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From: http://www.anandtech.com/show/3794/the-iphone-4-review/8

"What's interesting is that the iPhone 4 appears to crop the sensor down for video recording, taking the center most 1280x720 pixels instead of scaling down the entire image size. The result is that the focal length for video recording is notably longer than when taking photos." "...Perhaps the A4 SoC lacks the compute power to apply a scale and encode at the same time, necessitating this crop."

Please look at my image in the post further up the page.
I've corrected the anandtech author because, clearly, the crop that Apple have used for video is NOT 1280x720 pixels.
It's a very odd portion of the sensor, hence my siggestion that an even number would be a better idea (although I admit I don't know WHY it would be a better idea!) ;)
 

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From: http://www.anandtech.com/show/3794/the-iphone-4-review/8

"What's interesting is that the iPhone 4 appears to crop the sensor down for video recording, taking the center most 1280x720 pixels instead of scaling down the entire image size. The result is that the focal length for video recording is notably longer than when taking photos." "...Perhaps the A4 SoC lacks the compute power to apply a scale and encode at the same time, necessitating this crop."

Unfortunately, I think this is the reason why Apple does it this way. Looks like we may be stuck with it.

I would rather have a wider angle when shooting video, allowing me to move my iPhone closer to the subject, rather than having to back up when my subject is within 3 feet of me.
 
Unfortunately, I think this is the reason why Apple does it this way. Looks like we may be stuck with it.

I would rather have a wider angle when shooting video, allowing me to move my iPhone closer to the subject, rather than having to back up when my subject is within 3 feet of me.

How many more times...the crop Apple have used is not 1280x720!!
 
:confused:
I have used another video recording app called moviefx.
The app obviously uses effects overlaying the video, but when you use it, you have a much wider field of view compared to the normal apple camera app. i dont think this is a sensor issue, but more of an apple trying to make things ''better'' problem.

Edit:
just worked out by using viddy that recording in a ratio of 4:3 is a wider angle but is in 480p where as recording in the 16:9 format is a 720p.
 
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Rotate the phone to landscape and double tap. You are shooting 16x9 720p. If you don't rotate the cam and double tap it shows a zoomed in (cropped) version of the 16x9 frame.

Also, the video cam 'crops' the frame to 16x9 so yes switching back and forth between still and video, you will notice the 'video' looks zoomed in, it's not, the sensor just switches to a 16x9 frame for the video mode.

No, it is slightly zoomed in relative to the picture mode. Or to state it more accurately, it's cropped. The video camera mode just uses the center 1920x1080 pixels (well 1280x720 in the case of the 4 - I didn't realize how old this thread was). Everything outside of that range is not used to generate a video. The effect is that the picture looks like it's more zoomed in (even if you crop the stills to 16x9, it would still have a wider fov than the video camera).
 
No, it is slightly zoomed in relative to the picture mode. Or to state it more accurately, it's cropped. The video camera mode just uses the center 1920x1080 pixels (well 1280x720 in the case of the 4 - I didn't realize how old this thread was). Everything outside of that range is not used to generate a video. The effect is that the picture looks like it's more zoomed in (even if you crop the stills to 16x9, it would still have a wider fov than the video camera).

I have been upset my this "feature" which is not good at all.
I have also tried out an App called 'VideoZoom2' and if you set the recording Quality to be "Medium" (Down from High-Good-Medium-Low). You will get the full view angle just like camera !!!

What a surprising "feature". It seems this is fixed in Apple's API so no one can chang eit except changing the recording quality. Very odd...
 
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