(Credit: Jim Fisher)
If you want to do more than just use your phone as a point-and-shoot video camera, you'll probably want to check out Final Cut Camera. It opens up some recording options that you won't find in the iPhone's Camera app, and has the exposure control and monitoring tools that expert-level videographers crave. Today, Apple is updating the app with a streamlined interface, support for the iPhone 18 Pro's variable aperture lens, and other refinements, which should appeal to content creators, vloggers, and video pros.
What Can Final Cut Camera Do?
The iPhone's Camera app is already pretty capable for recording off-the-cuff video clips, and does quite a bit. It supports HDR and SDR recording, slow motion, and has a Cinematic mode that delivers a shallow depth-of-field effect for movies. But it's a pain to change settings; you need to go into the iPhone's Settings menu to adjust many options, and its segmented interface makes you swipe between various options to get to the recording mode you want.
Final Cut Camera is for video and video only. It has a single-screen interface that lets you switch between exposure modes, change frame rates, color modes, and encoding formats right from the app, plus multicam recording to sync multiple iPhones, though you'll need an iPad running Final Cut Pro to get that working.
Why Use Final Cut Camera?
Pros and expert-level enthusiasts should feel more comfortable with Final Cut Camera than Apple's Camera app. Final Cut Camera's manual controls give you the same granular control you're used to with a professional mirrorless video camera. It supports full Manual exposure, as well as Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, and Automatic exposure modes. Everything is presented in the language of videography, too—for instance, the app uses shutter angles, not photo-minded shutter speeds, so you can easily switch between different frame rates and maintain the same level of motion blur effect. White balance is expressed in industry-standard Kelvin color temperatures, and focal lengths are expressed in millimeters, not as 0.5x, 1x, and 4x as you see in the Camera app.
The app also unlocks a big feature that the Camera app omits—it lets you record video in the flat Apple Log or Log2 color profile using HEVC compression. It also lets you load and display a LUT preview for Log capture, so you can better gauge how the footage will look after color grading without sacrificing the editing flexibility that comes with a flat profile.
The Camera app requires you to use the ProRes file format for Log recording. Of course, Final Cut Camera also supports SDR and HDR color spaces, as well as ProRes LT, 422, HQ, and Raw encoding formats. You'll probably want to connect an external SSD for ProRes. While newer iPhone models let you record ProRes internally, it requires you to partition off a dedicated storage block, and the footage takes up a ton of space.
In addition to more granular exposure and color controls, Final Cut Camera includes professional tools to monitor exposure and focus. It shows a live histogram, waveform, or false color overlay. It also supports Peaking highlights to confirm focus, as well as clipping and zebra indicators that draw your attention to overexposed areas in your frame. It also supports clean output to an HDMI recorder when using an iPhone 17 Pro or newer with a USB-C-to-HDMI adapter. iPhone 18 Pro owners get in-app support for Cinematic video, along with aperture control for the 24mm and 48mm focal lengths.
Final Cut Camera also supports multicam recording. You can sync as many as four iPhones to cover different angles to record a live event or highlight different members of a band to make a music video and cut between them without having to spend time matching up the clips in an editing app. This is a useful feature for some use cases, but comes with a slight caveat—you'll need an iPad running Final Cut Pro to make multicam capture work. If you use multiple iPhones for live event videography, you probably already have an iPad, so that's not a big hurdle.
Availability
Final Cut Camera is a free download from the iOS App Store. The new version is available today, so existing users should install the update. Video pros who haven't yet given it a look would be well served to give it a try—you can't argue with the price.
About Our Expert
Images, and the devices that capture them, are my focus. I've covered cameras at PCMag for the past 15 years, which has given me a front row seat for the changeover from DSLRs to mirrorless cameras, the smartphone camera revolution, and the emergence of drones for aerial imaging. I have extensive experience with every major mirrorless and SLR system, and am also comfortable using point-and-shoot and action cameras. As a Part 107 Certified drone pilot, I’m licensed to fly unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) for commercial and editorial purposes, and am knowledgeable about federal rules and regulations regarding drones.
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