IPhone cameras are incredibly powerful, but to get the most out of them, you need an app that has the right features and controls to turn your vision into a reality. We’re going to do a comprehensive review comparing all of the major camera apps, including Apple’s newly released final-cut camera. At the end of this article, you’ll know exactly which app is best for you and the content that you want to create. We’re going to look at the pros and cons of the final cut camera, pro camera by moment, Kino Beast Cam, and Blackmagic camera.
Final cut Camera
Starting with the pros, this app is free and has one of the cleanest interfaces of any other camera app, which makes sense as it’s been designed by Apple themselves. It’s got the familiar look of the default camera app, but with easy access to pro settings like video codec, dynamic range resolution, and frame rate. A swipe up from the bottom reveals more pro controls like white balance, exposure compensation for auto exposure, or you can tap on auto to switch into manual exposure, where you can control the shutter speed and ISO. Then we’ve got manual focus and orientation lock. Tapping the settings icon reveals another view of the limited, albeit pro camera settings, with additions of stabilisation and the ability to mirror the front camera. You’ll notice with stabilisation, though there is no action mode like they have in their default camera app.
Kino App
Up next, we’ve got the Kino app. Having been released very recently. This app has definitely climbed up in popularity really quick. So opening Kino App, you’re going to see a very straightforward and easy-to-use interface, very similar overall to final cut camera video settings up top that we can change easily. Tap on auto to switch into manual exposure, where you can change the settings, manual focus, and lens control at the bottom. Hitting the arrow will reveal some features, like displaying an RGB waveform on screen for exposure and colour monitoring. You can turn stabilisation on and off, and again, no option for advanced stabilisation like action mode. You can display a basic grid, switch to the selfie camera, and then open up the settings menu. Within that menu, there’s really only two notable settings. The first is within the video tab, allowing you to change the shutter speed control to shutter angle without getting overly complicated. This actually makes maintaining the proper shutter speed, which depends on your frame rate, much easier, helping to ensure that you have the perfect amount of motion blur at all times, which is a really important aspect of capturing cinematic-looking videos.
You’d simply want to set your shutter angle to 180 degrees, and voila. You can basically leave it there 95% of the time. All you need to do from there to control the exposure is change the ISO. If you’re outdoors where it’s super bright, you’d want to add an ND filter, or best of all, with your ISO as low as possible, you’d change the exposure of your image by manipulating the amount of light in real life with practical or professional lights. Also, the final cut camera is free compared to Kino, which costs $19.99.
Pro Cemera by Moment
Pro camera by moment, a long-time member of the elite Pro camera apps made by the same moment brand that makes popular smartphone lenses. There is a lot to love about this app. The interface is extremely polished, clean, and easy to use. The basic video settings are up top exposure and white balance controls down below. For iPhone 15 users, Pro Camera, like all the other apps, supports the extremely high-quality Apple log format. But for those of you who don’t have an iPhone 15 yet, Moment Pro actually includes their own version of a log picture profile that can be used on any iPhone, no matter what the generation. This helps you get a little more dynamic range out of your shots, improving the quality. But granted, you’ll still need to know how to colour grade it. Either way, this is a standout feature in my eyes because all the other apps don’t have their own log profile accessible to other iPhones.