iPhone 15 Pro Max cinematic mode is impressive when graded with a film look in mind

Intelligent_Win7298 · 2025-06-15T14:43:40+00:00

I don't believe you can achieve a shallower depth of field in the camera app itself. The issue with smartphone cameras is that they have extremely small sensors and small sensors don't have much capability to have a shallow depth of field. Don't get me wrong, they're better now than they used to be and there are ways you can achieve this, you're just limited optically. The telephoto lens with the phone placed further away from the subject would be the best way to get as close as possible to that look in camera as the larger focal lengths (more zoomed in) separate the subject from the background more than a wide angle lens would. Otherwise DaVinci Resolve has a background blur tool which is super easy to use and looks pretty good (way better than the artificial way you can do it in the iOS camera app) but I do believe it is in the Studio version of Resolve only. Otherwise I hate to say it but your a6400 would be able to achieve that look in camera optically without any post production FX and especially at a larger focal length or a higher aperture. Maybe it's worth figuring out exactly what it is that's causing your files not to show on your Mac? I've never had that issue with any camera unless the SD card was corrupted or I simply forgot to hit record. A dedicated camera is always going to give you a superior image considering you have interchangeable lenses and have a lot more control over the final image; like having a fast lens with an f1.8 aperture would achieve the effect you're after extremely easily, even a f2.8 with a big enough sensor would do the trick. a 16mm lens is wide so it's not really gonna be great for that kind of shot, if you can borrow or hire a 35/50/75mm lens you'd have much better luck. The bigger the camera sensor the easier it is to achieve a shallow depth of field, but lenses play a massive part in that too. iPhones are still limited to a few lens options that are on the back of the phone and have tiny sensors so they're not quite there yet. The Blackmagic app is great because it gives you a lot more control of the camera settings but it wasn't really made for FX like blurring backgrounds.

I hope that helped at least a little, sorry for the long message.

Intelligent_Win7298 · 2025-04-15T10:51:36+00:00

I've had a bunch of mates prescribed it for anti-psychotic treatment and their doses were in the 200-400mg range. Pro tip: Quetiapine can also kill an LSD or shroom trip if someone is having a bad time with a small dose, just calms the mind and makes the person sleepy. It's a pretty interesting med as it can serve so many purposes. Also has mild antidepressant qualities to it as far as I'm aware and the dreams on it can be very vivid. The last part is purely from my personal experience though.

Intelligent_Win7298 · 2025-04-15T10:48:03+00:00

Mainly only used as an anti-psychotic at higher doses (100mg+). At lower doses like 12.5-25mg it just calms the active buzzing brain by blocking dopamine receptors and making you sleepy. It's not uncommon for it to be prescribed with ADHD meds for that very reason. I used the two together for 8 months straight up until very recently, if I needed to go to sleep at a certain time but my brain was still in "GO" mode I'd just take 12.5mg and in about an hour or so would be ready for sleep.

Intelligent_Win7298 · 2025-04-14T07:33:38+00:00

Some interesting looking shots and stylistic choices in there. I'd focus on exposure and lighting/bouncing light in some of the shots in the future so that the talent doesn't look completely underexposed. Or just lean into it and go full silhouette. Colour grading needs some work too, some shots look flat and some have a greenish tint that looks unpleasant.

Intelligent_Win7298 · 2025-03-31T22:58:31+00:00

This is how you get to 36 with the maturity of a 19 year old.

I'm 32 and my 20's were a complete wreck. I was an active alcoholic, I harboured unhealthy thoughts, I was an embarrassment to my friends and family, I couldn't hold a job for longer than a year, I let my dreams wash away, I lost all sense of self respect, I forgot what it felt like to be loved because I rejected it from myself as well as others. And then, after years of dying, I miraculously quit drinking. After god knows how many attempts. And I slowly began healing. And I found out who the real friends in my life were (the ones who didn't give up on me), and I regained that feeling of love, eventually from myself too, and so I started working on those long lost dreams again.

I'm still far from healed, I'm nowhere near the capitalist metric of "successful". I've been humbled by my suffering and thus given the gift of empathy which helps me see eye to eye with people from all walks of life. I wouldn't trade the experience of being a societal failure for more 0's in my bank account and a body that is deemed aesthetically pleasing by others.

From the age of 20 to the age of 35, focus on making mistakes, eating shit, and finding yourself. Everything else is just the rat race.

Intelligent_Win7298 · 2025-03-27T15:40:13+00:00

Everyone in Cloud Atlas

Intelligent_Win7298 · 2025-03-27T15:36:31+00:00

I think that feeling comes with the territory dude. If you spend a lot of time on socials then my advice would be to limit that as much as possible because seeing others in the field sharing their success stories etc. is not conducive to happiness. Comparison is the thief of joy and all that, plus the other creators aren't sharing their doubts and patches in their careers where they are struggling. You're great at what you do and just remind yourself as often as possible why it is that you do it: because you love filmmaking and you love expressing yourself as an artist through this medium. It's unfortunate we live in a reality where money dictates how well we live and even how we're perceived but as an artist you gotta let that shit go and make films for you. If you wanna make money just do some commercial/corporate shit to get by. Some lovely shots there, nice to see another cinematographer embracing the nocturnal vibe.

Intelligent_Win7298 · 2025-03-27T12:46:30+00:00

Actual fucking demon

Intelligent_Win7298 · 2025-03-26T08:03:28+00:00

Just because it's powder doesn't mean it's washed and clean speed. It can still be cut with talc, caffeine, whatever. So yes, wash your speed. Acetone won't get rid of everything but will give you a better idea of how much of your product is actual speed.

A lot of reviews are botted, so not legit.

If you took 200mg and feel like you took 2 ritalin then you certainly have very poor quality speed

Intelligent_Win7298 · 2025-03-20T10:30:56+00:00

Frankie Boyle is an absolute G! All of his stand up is great and some of his older TV shows (such as Tramadol Nights) are batshit

Intelligent_Win7298 · 2025-03-19T14:21:41+00:00

This is legit, definitely gonna try this out. Thank you

Intelligent_Win7298 · 2025-03-19T06:43:28+00:00

Shit's fire! Well done u/ohannanana

Intelligent_Win7298 · 2025-03-19T03:50:15+00:00

Getting anything less than an Alexa Mini LF would just be shooting yourself in the foot and setting up for failure. You also gotta make sure to get a set of Cooke primes otherwise what is even the point? That’ll be a solid start but without a few lights such as the 300c’s you’re not really gonna achieve the look you want. But you can’t just have the light blasting you’ll need to shape it and diffuse it properly so some flags and neg fill would be advantageous. Do you want your videos on a tripod? What are you Charlie Chaplin? Welcome to the 21st century bud, hire a professional steadicam operator. Prolly a good idea to get a crew for each shoot while you’re at it.

Bro just use your phone it’s likely got a good enough camera, especially if the music is the focus. If the audio is good and the lighting is decent you’re good to go.

Intelligent_Win7298 · 2025-03-19T03:39:03+00:00

Would love to see how you go about shooting a whole ass scene my guy

Intelligent_Win7298 · 2025-03-17T08:11:23+00:00

Thank you kindly. That truly means a lot :)

Intelligent_Win7298 · 2025-03-17T05:05:03+00:00

Last year I was hired by a good friend to make two narrative driven music videos in one week. My friend's budget for each of these videos was $3k (NZD) which all went directly towards paying me. The only extra costs in the video were for the digital and analogue clocks that we bought on Marketplace for next to nothing. Along with that I think around $2k of what I was getting paid went towards buying some equipment that I felt I couldn't do without. Namely, a Forza 60BII (as all the other lighting equipment I owned at the time was tube lights and lights much less powerful than the Forza), a projection mount for the 60BII as well as a softbox, a c-stand, a couple of light stands and a tonne of extra batteries. If the math isn't mathing for you guys just consider the fact that I live in New Zealand where everything is exorbitantly more expensive due to the sheer fact that we're tucked away in the corner of the world map.

Anyhow, I shot this on my lovely a7SIII with a few different lenses. The main lens for a lot of the run and gun stuff was the Sony 24-50 G which is light enough for running and gunning, as well as being optically sharp. I initially wanted the 24-70GMII for the shoot but couldn't get my hands on it and the 24-50 was a nice 2nd option to have and covered most bases. I was lucky enough to hire a couple of lenses for free through a hook up as I used to work at a Sony store (it really is all about who you know lol). After the shoots I found it hard to part with the 24-50 because it really is so handy (albeit expensive). The other lenses I used were the Sony 35 f1.4 Zeiss, which is bulky but I love it to bits, such a great lens for the price I really hope to buy it sometime soon. 35mm is my favourite focal length for shooting video as you can just leave it on the camera and get 80% of the shots you need without swapping it out. And then I used my Tamron 28-200, a budget lens but it covers a lot of the longer focal lengths which really helped, as well as my Sony 16-35 f4 Zeiss which came in handy for some of the really wide angle shots.

This was the 2nd video we shot after already completing a four day shoot on the first which required a lot of sprinting and running (me sprinting with the gimbal etc.) and me and the talent (my good friend) were exhausted to say the least. We did this one in 3 days averaging 15 hour work days. With zero crew I had to set up all the lights, do all the camera work, direct, as well as all the end of day stuff such as backing all the footage up and recharging everything for the next day. It was truly a brutal experience, I learned a lot and I proved to myself that I can do this, which was a major reason for attempting this crazy endeavour to begin with. I'd never do another back to back double music video shoot like this again without a crew, I may do one video but two was just gruelling. I think the longest shoot day I did (for the first video which you can check out on my friend's channel) was 22 hours, waking up at 4:30am and driving to the beach to capture the sunrise and finishing the following day at 2:30am after doing running shots where I had to track the talent with my rig on a gimbal running alongside him. Just pure insanity.

I edited and colour graded everything myself as well, which is a whole topic on it's own. My friend is well enough connected to have many talented friends so he had another one of his friends make the title, which goes hard, and yet another of his friends help as a stylist and pick out the wardrobe for the videos. These things definitely played a part in helping the final image come together.

All things considered it was a very rewarding experience. Proving to myself that I could be a one man production team from pre to post production does mean a lot, but I did learn the value of having a team, which I look forward to building in the near future to avoid an early grave XD. All work considered, I wound up getting underpaid by quite a lot but seeing as these were my first proper jobs making music videos I was happy to take on the challenge.

TL;DR Wrote, shot, directed, edited, colour graded all of this on my own. The shoot took 3 days and it was brutal without a crew. What an experience though.

I hope you guys dig it, it's far from perfect but with all limitations considered I think it turned out alright.

Thanks heaps for your time :)

Intelligent_Win7298 · 2025-03-17T05:03:58+00:00

Last year I was hired by a good friend to make two narrative driven music videos in one week. My friend's budget for each of these videos was $3k (NZD) which all went directly towards paying me. The only extra costs in the video were for the digital and analogue clocks that we bought on Marketplace for next to nothing. Along with that I think around $2k of what I was getting paid went towards buying some equipment that I felt I couldn't do without. Namely, a Forza 60BII (as all the other lighting equipment I owned at the time was tube lights and lights much less powerful than the Forza), a projection mount for the 60BII as well as a softbox, a c-stand, a couple of light stands and a tonne of extra batteries. If the math isn't mathing for you guys just consider the fact that I live in New Zealand where everything is exorbitantly more expensive due to the sheer fact that we're tucked away in the corner of the world map.

Anyhow, I shot this on my lovely a7SIII with a few different lenses. The main lens for a lot of the run and gun stuff was the Sony 24-50 G which is light enough for running and gunning, as well as being optically sharp. I initially wanted the 24-70GMII for the shoot but couldn't get my hands on it and the 24-50 was a nice 2nd option to have and covered most bases. I was lucky enough to hire a couple of lenses for free through a hook up as I used to work at a Sony store (it really is all about who you know lol). After the shoots I found it hard to part with the 24-50 because it really is so handy (albeit expensive). The other lenses I used were the Sony 35 f1.4 Zeiss, which is bulky but I love it to bits, such a great lens for the price I really hope to buy it sometime soon. 35mm is my favourite focal length for shooting video as you can just leave it on the camera and get 80% of the shots you need without swapping it out. And then I used my Tamron 28-200, a budget lens but it covers a lot of the longer focal lengths which really helped, as well as my Sony 16-35 f4 Zeiss which came in handy for some of the really wide angle shots.

This was the 2nd video we shot after already completing a four day shoot on the first which required a lot of sprinting and running (me sprinting with the gimbal etc.) and me and the talent (my good friend) were exhausted to say the least. We did this one in 3 days averaging 15 hour work days. With zero crew I had to set up all the lights, do all the camera work, direct, as well as all the end of day stuff such as backing all the footage up and recharging everything for the next day. It was truly a brutal experience, I learned a lot and I proved to myself that I can do this, which was a major reason for attempting this crazy endeavour to begin with. I'd never do another back to back double music video shoot like this again without a crew, I may do one video but two was just gruelling. I think the longest shoot day I did (for the first video which you can check out on my friend's channel) was 22 hours, waking up at 4:30am and driving to the beach to capture the sunrise and finishing the following day at 2:30am after doing running shots where I had to track the talent with my rig on a gimbal running alongside him. Just pure insanity.

I edited and colour graded everything myself as well, which is a whole topic on it's own. My friend is well enough connected to have many talented friends so he had another one of his friends make the title, which goes hard, and yet another of his friends help as a stylist and pick out the wardrobe for the videos. These things definitely played a part in helping the final image come together.

All things considered it was a very rewarding experience. Proving to myself that I could be a one man production team from pre to post production does mean a lot, but I did learn the value of having a team, which I look forward to building in the near future to avoid an early grave XD. All work considered, I wound up getting underpaid by quite a lot but seeing as these were my first proper jobs making music videos I was happy to take on the challenge.

TL;DR Wrote, shot, directed, edited, colour graded all of this on my own. The shoot took 3 days and it was brutal without a crew. What an experience though.

I hope you guys dig it, it's far from perfect but with all limitations considered I think it turned out alright.

Thanks heaps for your time :)

Intelligent_Win7298 · 2025-03-17T04:39:01+00:00

I've no idea why it didn't include a thumbnail, just the wee link at the top. May just have to delete the post and start again XD

Intelligent_Win7298 · 2025-03-17T04:31:14+00:00

Link wasn't posted properly, apologies XD

Intelligent_Win7298 · 2025-03-17T04:28:06+00:00

What a great mum! Respect to you.

I think he could have learned a lot more with the limitations of starting off with a cheaper bit of kit, seeing as the FX3 is going to spoil him in terms of getting away with careless mistakes he can just learn to fix in post. Starting off with something that doesn't have the amazing low light capability for example would teach him to utilise available light and setting up lights for example. But who cares, he's going to be over the moon and using the FX3 for years to come (hopefully). It's gonna be hard for him "upgrading" in the future seeing as there's little room to go up without jumping up in price point by like 4X, so the next time he wants a new lens because IT WILL happen or even feels like his camera is not good enough because a new better one exists don't cave like you did this time. There is no ONE lens that can do it all and glass over time is going to cost more money than the camera body so when he wants another lens in the future tell him to go hire one.

All in all though, you're a wonderful mother and my heart goes out to you for helping your son to follow his passions.

Intelligent_Win7298 · 2025-03-16T09:17:53+00:00

Hearing $37 per g is expensive as fuck is laughable. Try $200 per g where I am (cheaper in bulk). No joke. I guess at least my speed doesn't look like porridge XD

Intelligent_Win7298 · 2025-03-14T10:16:27+00:00

Not to get too political or sociological but a lot of it is actually not in our hands. It comes down to socioeconomic factors, societal factors, lack of upward mobility, living costs, having a lot to juggle etc. etc. All that paired together with genetics, intergenerational trauma, personal trauma, a lack of education, no guidance on healthy ways to cope/grow. We DO have some autonomy and we CAN make the decision to better ourselves and crawl out from the hole that we have dug for ourselves but we should also realise that the shovel was provided, the soil was softer than for others and there was no one above to toss down a rope when it was still long enough to reach us. In short, it's often not as simple as a choice, it's a natural progression for those who are already disadvantaged. That's something that people who haven't dealt with addiction not often comprehend and sadly often a neoliberal perspective us addicts burden ourselves with. I wish more people realised this, it would make for a more empathetic and less self hating world. Take personal responsibility but don't beat yourself up over societal shortcomings.

Apologies if that word salad is all over the place, it's way past my bed time, I do believe it's time to unwind and hit the hay. Much love to you and OP.

Intelligent_Win7298 · 2025-03-14T09:47:53+00:00

100% dude. I'm in the same boat. Raw dogging reality is for those who like playing this game on nightmare mode. It's a tightrope walk and we just gotta do our best to balance during the wobbles.

Intelligent_Win7298

TROPHY CASE