Summary
- Premium video recording could finally be coming to Android with the Blackmagic Camera app, offering near-pro level features for budding videographers.
- Blackmagic, known for DaVinci Resolve, will offer a free app on Android phones, syncing with the desktop to make it easier to transfer clips between devices.
- Filmic Pro, once the gold standard for video recording on Android, could face competition from the free Blackmagic Camera app on the horizon.
If you record video on an Android phone, you’re probably used to disappointment. For years, software support for cameras in the Android ecosystem has been a tangle of contradictions and incompatibilities. And the third-party apps you can use have been more of an afterthought than a properly developed app. If you need to record video on your phone, you’re definitely better off using an iPhone. But all that may be about to change thanks to a new application from Blackmagic previewed at NAB in Las Vegas this week.
Samsung’s latest Galaxy S24 update brings a much-needed boost to the camera
The firmware also pushes back the security patch until April 2024.
Premium video recording comes to Android
Blackmagic is the company behind the hugely popular (and free) DaVinci Resolve nonlinear video editing software. In September, it released a free app – Blackmagic Camera – for iPhone, and now it’s finally bringing it to Android (via MrAlexTech). If you’re an aspiring Android videographer, don’t get your hopes up just yet, as there’s no word on when it will be released to the public or on which phones it will be available.
There’s not much to see in the five-minute video posted on Sunday, but we can see the app working on a Samsung S24 (which one is unclear) and a Google Pixel 8 Pro. The app will only be available on a few phones to start, as software support for third-party cameras on Android is a bit of a disaster. Phone makers often block their cameras’ most powerful features away from third-party developers, forcing them to deliver a subpar experience. Worse, even though there are standard APIs that OEMs can implement on their phones to make it easier for developers to access camera hardware, they have no obligation to do so.
For phones that will support the Blackmagic Camera application, users can expect to have an application at a near professional level. I’m not fully qualified to explain all the features available in the app (go to Reddit for that), but in the video you can see that you can change your lens, FPS, shutter speed, ISO , your white balance and your tint. And, of course, it will sync with DaVinci Resolve on your desktop to make moving clips between devices easier.
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Filmic should be worried
Right now, if you want to do professional video recording on your Android, you’re going to have to shell out some money. Filmic Pro was the go-to for a while until it moved from a one-time $15 purchase to a $5 per week subscription service. The Blackmagic Camera app will be free, which is probably making many camera app developers sweating right now. And those of you who are new to the smartphone camera scene, check out our explainer on OIS and EIS image stabilization.
