Open gate on iphone is something not to look away from!

The Jump and My background in iPhone Filmmaking

Recently I switched from an iPhone which already had a good camera on it an iPhone 15 Pro Max to the brand new Apple iPhone 17 Pro which was a jump that is totally worth to make for the price. For context I'm a big fan of shooting material on a device which I can take with me anywhere I like. Earlier this year I filmed a whole fashion film using my old iPhone which you can watch below!

The reason I love iPhone cameras has honestly been since I was younger. I've always grown up with a phone in my pocket, a camera I take with me anywhere. And it is my go too capture device to get content with if I cannot bring my Sony with me. It was where a lot of my beginning material came from, a few years ago when Wes Anderson was a craze i joined in by using my phone.

So this is why I was fascinated when I heard that they were giving you open gate recording in a device that’s significantly smaller than cameras which usually give you such a way of recording. Even my Sony FX30 doesn’t give me open gate straight out the box. Which is why i took my switch to this new generation and I couldn't wait to give this a try.

What is Open Gate and How good actually is it?

But what actually is open gate. When using an iPhone the usual aspect ratio you record in is 16x9 which is good for widescreen monitors and being a standard ratio, but you are actually loosing data as this is cropped in on the sensor. When you place your video in open gate however you get access to the full 4x3 sensor giving you more image data and giving you quality up to 4224×3024. As you are using more of the sensor, post production becomes more forgiving as you can crop differently, shift the frame and adapt for all different aspect ratios to share on different platforms without losing resolution.

So when I found myself on the cliffs of Cromer with a brand new phone I couldn’t help myself to test open gate on my travels. i didnt have an external drive to shoot ProRes RAW (which is crazy how you also have this quality on a phone) so the following video is shot in open gate 1080p

So what do you think please leave your thoughts in the comment section of the video above. Its fair to say I'm pretty impressed by the capabilities of this phone year after year!