A guide to shooting high-end cinematic video on Apple’s cheap iPhone SE

Apple’s cheapest iPhone still gives great results for shooting high-quality videos

Reading Time:6 minutes

Once you know the right tricks, shooting cinematic video with an iPhone SE is easy. (Picture: Hugo Lee)

Published: 5:00am, 30 Jun 2020Updated: 10:12am, 30 Jun 2020

One of the perks of owning an iPhone is the great camera that comes with it. As we’ve demonstrated before, the iPhone 11 Pro is capable of shooting great-looking cinematic videos. But what if you don’t have US$1,000 to spend on a phone?

Fortunately, you don’t have to. The recently launched iPhone SE starts at just US$400. Unlike its Pro sibling, the SE only has one lens. But it still shoots high-quality video. So in this guide, I’ll tell you the best tips and tricks for shooting cinematic video on Apple’s cheapest phone.

BASIC SETTINGS

Beginners don’t need any special apps to get started. The default iPhone camera app is perfectly capable of shooting decent video. But first you need to adjust the resolution and frame rate in the camera settings.

You can choose different resolutions and frame rates in the iPhone camera settings. (Picture: Chris Chang)

If you’re shooting a scene without much motion, choose 4K resolution at 24fps for the best results. If the scene does have a lot of motion, bump up the frame rate to 60fps.

You’ll also need to manually adjust the exposure to get the correct brightness for your shots. You can do this by long pressing the focus point on the screen and dragging the exposure slider.

The Pro Camera app by Moment is a paid app. (Picture: Thomas Leung)