Whilst I have my 5D Mark II for the more serious still and movie photography, the one thing that I'm always guaranteed to have with me is my phone. Always.
So, given that the iPhone 4's not a bad camera at a pinch, it's also not a bad camcorder at 720 HD. Maybe not as good as a dedicated camcorder or camera with a larger (read: normal) CCD or CMOS sensor, but for a phone it's pretty danged nifty nonetheless.
The really bad thing about using your phone to capture video or take still photos is that it has no inertia. It's too light to hold steadily, so there is always an inherent shake in your footage. You've heard the great old excuse "Sorry it's a bit shaky, I took it on my phone!" many times before. The other main problem is that the ultra small lens that camera phones use pre-zooms so as to narrow your field of view to the point where it's not bad at distance, but not really crash-hot when videoing your friends' face when they're standing next to you.
The microphone is also designed to capture your voice when holding it as you do a phone to your face - hardly great when the action you're trying to record is in out there in front of you.
So....... enter the "OWLE Bubo". OWLE is an acronym of the company name, and a "bubo" is a variety of horned owl. Strange name for a device like this but true. I think it looks more like Robin's Batarang! It takes your iPhone 3/3GS or 4 and later iPods - and you order your unit based on what you want to use. It comes with a silicone case that provides an incredibly safe harbour for your phone when pushed into the unit - it's very safe indeed.
The Bubo is milled from solid billet aluminium so has real weight to it - the phone, lens and Bubo weigh a combined 698 grammes - about the weight of your average DSLR and kit lens. Still way less than a 5D and 24-105L, but that thing's a tank!
The lens is a standard camcorder lens (37mm) combo 0.45X wide angle and macro. It splits to give you either. You can also get a kit that allows you to attach full Canon and Nikon SLR lenses, but you're also able to use any sstandard 37mm camcorder lens - including telephoto. There is a Korean fellow who is shooting a full feature film with this already - just because he can. Have a look at some of the footage at:
http://www.almlive.com/wantowle/
The object of the exercise is to provide a phone mount that has enough inertia in it to stop the shake, and to be able to mount extras on the phone such as lights, tripods, filters, directional boom mikes, dollies etc, etc. Some of you will be thinking "what a waste of time - just use a camera!". Well, yes, of course you can. What a camera can't do is what an iPhone 4 can: take, edit and send a finished video in the field and all from the one unit - right there and then.
I can see journos using similar devices to this soon - and plenty in the US already use the Bubo/iPhone 4 combo when they could otherwise lug around a full-sized rig.
This one arrived at my place from the States (in 3 days) just now - and already I reckon that it'll be lots of fun. There are numerous apps out there such as "1stVideo" and "almostDSLR" that let you capture still and video, edit your footage and add audio and then upload to a server directly or send to email, Vimeo or YouTube all in one stroke. How good is that for field work when time is critical and you have to get a report in? The almostDSLR app lets you set and lock exposure levels, white balance and focus - something that you've never been able to do until now on a 5MP mobile phone camera. 1st Video is quite a comprehensive video editing package designed specifically for mobile journalism. You can use iMovie if you like as well.
Lots of fun coming up with this I think.
Just for the record - I'm not affiliated with this company in any way shape or form.
Apple's specs for the iPhone 4:
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Video formats supported: H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format
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