Let's Talk iPhone X Video - Use Both Camera's Or Only One?

[boltjames]

I'm confused on what the benefit is of having dual front-facing camera's is specifically when shooting video.

I usually shoot at 1080p 30 FPS on my iPhone 6 and have been very happy with the results. Now on my iPhone X, I don't want to shoot in 4K just yet, but I want the best quality 1080p possible.

In Settings > Camera > Video there is an option called "Lock Camera" which says "Do not automatically switch between cameras while recording video."

Can anyone shed some light here? Why would it switch camera's anyway? And if it does, what's the upside/downside to it?

Thanks.

 

[flat five]

if you're using the wide angle and you zoom (digital zoom), it will switch to the long lens once you've zoomed that far.

if you tell it not to switch lenses, it will just be more of a crop from the wide angle (degraded quality when compared to the optic 'zoom' that would happen when allowing the switch).

anyway-- i think you should allow the lenses to switch instead of locking. (imo)

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[edit]
i'm not quite sure if the X actually does that ^... so more of a guess/open for discussion

 

[Vermifuge]

One is a wide angle camera and the other is a telephoto camera. This should offer better clarity when using the zoom feature either when taking a picture or recording video. This doesn't impact the 4k / 1080p other than both cameras are 12mp and are equally capable of 4k video.

 

[boltjames]

Thanks guys.

I would say that 99% of the time I am shooting video I am not zooming under any circumstances, so does that mean if I allow both cameras to be enabled only one of them is going to be working all the time anyway?

 

[Vermifuge]

Thanks guys.

I would say that 99% of the time I am shooting video I am not zooming under any circumstances, so does that mean if I allow both cameras to be enabled only one of them is going to be working all the time anyway?

yes

 

[boltjames]

yes

So any idea why Apple made this such a big deal that they felt compelled to call “switching cameras” out and offer disabling it as one of the only options for the video camera?

If a) leaving it on has no impact to video that is not zoomed in and b) zooming in switches to a better quality camera, why would anybody want to turn it off?

 

[Vermifuge]

So any idea why Apple made this such a big deal that they felt compelled to call “switching cameras” out and offer disabling it as one of the only options for the video camera?

If a) leaving it on has no impact to video that is not zoomed in and b) zooming in switches to a better quality camera, why would anybody want to turn it off?

maybe there is a jump or gap when it switches cameras? thats all i can assume