

Thanks Rick!
In that case, it would be great to add them as a feature in future releases.

I know that serious cinematographers shy away from adjusting either one, but they can prove handy, even in serious situations where time has been taken to setup a shot. For example, any shot where an IRIS pull would have been done would require either a SS or ISO or vND adjustment, and if using fixed NDs or not wanting to change the vND during a shot (for example to avoid colour changes) then the ISO might be the preferred option.

Hello all,

I've gone through different phases of my cinematography journey and am mostly in a discovery mode with respect to iPhone cinematography generally and this (seemingly awesome) app specifically.

Question: am I missing something or wouldn't it be helpful to have a pull focus feature/capability, especially if these apps can't use Apple's Cinematic Mode (yes, I know many consider it an abomination, but even more reason to be able to pull focus)? I guess I'm thinking something that could run remotely on a second device (eg iPad) to control the recording device?

Thanks,

Todd

I used to teach at a famous film school and one mistake I saw consistently was students rolling when they though they'd cut and, worse, not rolling when they though they were. I still make this mistake sometimes myself.

An audible roll/cut notification does wonders to eliminate this problem, but the one used in the camera app has two deficiencies.

1) The "You're rolling" notification uses the camera's default shutter sound. That's very difficult to hear in noisy situations.


2) There is no "You've cut" audio notification.

Please use a high frequency tone. About 2 or 3 khz would be easy to hear. On beep for rolling, two for cut.

> Being able to stream SRT from the app

> Being able to be a source in OBS/vMix when plugged in via USB-C/Thunderbolt/Lightning bolt


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Peter, please make that ‘rolling’ and ‘cut’ auditory notification selectable On or Off.

Everywhere I shoot lately I’m surrounded by people that do not want to be disturbed by any auditory feedback. This is true for video and especially for stills as no one wants to be distracted by simulated shutter sounds at an event.

The most reliable recording feedback is visual and it’s already there in the red colour display of the Timecode. Looking at the Timecode is easier generally than discerning the subtle changes of the Record buttons currently.

Agreed, Rick. All functions like that should be easy to disable.

Confirmation that you've cut (or rolled) requires explicit inspection of the viewfinder, something that's not necessarily easy with these tiny screens in bright sunlight. Audio confirmation (especially with "cut") is far less demanding of the operator's attention.

The BM app is pretty good, though. Those large red TC numbers are easy to see. My POS Nikon is absolutely silent, except for a tiny red "rolling" dot. My new iPhone is a far better video camera than my Z6II

I have lots of footage of my feet resulting from not actually cutting when I pushed the button.

Good to have a variety of solutions so that the operator can match the best option to a given use case. BMD does well keeping the interface user friendly in most situations.

I would like to see:

• Higher H265 bitrates, current 35mbps is too low (macroblocking) and ProRes is too big for many
• Virtual Zoom "lenses", the jump from 24 to 120mm is too much and cropping in in post not great either
• An option to turn off or at least lower noise reduction in Apple Log
• An option to burn in Luts, for people that want to release the footage directly from their phones

I would like to see the normal but currently missing “media management” functions to:
Select all clips, and
Select ranges of clips

From there is like to operate on the selected clips, eg
Delete, Copy to cloud, project, or iPhone camera roll

Perhaps also advanced things like rotate, burn in the LUT, compress to a lower codec like H.265 (for clips one wants to keep but not at such a high storage cost), rename into a sequence (say scene 01 take 1,2,3)

All of these can be done later of course but are nice to have in the field to manage storage and organize things when you know what’s what.

I would like to see:

• Higher H265 bitrates, current 35mbps is too low (macroblocking) and ProRes is too big for many
• Virtual Zoom "lenses", the jump from 24 to 120mm is too much and cropping in in post not great either
• An option to turn off or at least lower noise reduction in Apple Log
• An option to burn in Luts, for people that want to release the footage directly from their phones

If you need the higher h265 bitrates here and now, the Cinema P3 App can deliver that. The good side effect, is the option to defined your own presets, covering almost all aspects of the iPhone 15 potential. The inly thing I really miss, is the option to use 32-bit float (and a few times up to four channels of audio input, ut that's mostly play).

I'm impressed by the Blackmagic Camera App, but the limitations are too much for me (I love to be able to switch between several "personal settings" depending on "landscape and sun", "rainy day", "museum" and "low light" to just name a few details (beside quality levels, h265 (HLG) max speed, ProRES 422 HDR and ProRES 422HQ HDR. Log is supported too, but I'm working in 25fps, 10-bit 4:2:2 2020/2100HLG most of the time on my iPhone 15 Pro. YMMV.

Quality wise, I see few if any differences. Apple ProRES 422HQ (for example) looks practically indistinguishable between the two Apps, in my view.

Regards

Good morning little idea, the iPhone has a very good integrated gyroscope, wouldn't it be possible to record the Gyro data in the ProRes file in order to be able to activate Gyro stabilization on Resolve?


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In a similar vain to above, the ability to record LiDAR data while filming like with Apple's cinematic mode would be awesome, so that data could be used in post for either 2d matte work (in the same way you'd use the depth matte tool) or in 3d work like with relight.

Presumably it would have to be separate file that has to be processed into whatever data you need, but alternatively (and much more simply) just outputting a second video file with a luma matte of the clip (like you'd get from a depth matte) would be awesome!

I would like to see:

• Higher H265 bitrates, current 35mbps is too low (macroblocking) and ProRes is too big for many
• Virtual Zoom "lenses", the jump from 24 to 120mm is too much and cropping in in post not great either
• An option to turn off or at least lower noise reduction in Apple Log
• An option to burn in Luts, for people that want to release the footage directly from their phones

Second all of these, but the so-called zoom is cropping anyway and in post you have more precision and avoid any further interference by Apple‘s ideas how it should be sharpened.
The huge jump between true focal length makes some folks choose the Pro over the Max.

False color is not working propperly with Apple Log.


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Only a small wish: make a widget, so that the app can be directly started from the lockscreen.

I would love to see the ability to separate the exposure and focus into two monocles. Often I want the exposure monocle near the sky, but the focus monocle on my subject matter.

Other feature requests...
Apple Watch app to preview framing and start/stop recording
Ability to monitor via second device (another iPhone or iPad) and start/stop recording
Have file transfers up to Blackmagic Cloud while app is in the background/not active

Yes, great feature requests. I would like to add: Support of 2x zoom on the iPhone 15 Pro Max as the native app did. Right now, I just have 1x or 5x and this is a big step.

I would like to see the ability to disable making proxies in real time when you record, and to be given the ability to encode proxies in post after you record, if it’s an option in the media browser.

Good idea! I'm still using LumaFusion to edit my videos and I don't need these proxies.

I can see such a local WiFi Direct connection being a great benefit, even for example from an iPhone doing the filming to an iPad or computer, possibly with its own connected external drive, providing both monitoring and storage.

Filmic Pro had this feature some years ago with the WD-Wifi-Harddisk. This was useful at this time. I believe that the priority is going down now because of the USB-C-Connection of the iPhone 15 Pro Max. I uses AirDrop for years and was AMAZED to see the transfer time with this phone and a connected SSD-Drive.

It would be great to have an option to monitor the audio with AirPods when using an external audio source.

Great also! Really useful in important situations.

I see VFR audio sync issues when playing media in Resolve. A low light, a 4K h.265, 60fps minute-long clip results in an (approx) half second sound-trailing sync failure by the end of the clip when playing back in Resolve. Timeline FR is 60 fps.

Playing the clip in short bursts doesn't show this issue, it only appears when playing the same clip continuously for a half minute or so.

The audio sync issue does not appear when playing the file in VLC Media Player, which reports the FR as 59.9966 FPS

I can see the frame rate dropping occasionally to 58fps in the playback window's frame rate indicator.

Not sure if this is a camera settings issue, an Apple issue or a Resolve issue but it is annoying and probably quite difficult to eliminate with editing.

Otherwise, this app is a huge step forward over the Apple default. Kudos and thanks to the coders!

One other issue: Time Lapse Interval. It appears to default to several seconds between frames. This is far too long, IMHO. A one second interval (or less) would provide much more flexibility.

For some reason, my first attempt at time lapse recording resulted in frequent failures, recording stopping and an exclamation point covering a flashing roll/cut button. There was no indication of what had failed.

Did you try to convert to constant frame rate with a tool like Shutter Encoder?

No. Never heard of it, Uli. I'll try it out.

Today's Apple presentation included a credit at the end: "Shot with iPhone".
They didn't say how much of it was shot with an iPhone, just "shot".

Why not?

Today's Apple presentation included a credit at the end: "Shot with iPhone".
They didn't say how much of it was shot with an iPhone, just "shot".

Why the sour grapes?

If you control the lights, and (probably) have a small army of competent people at hand in post, it shouldn’t be a real problem to record most of the content on modern iPhones (I guess, that they do not have to limit themselves to use only one iPhone for economic reasons).

or?

Regards

Shot on iPhone means what it says I suspect. Given all the crew and unlimited resources available, no doubt. BMD might step up to the challenge and do a short Shot with the Blackmagic Camera app. With a crew of one. Touché! Just for fun.

Today's Apple presentation included a credit at the end: "Shot with iPhone".
They didn't say how much of it was shot with an iPhone, just "shot".

Actually, the title said "This event was shot on iPhone and edited on Mac".

For some people, that probably recalled the first time that Apple used the line "Shot on iPhone".

A lot of people's jaws dropped when they saw this...

There's more after the end title "Intelligent Details", including "Shot on iPhone 5S". That phone was released in 2013, ten years ago.

Today's Apple presentation included a credit at the end: "Shot with iPhone".
They didn't say how much of it was shot with an iPhone, just "shot".

Why the sour grapes?
Regards

No sour grapes at all. In fact, I was impressed with that statement. Nearly as impressed as I am with my new 15 Pro Max.

It's just that I've come to take most marketing hoopla with a grain of salt.

It's just that I've come to take most marketing hoopla with a grain of salt.

I do think that Apple's tag line yesterday may have been a deliberate reference, on the 10th anniversary of the iPhone 5S, to the Bentley video. At the time, there was a lot of discussion about the film, including scepticism.

Note that yesterday's tag line was "Shot on iPhone and edited on Mac". In 2013, the message was "Shot on iPhone 5S and assembled on iPad Air".

Austin Reza (https://www.reza.la), who made the Bentley film, and a second a few months later, also made a short video about how they were made:

[Peter Chamberlain]

The formal Apple statement

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/10/ ... on-iphone/

The formal Apple statement

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/10/ ... on-iphone/

Well done “Behind the Scene” story.

Is the actual iPhone only rig (without surrounding gear) custom made or available for purchase by the general public?

The Smallrig versions are still somewhat “restricted”, barely available unless you’re willing to risk shipment from mainland Chine (with the added customs fee, taxes and handling fees, that involves - often exceeding the item retail costs for individual orders).

While you’re “here”: Any chance of getting an option to save, overwrite and read settings (individually or as complete collections). I have my Cinema P3 settings in iCloud, making reuse simple.

Regards

Either I cant find out how to crop the iPhone screen image to eliminate dynamic island from obscuring part of the image or that BTS apple video showed a different version of the Blackmagic iPhone app because the screen image is cropped eliminating dynamic island.

https://petapixel.com/2023/10/31/apple- ... 5-pro-max/

I see slight yet tolerable timeline scrubbing reluctance at the H.265 current bitrate. Would a higher bitrate would make this worse or better?

I see very little, if any, compression artifacts at the current H.265 bitrate. So far, with just a couple of hours shot, I find the image quality amazing. All done in good light, mind you. Day exteriors.

I see slight yet tolerable timeline scrubbing reluctance at the H.265 current bitrate. Would a higher bitrate would make this worse or better?

I see very little, if any, compression artifacts at the current H.265 bitrate. So far, with just a couple of hours shot, I find the image quality amazing. All done in good light, mind you. Day exteriors.

Where the main lens is involved, the bitrate is surprisingly low.

In Cinema P3 I can use a setting “up to 18MByte/sec”, which not necessarily has to happen, but…

On iPhone 15 Pro i typically end up around 17-20 megabit/second in various scenarios. Extremely low.

On iPhone 15 Pro the x0.5 and x3.0 lenses consistently hover around three to four times the x1.0 lens bitrate in the same scenery and light. Weird. Unless it’s mostly noise -)

On iPhone 12 Pro the x1.0 lens delivers around the same bitrates, as the x0.5 and x2.0 lenses from same vantagenpoint (difference probably caused by view angle based differences in content).

Does Apple use some unknown “trickery” in the main lens readout on the iPhone 15 Pro (Max) camera?

Regards

On iPhone 15 Pro the x0.5 and x3.0 lenses consistently hover around three to four times the x1.0 lens bitrate in the same scenery and light. Weird. Unless it’s mostly noise -)

That IS weird. Good observation, though. More noise might account for it.

Since the 1x lens is using the 48 mpx sensor, which needs to be sampled down for video, I'd say it's the noise.

Is there any way to bring log/lut workflows to the iPhone 14 Pro/Max also with IOS 17? Or is it just a hardware limitation? It would be nice to have the Video/Extended/Film settings replicated from the cameras, with the luts preloaded too. I've just shot a pilot in Sicily and the 15 wasn't available, we were just in time to shoot with the app, which worked wonderfully. I have a window to swap out the 14 for the 15, so it would be good to know.

I would also like to know this. It would be nice if the Apple log workflow would be available to devices other than those with the A17 pro chip.

I'm using my phone on a DJI gimbal. It would be nice if I could trigger recording from the gimbal's record button, instead of needing to reach up and trigger on screen. For that matter, it would be nice to have other functionality from a gimbal integration as well.

[CaptainHook]

Hi, merged/moved a few posts to try make the various discussions a bit easier to track.

Please if possible use the following topics where it makes sense:

Blackmagic Camera App - General discussion and Releases
Blackmagic Camera App - Feature Requests
Blackmagic Camera App - Issues/Bugs

This App is killer. I love it so far.

I've been using the iPhone 15 Pro Max with the new camera cage from SmallRig with their quick-release handles.

Awesome little setup. They have a handle that uses Bluetooth for shutter control.

I like that you can pull focus in the BMC app. It can be tricky to do while trying to do handheld camera work.

It would be KILLER if somehow the app could be integrated with a handle that could pull focus similar to how a Tilta Nucleus-M would with handles on a bigger rig.

I'm not sure if that would be a collaboration with another company like SmallRig or the best way to go about it. I really feel like a feature like that would REALLY take iPhone filmmaking to the next level.

Thanks for reading!

Eddie

Starting to really like the app, albeit the learning curve is steep...

I'd like to request the following features please;

- Zhiyun gimbal integration; specifically the smooth 4

- In app audio level adjustment, including for Bluetooth mic (Sabinetek SmartMike+)

Many Thanks
Barry M

Mostly a Feature request for the BM Camera App to optionally log the CoreMotion Sensor data alongside the Video Clip.

But this question had me wondering since BMD implemented Gyrodata for stabilization.. Does anyone have greater knowledge weather this data could be helpful as additional information used in 3D Tracking? For example in scenes where there aren’t enough visual features (Shallow DoF, open waters, lack of parallax, etc.) to obtain a stable track. Or is it so inaccurate, that it would only make things more complicated?

There are multiple iPhone Apps that deliver fairly accurate 3D Tracking data, I assume using a combination of Lidar/Image in combination with the accelerometor and gyroscope information.
Would something like this be possible in post, if we‘d get the BMPCC/Camera App Gyro data as CSV, instead of it being hidden somewhere in the BRAW files?

I was thinking about running an App like Sensor Play (which claim they can log data in the background) alongside the BM Camera App to achieve something like this, but it would be complicated to sync the footage with the data, let alone getting this data into compositing-/3D Software (I only have some rudimentary coding knowledge).

I had to track some shots from the IPhone in the past and with all the artifacts, twitching focus, motion blur etc. that the camera can produce, I was wondering weather using accelerometor/gyro could speed up the workflow. I wouldn’t need a pixel-perfect match since it‘s only for placing graphics.

Does anyone have experimented with something similar ?

S
- In app audio level adjustment, including for Bluetooth mic (Sabinetek SmartMike+)

I don't know about that mike in particular, but audio gain works for external microphones, just no for the internal one.