Take control of your video
Price: $5/£5
Version: 1.1
Size: 6.3 MB
Developer: LateNiteSoft 2020
Platform: iPhone / iPad
There’s been a whole heap of movies recorded on an iPhone over the years. Often gimmicky, but other times genuinely impressive, it’s been a growing market since COVID-19 has meant access to a full crew and equipment isn’t as guaranteed as it once was. But one thing to note here is that it’s never just the iPhone’s deault camera app. Pro video production involves plenty of processing and effects added.
Everything you need to know is present as floating buttons on the viewfinder screen
However, REC looks to give you control over the initial shoot in a way that many apps either make too complicated or don’t manage at all.
Let’s not be mistaken – REC is no one-stop shop for videographers, but a tool like most things that start on the iPhone. However, it does a great job of giving back control to pro filmmakers wanting to experiment, while simultaneously providing amateur snappers an opportunity to elevate their home movies just that little bit more.
Put simply, REC records video, but it also gives you access to manually alter the white balance, frame rate, definition, audio rate and a bunch more. Lots more control than you’d get from the stock Camera app. It allows you to lock these settings, but also gives you the freedom to alter while shooting.
It’s easy to control things like white balance to get the right look to your scene before shooting
It also gives those with newer devices control over the range of cameras offered by the iPhone. This means you can shoot as a wide camera, ultra wide, telephoto and front.
You can shoot up to 4k, up to 240 frames per second and at different bit rates. The main viewfinder also does a great job of showing you what the current situation is through floating buttons, while allowing you to tap on the various elements to directly alter them. It does this quickly, smoothly and with little fuss. One thing that really stood out when using REC was how simple and easy to use it was.
In terms of audio, you can also choose between the front, back, or bottom mics, or use an external option. It also has gain control.
Tap through on the floating buttons and you get a wide range of settings to play around with
Overall, REC certainly feels like a solid piece of software, if you’ll excuse the oxymoron. It’s priced well at $5 but could do with a few extra bits here and there, such as a zoom option, while the video management library is a little sparse, simply housing your clips rather than providing any organizational options.
However, that’s also part of its appeal. While you have control over a lot of the raw look, it remains simple, allowing organization, filters and all the other bells and whistles to be dealt with elsewhere. If you get the settings right, you probably don’t need those whistles. Simple, but powerful.