Discover why these 9 filmmakers all use one type of smartphone
If you’re a fan of smartphone filmmaking you’ll know that many talented cinematographers love using a Lumia. But have you ever wondered why exactly?
From gorgeous time-lapse films to innovative works of spectacular creativity, there have been countless visual masterpieces created with it. So, what is it about a Lumia that so fires up filmmakers’ creative urges? What better way to find out than to get artists themselves to tell us in their own words. Over to you, movie making maestros!
Paul Trillo
“The amount of devices we pack into a small amount of space (roughly 10 feet) wouldn’t have allowed for lenses or bulky camera bodies. They needed to be flat and compact. And really the Lumia 1020 easily has the best camera on the market, so it makes sense.”
Lee Righini
“Shooting video with the Lumia 930 has really started to change the way I think about image capture and framing. With the 4k res I get to pull really high quality stills as well as shoot amazing video. The quality of the footage is beautiful and camera loads incredibly fast and I really like the press to shoot video function. It really lets you react quickly changing situations.”
Claudiu Voicu
“Normally when shooting freerunning videos or photos, a lot of people use a wide angle lens to exaggerate heights and distances due to the way the optics work. The Lumia 1020 has a very wide field of view for a phone, and it helps you capture the shot you want, especially if you’re going for low-angled shots of people jumping across rooftops.”
Mia Mullarky
“The video quality of the Lumia 930 is great, it’s full HD and the colour comes out well. Of course, it’s much more basic than what I usually shoot with but it’s got a good lens (zeiss) and very good audio so I really enjoyed using it. And the photo quality is great too, in the right light.”
Olivier Noirhomme
“We all know the Nokia Lumia 1020 features a monstrous 41MP sensor, with a maximum output of 33,6MP (7712*4352) in 16/9 and 38,2MP (7136*5360) in 4/3. As you may have seen saw in Part 1 and Part 2 of my previous How to shoot a time-lapse video articles, it can be very useful to capitalize on these crazy resolutions to make insane zooms and pans in a landscape scene. It really allows you to find little stories within bigger stories and to show various spots of a same scene, one after the other, before getting back to the whole scene. This creates that amazing endless zoom impression.”
Hadrien Picard
“I’ve always liked the saying “the best camera is the one you have with you”. The Lumia 1020 fits in your pocket and is able to shoot some really nice images, both photo and video. It also enables you to shoot some stuff you’d never have been able to shoot without it.”
Boris Proust
“Guillaume told me this is the best Lumia for the video. I filmed everything in auto to see how the phone would do, and it was a pleasant surprise! Another good thing about filming with a phone is that you can use tripods, a steadicam or sliders, but you can also just have it in your hand and film in secret if you hide it a little bit. You can go everywhere with it, nobody will make you pay to enter somewhere ‘cause you’ve got a professional camera or tell you to not film, ‘cause everybody thinks you’re just taking pictures like a tourist.”
Jason van Genderen
“Ordinarily anything hand-held with such a small, light-weight camera produces shakey pictures. With the Nokia Lumia 920 however, it allowed my arms to crane the phone in high and low to a scene and it played back perfectly smooth – really impressive… it genuinely looked like I’d used a tripod or a steadicam to get those shots.”
Christopher Westerholm
“The technology that exists on the smartphone in our pockets means we don’t necessarily need conventional video cameras.”
There you have it, 9 reasons why Lumia is the top choice for smartphone filmmakers the world over. But what about yours? Let us know in the comments below.