The iPhone 18 Pro, on sale in Malaysia from RM5,499, can now behave a lot more like a proper video camera, and the software that does it is free. Blackmagic Design, the company behind professional cinema cameras and DaVinci Resolve, has updated its Blackmagic Camera app to support Apple's newest phones, adding manual aperture control and recording to the phone's reserved pro video storage.
Quick facts
- The Blackmagic Camera app is free, on the App Store for iPhone and from Blackmagic Design for Android.
- The app now supports the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, with manual control of the main camera's aperture.
- The 6.3-inch iPhone 18 Pro starts at RM5,499 for 256GB on Apple's Malaysian store.
What the update adds
Apple's own specifications list the iPhone 18 Pro's 48MP Fusion main camera as a 24mm lens with a variable aperture of f/1.48, f/1.8, f/2.8 and f/4.0. What is new, CineD reports, is that the Blackmagic Camera app now lets you choose between those apertures by hand, alongside the manual shutter angle, ISO and white balance it already offered. That means a shooter can set aperture, shutter, ISO and white balance themselves rather than letting the phone decide.
The update also records Apple ProRes to the pro video storage Apple reserves on the iPhone 18 Pro for high-bitrate recording, which helps because ProRes files are large. The app itself is free.
What it means for Malaysian filmmakers
For anyone shooting video on a phone here, the appeal is simple: if you already own one of these phones, the hardware cost is behind you and the app is free. Manual aperture changes how much of the background falls out of focus, alongside distance and framing, and it is one of the controls a filmmaker reaches for early. We have been testing what these phones can do: we shot Kuala Lumpur's hazy skyline on the iPhone 18 Pro using its variable aperture, and pulled cinematic Log footage straight off a phone in a separate test. In our own shooting, hand control over aperture, shutter, ISO and white balance gets the phone closer to the look we plan for.
Android phones get it too
The Android app has its own update. PRONEWS reports that it adds support for the OPPO Find X10 and OnePlus 16 series, with OPPO's O-Log2 recording, a flat profile meant for colour grading later, on compatible devices. PRONEWS also notes the app now uses less battery while recording.
We have shot a music video on a phone, which is the kind of work our Pocket Cinematic course teaches. The tools stopped being the excuse a while ago.
Both updates have been released, the iOS version reported by CineD and the Android version by PRONEWS. If you own one of these phones, the app itself costs nothing; what is left is the time to learn what the manual controls actually do.
