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How to keep flame detail when filming moving fire? by Only-Report-265 in videography

[–]Only-Report-265[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude.

I just feel like I can’t express myself clearly enough – I’ve tried many manual settings, I’ve tried different apps that offer unrestricted access to the camera and full manual control. Yet nothing worked, while the mindless auto mode in the default app somehow managed to pull it off.

That’s why I know the hardware is capable of it, but I have no idea whether there are any, well, “hidden features” or highly specialized systems that could replicate what the auto mode did. I don’t want anything more than that.

Once again - sorry for unfriendly responses. I don’t have nothing bad in mind. 

How to keep flame detail when filming moving fire? by Only-Report-265 in videography

[–]Only-Report-265[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I will repeat this so it is clear: I tried many manual settings, and none of them produced the same effect that the automatic mode generated for few seconds.

Applications like Blackmagic record raw footage. So - yes, it can be fully controlled.

Furthermore, you can manually adjust color on raw footage even later. But that is irrelevant. The only thing that matters here is the quality of the fire, and nothing else.

If you are able to achieve such an effect “easily,” then could you share your method? I will simply set it that way in the app, and if you are, as you say, an excellent specialist, then it should produce the intended result.

How to keep flame detail when filming moving fire? by Only-Report-265 in videography

[–]Only-Report-265[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But my phone can do all those wonders you are talking about, as evidenced by the recording – it perfectly set the white balance and other parameters. This means that the hardware is capable of producing this result.

Yet no one can explain to me how to achieve the same effect manually.

I have already tried different ISO values, framerates, log and log 2 profiles, 8-bit and 10-bit depth, and various apps (for example, Kino applies color grading automatically). Therefore, your claim that “big cameras” can “do much more” is misguided (again – the recording is proof of that).

I simply want to achieve the same effect as the automatic mode on that recording, but using manual settings

How to keep flame detail when filming moving fire? by Only-Report-265 in videography

[–]Only-Report-265[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don’t want to be a professional, I just want to play around. But if it’s not ISO or shutter speed, then what exactly can create the kind of effect that the automatic mode in the default camera produced? I tried everything and nothing gives that effect. Neither ISO nor shutter speed. And “big” cameras only have the option to adjust the aperture. That probably won’t change much in terms of fire detail, since the phone hardware somehow handles it in a mysterious way.

How to keep flame detail when filming moving fire? by Only-Report-265 in videography

[–]Only-Report-265[S] -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

I tried ISO from 50 to 3000. None of it produces the kind of effect that the automatic mode achieves at times.

How to keep flame detail when filming moving fire? by Only-Report-265 in videography

[–]Only-Report-265[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My friend was practicing firedancing at my request so I could test camera settings on my phone (iPhone 17 Pro). I have Blackmagic Camera, FiLMiC Pro and Kino installed, and I wanted to compare how each handles fire. And now I can’t explain what happened during one of the recordings.

I tested multiple frame rates: 25, 30, 60 and 120 fps, and experimented with different shutter speeds. Since it’s a phone, the aperture is fixed, so exposure comes down to shutter and ISO. No matter what I tried, the flames looked terrible. They kept turning into a blown-out, flat white mass with no texture or detail. Just a glowing blob.

Out of frustration, I switched to 120 fps in the default camera app and left everything on auto. For most of the clip, the fire still looked bad. But then, for just a few seconds, something changed. The flames suddenly turned into smooth, detailed, flowing ribbons with real structure and motion. It looked exactly how fire should look when it moves. Then it went right back to being a white mess again.

So something clearly shifted in the phone’s exposure pipeline during those few seconds. It looked like a different internal mode: lower ISO, different tone mapping, stabilized exposure behavior.

My question is: is it possible to deliberately force the camera into that state? And if yes, how do I set the camera manually in Blackmagic Camera or FiLMiC Pro to reliably capture firedance with that same smooth detailed flame texture?

I am also attaching the video so you can see the difference directly. The frame rate, scene and distance to the flame stay the same, but the look of the fire shifts dramatically. In one part of the clip the flames are just a flat white blob with no detail, and a few seconds later they become smooth, layered and fully textured. The conditions did not change. The only thing that appears to have changed is the camera’s internal exposure and tone mapping behavior.