Shooting iPhone Timelapse & Slowmo

One thing I love about shooting video with a smartphone is how easy it can make otherwise complicated tasks.

Case in point: Shooting timelapse.

To shoot a timelapse with a tradtional camera can be challenging. Many will require you to connect an external intervalometer. Then you've got to calculate how many frames to shoot and at what interval, along with the proper aperture, ISO and shutter. Also, do you use an ND filter? What about shooting at night? The list goes on.

So this can be tricky for anyone, but in particular beginners or just casual camera users wanting to shoot something for a vacation or a YouTube video, etc.

But with a smartphone the apps will do most of that work for you. And now with the Reelapse app, it will even add motion blur (or light trails) without using an ND filter.

Check out this video I made to see how simple it can be to create rather advanced looking timelapse...

And continuing with the theme of motion and making things easier shooting with a smartphone... What about slow motion?

Yep, that too.

Now of course you can shoot slowmo just using the native iPhone camera app and it's super easy. But it's also very limited. And you can use third-party apps too, and most of those give you a lot more control and better quality - however, typically you still have to conform the footage in post-production.

What do I mean by "conform"? Taking the HFR footage (high frame rate) into your NLE of choice and then "conforming" it to your editing frame rate, which for me is normally 24FPS.

So you shoot 60FPS and then within the editing software conform it to 24FPS and end up with a 40% slow motion look. And pretty much every app can do this.

However, it's often better to do this in-camera if you can. And on most tradtional cameras that's the way it's done. When you shoot 60FPS you can then play it back at 24FPS in the camera and preview the slowmo. So it's being "conformed" in-camera.

But until recently you couldn't do this within the Blackmagic Camera App - you could only shoot HFR and then you had to conform it in post. But now with their latest app update you can now do this in-camera and it's a great option to have and can really simplify your workflow.

Check out this video I made showing how to do this...

And if you're interested in learning more about the Blackmagic Camera App consider enrolling in my course which covers the app from top to bottom (and SAVE 10% using the link).

Smartphones have not only democratized filmmaking gear, but also many filmmaking tasks, which I think is great and now allows basically anyone to get professional quality results.

What do you think? Have you tried these great apps?

Comment below or over on YouTube. Happy filmmaking!

-BC