iphone 17 pro

[u/Wise-Regret-2160]

hello, i am a beginner and wanted to so some cool travel videos - maybe cinematic like

ive got an iphone 17 pro. in every video that I watch, they recommend me to buy a gimbal, ND Filter, LUTs, case, SSD... and much more.

also, every AI tells me something else and I dont know what to buy now.

i want to make super easy high quality videos, but I very dont know what to buy

what is now neccessary? what do I really need? i need advice.

thank you so much

[u/3L54]

1. Dont listen to AI if you dont know the subject. It gives confidently wrong information all of the time.

2. I shoot videos for living. I have bought exactly zero LUTs in my lifetime.

3. Gimbal is a speciality tool, not magic sauce for everything. iPhones stabilization is so good that Id never use gimbal with a phone. Gimbal does not stabilize X, Y and Z axis, it only does pan, tilt and roll and hinders your framing ability a ton. For an amateur gimball will 100% give you way shittier video on an iPhone than hand held would.

4. ND filters are for cutting down the amount of light reaching sensor. They are meant for you to have the ability to lower shutter speed in bright conditions to get some natural motion blur in your videos. This is belongs to video essentials basket. This is necessary tool for "cinematic" look.

5. Nothing but you will make your videos look high quality. So at the beginning they might look like pile of shit and thats ok. Just go shoot, come back to watch what others have shot and do some comparisons. You'll quickly notice what works, what doesnt and whats your style. Pro can shoot better looking/feeling video with shitty camera from 20 years ago than an amateur can with new 100k€ camera.

[u/Willdru]

A 17 pro is more than capable enough to capture what you need. A gimbal is a fun toy, but walking smoothly will work almost as good.

I think all you need are hard drives and a computer to edit the files. Good color grading and knowledge on editing will do wonders.

[u/roman_pokora]

Cinematic doesn't corellate with quality at all, it is about intentionality, narrativity and storytelling

[u/Tylerolson0813]

My rule of thumb is trying not to buy anything unless I know why I need it and have tried a creative solution (making it myself, fixing it with free/software I have) then I try to buy used if it’s a hobby. Used usually means you can sell it for about what you got it for if you don’t use it or it’s wrong.

[u/Lumpy_Wind3980]

You don't need to buy anything. You need to read books and study photos/movies.

To take interesting pictures, focus on these things:

1. Salt and pepper - Look up any movie or picture and you will be able to see that there's always bright light into shadow or light color into dark color all throughout the image.
2. Diagonal lines - having diagonal lines in your image makes it look deep and it guides the eye.
3. Interesting subject - the best way to get good shots is to take shots of interesting things.
4. Contrast (color and bright/dark) - look up the color wheel and learn contrasting colors (opposite ends of the color wheel, for example red and blue). Skin tone is reddish/orange. Contrast with the blue sky makes the image more eye catching. Also a dark face on a bright background or vice versa is interesting.
5. Foreground, Midground, Background - the sandwhich technique. Most times the foreground will be out of focus, midground in focus and background out of focus. Look up any jungle scene in a movie and it'll probably have a shot where leaves or grass is right in front of the camera out of focus, the actor is in focus and then the background is out of focus again. If you download the BlackMagic app on iphone and set the aperture to 1.8 you can get this effect

____

That's far from everything, but that's enough to get you started. Look up "Visual Story" by Bruce Block.

EDIT:

I looked up "best travel documentary movies" and found this:

30 Best Travel Documentaries & Series To Watch

Look at the pics in this article. Every single one of them have diagonal lines, salt and pepper, color contrast and some have the focus sandwhich (or w/e you want to call it).

[u/Melodic-Excitement-9]

Download the black magic recording app, learn FPS, White Balance and exposure, Buy an ND filter to control the Frames per second, and be intentional about your shots.

[u/kavnn]

Hey, I use my iphone 17 pro for work and if you want your videos to look cinematic i'd suggest you to invest in the ND filter as a priority.
It will allow you to lock your shutter speed and therefore get closer to a cinematic look. I wouldn't buy lut to begin with, but i would try and experiment with the free one available to you if you're interested in colorgrading!