Well after singing the praises of Filmic Pro and my entire mobile video setup in my previous post, I took the iOgrapher on a 14 day vacation that included a NASA rocket launch, 7 day cruise and some time at Universal Studios, Orlando. Well, I’m sad to say the Filmic Pro experience was a major letdown.

First off, the software does NOT retain any settings when you quit the app. Zero. So every time I launched the app, I had to set my frame size, resolution, destination, audio input, etc…. That was super annoying.

The app just quit constantly. I could generally shoot 2 or 3 movies and then the app would just disappear. Or would I hit the Home button on my iPhone to use another app, then double click the Home button to retrieve Filmic Pro and it would be gone. Then of course I would have to reset everything on the app.

I found the focus drifting a lot even when I would manually set and locked it. Almost seemed like the Camera was competing with the App for control of the focus. The exposure worked as expected but the focus was problematic.

When using 24p mode via Filmic Pro I found the video quality VERY stuttery and staccato, especially with the pans. It’s not really an enjoyable experience to watch the 24p material that was shot with it.

So I used Filmic Pro for the rocket launch and the first three days of my cruise and then abandoned it. I went back to shooting with the Apple Video mode in Camera. If you DO plan to use Filmic Pro, avoid the zoom feature. I thought it was awesome when I was playing with it, but the resolution falls apart very quickly as you zoom.

I plan to check out Mavis soon so I’ll report back after I’ve had a chance to really test that app out for more than just a few days.

Now the Shure VP83 Shotgun mic DID perform brilliantly and that was a great investment.