DaVinci Resolve maker launches free Blackmagic Camera app for iPhone
The developer of the popular video editor, DaVinci Resolve, has released a camera app for iPhone. It's called Blackmagic Camera, and is completely free to use.
In case you didn't know, Blackmagic design makes its own professional cameras, and its iPhone app has a similar interface, which includes digital film camera controls and image processing.
The company says that the app was designed to allow iPhone users to capture videos with a Hollywood film quality. Now, that doesn't mean your videos will look amazing compared to the default camera app in iOS. Blackmagic Camera app provides a ton of controls that you can use to customize the video recording, just like those used by professional photographers.
To get started with the app, you will need to allow it access to your phone's microphone, camera, photos, and optionally, to your location information. Once you do that, you can start using the app to record videos.
Blackmagic Camera's interface consists of four tabs. The Camera tab is where you will be working the most, to record videos. While you can just tap the record button to capture a video, you may want to try changing some options to tweak the video recording quality.
The app lets you set the focal length to use your iPhone camera's default lens, or half of it, or to switch to the front camera. The fps tool allows you to control the frame rate from as low as 24 fps, and all the way up to 60 fps. The shutter angle selector can be used to tweak the shutter speed manually. The app also has options to adjust the ISO, White balance, and Tint. You can toggle the HUD by swiping up or down, to hide/display the UI at anytime.
(Image via: BlackMagic Design)
The sidebar on the right has various options such as focus, exposure, zoom, and stabilization controls. Blackmagic Camera even displays an RGB histogram and audio meters in the bottom left and right corners respectively. The app supports grids, frame guides, LUTs and other tools. Tap the angled camera icon to select your image stabilization mode, e.g. Standard, Cinematic, Extreme. There are a few options that you can use for quick capture such as touch to focus, auto exposure, etc. You can enter the metadata of the video by tapping the Slate icon.
Switch to the Media Tab to view your recorded clips, and lets you sort them, search for clips, and manage clip uploading. The app has a ton of settings that you can customize to your liking. You can log in to your Blackmagic account to access your cloud storage, projects chat, etc., but this is optional.
Download Blackmagic Camera from the App Store. It is available for all devices with an A12 Bionic (or newer) and running on iOS 16.0 or later, i.e. it is compatible with the iPhone XR (released in 2018) and above. The app is refreshingly devoid of ads, and does not have any in-app purchases or subscriptions. You can learn more about Blackmagic Camera on the app's official website.
It is unclear whether the app would be released for Android mobile devices.
