Blackmagic Design is bringing its full-featured, pro-oriented mobile video camera app, Blackmagic Camera, to Android smartphones.
The app, announced for iPhone last September, promises to “greatly improve” the video quality on smartphones, ensuring that shots can even be used as part of television and film productions. The app is based on the same operating system as Blackmagic’s award-winning digital film cameras and supports Blackmagic’s recently-updated Blackmagic Cloud platform.
“Blackmagic Camera unlocks the power of the phone by adding digital film camera controls and operating systems. Now customers can create the same cinematic ‘look’ as Hollywood feature films. Customers get the same intuitive and user friendly interface as Blackmagic Design’s award winning cameras,” Blackmagic explains. “So it’s just like using a professional digital film camera.”
Within Blackmagic Camera, users can adjust vital settings such as frame rate, shutter angle, white balance, and ISO. They can also record directly to Blackmagic Cloud in industry standard file types and codecs up to 8K resolution.
The app’s user interface includes status information (like detailed histograms and audio monitoring), focus peaking, frame guides, and more. The app supports a variety of aspect ratios, including vertical videos. Each item in the UI is tappable, providing direct access to settings without digging through complex menus.
“The Blackmagic Camera app for iPhone has been incredibly popular since it was launched last year,” explains Grant Petty, Blackmagic Design CEO. “We are excited to be able to give customers with Samsung Galaxy or Google Pixel phones the same controls for shooting digital film as our professional cameras. Plus, the Blackmagic Cloud workflow lets customers record to Blackmagic Cloud Storage and automatically sync with DaVinci Resolve. It’s really exciting to be able to give even more customers the ability to get their footage to the newsroom or post production studios in literally seconds.”
As Petty mentions, the Blackmagic Camera app is coming first to Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel phones, leaving other Android devices out of the mix for now. The Blackmagic Camera app is available now on the Google Play Store for free. There are no in-app purchases, either.
PetaPixel’s Take
This is surprising but very welcome news in the mobile video creation space. The Blackmagic Camera app has proven popular with iPhone users since it launched last fall, thanks to its pro-level features, excellent video quality, Blackmagic Cloud functionality, and media management. The free app is powerful enough to work within a complete professional video workflow.
The Blackmagic Camera app is an exciting proposition for creators who shoot exclusively on their smartphones or those who may want to supplement larger productions with mobile footage.
As smartphone hardware has continued to improve, making that camera in your pocket up to the task of creating pro-quality content, there was a bit of a gap in terms of software to fully take advantage of the camera tech. Blackmagic Design closed that gap on iPhone last year and is now doing so with a couple of the most popular Android smartphone lines, Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel. This is a big win for content creators.
Image credits: Blackmagic