The iPhone 18 Pro's main camera can physically change its aperture, a first for the iPhone that Apple lists in the phone's specifications. Apple's own Camera app can already set it, but a dedicated video app gives filmmakers controls the built-in one does not, and until now Blackmagic's did not support the new hardware. A free update has just fixed that, and it matters more than it first looks, because it folds the new aperture into a full cinema-style video toolset on a phone Malaysians can already buy.
Blackmagic Camera picked up support for the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max in a recent free update, per its App Store release notes and the cinema-technology publication CineD. The change filmmakers will notice most is direct control of the variable aperture. The main camera's iris sits at one of four positions Apple lists in its specifications, f/1.48, f/1.8, f/2.8 or f/4.0, and the app now lets you pick it inside the same interface as its shutter angle, ISO and white balance controls. It is not yet clear whether Blackmagic exposes values between those four stops, or lets you change the aperture while recording rather than between takes. The same update can also record Apple ProRes to the Pro Video Storage Apple introduced with these phones.
For anyone who shoots, the aperture is the part that counts. It controls how much light reaches the sensor and is a main lever on how softly the focus falls away behind your subject, alongside focal length and how close you are. Open it to f/1.48 and, as Engadget notes, the camera pulls in noticeably more light in a dark room and throws the background out of focus, the shallow-focus look associated with larger cameras. Stop it down to f/4.0 and more of the scene stays sharp, which suits a wide establishing shot. Having that choice sit next to ProRes recording and cinema-style shutter control, in one free app, is what makes this a filmmaking tool rather than a phone camera.
The catch is that only the main camera has a variable aperture. The Ultra Wide and Telephoto lenses keep their fixed openings, so this is real control on one lens, not a cinema zoom. That main camera is the workhorse lens, though, and for a creator here it changes the maths. Apple's Malaysian store lists the iPhone 18 Pro from RM5,499 and the Pro Max from RM5,999, both for the 256GB models, and a free cinema app makes the phone a more serious option next to a dedicated camera body. We put the hardware through its paces in our iPhone 18 Pro camera review, and once the footage is shot, DaVinci Resolve, which Blackmagic offers in a free version, can handle the grade on a computer. Much of the chain, from capture to grade, can run on a phone and a computer rather than a dedicated camera and a paid edit suite.
We shoot our own films this way, on phones and with manual control rather than big rigs, so this is the kind of tool we reach for. Getting the most out of it is what our Pocket Cinematic course teaches.
Blackmagic Camera is free on the App Store, and the update runs on the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max that Apple began selling in Malaysia on 18 September. The hardware was already in the phone. The pro video software has now caught up.
Image(s) courtesy of Kota Ogi and Anastase Maragos on Unsplash. Chart by ProductNation.
