Phone 3 video quality

LianJietChoo

Is it me or is it the Phone 3’s 4k video looks grainy?

I tried taking similar video shoot in a crowded cafe. When I zoom, although it can be zoomed more, I felt like the 4k looks grainier when zoomed it.

1080p

A screenshot of a zoomed area

The reason is because me and my friends always shoot video using our phone, but I felt like phone 3 video’s is still not on par yet with the other phones, although phone 3 is 50mp.

I had tried with my friend’s phone, which their video definitely looks better (compared both 1080 and 4k with my nothing phone 3), theirs retain details more and looks smoother.

I hope that the Phone 3 (which I love it in other aspects like software and designs)'s camera and video can be improved more in the future, I believe it is probably the software post processing part which will make it nicer. And I’m looking forward to the improvement updates! 🙌

CMF1_hacker

to me that looks like high ISO being used. can you discuss the settings being used? there’s not much natural sunlight in that video, so I would assume the phone defaulted to a higher ISO. You may want to try EXPERT mode where you can control the ISO.

Which camera app, which mode, button press for AE/AF or not like we discussed before?

I have some outdoor examples that I have recorded. I haven’t door indoor yet as that will happen when it starts raining continuously here in England for a few months.

All in 4k/60 (some with HDR on and some with it OFF and some for comparisons)

yesterday:

around Germany for an HDR comparison (commentary was that the sharpening is extremely high on the NP3 video) all 4K/60

https://nothing.community/d/41434-np3-video-testing-hdr-versus-non-hdr/3

LianJietChoo

I did not purposely set any settings, probably the settings are all default. I’m not a professional at photography but I would like to learn about the jargons like you mentioned like ISO etc.

Mostly we just point and shooting for most of the time, for non professionals like us.

So my friends and I just use our phone to point and shoot videos. And mine comes out grainy and blur when zoomed. Theirs are smooth, and able to be used for post editing.

The only thing I pressed is the 1080p to 4k at the top right of the nothing camera app.

Edited: Ohh I just realised there’s a HDR button on the top left, which I left it off. Will that affect the video quality? How will it affect it during low/high/extreme light conditions?

CMF1_hacker

LianJietChoo I don’t like the output of the HDR video myself. Some people do.

Here’s a nice simple description of the relation.

I like NOTHING’s hardware but it’s important to understand how it works as the default are less optimised than other brands.

LianJietChoo

Thank you so m

CMF1_hacker I see, I see, thank you so much for the info! I’ll look into it! But just a question, why the default is not optimised? As normal non photography savvy people like us that does not normally mess with the settings, wouldn’t it be better if we could point and snap and get optimized result? While retaining the ability to do pro settings for the professionals?

Maybe there are some considerations that the nothing team has that we don’t know of?

CMF1_hacker

LianJietChoo because it takes a billion hours to optimise the hardware and NTL.doesnt have the resources of apple or Samsung. Understanding how to do it on your own allows you to pick up and hardware on Earth and shit great photo with it.

LianJietChoo

CMF1_hacker I see! What if I would want to keep running the video in an area of low light conditions? What kind of settings do you recommend?

Let’s say keep running it for 1 hour of people walking around, in an indoor area, with just some dim lights in the ceiling? After that we can use some of the footage for post processing in Premier Pro?

CMF1_hacker

LianJietChoo I would setup a tripod and try a low ISO with a higher EV in EXPERT mode and see how you like it.

The ISO stands for the original silver particle sizes on film. The higher the ISO, the better performance in low light as the silver particles were larger. This produces the grainy image that you showed. I personally like that style as it’s old film style.

The new gen that never had film or a dSLR like everything perfect and without that grainyness. They tend to also like saturated colours.

I think the best option is test a very small table tripod of around 10cm tall and try the ISO settings and messing with the EV. The lightly will also change if goes from midday to dusk.

HAVING SAID ALL OF THAT: the sharing of preset is EXTREMELY useful for different people around the planet to share ideas/concept. Or to share default settings between devices. The LUT mixing options are stellar as well.

LianJietChoo

CMF1_hacker Ohh, so if I want the video to be smooth and less grainy, means set lower ISO, and it will become smoother? But the trade off is it will look darker?

Yes! I agree that it is good that Nothing has these presets for us to play around! It does help people like us to take nice photos. However sometimes we do want natural point and shoot image/videos too! Sometimes it’s just a few friends hanging out at the waterfall, and we just take a point and shoot selfie, or capture video moments during these good times, or other times it’s just friends hanging out while having dinner, we just want to take out the phone and snap, and take videos of funny moments! Hope the optimization will be good in the future!

But till then, I’ll be exploring around on the settings! So I can also contribute some good videos to my group of friends too! And also use them to edit in Premier Pro!

CMF1_hacker

LianJietChoo that’s a complicated issue. there is an aperture on each camera denoted by an f-stop (f/1.4 for example). The lower that number to more light that enters. That is inversely correlated with the shutter speed. Please note this is for still images (and it doesn’t talk about the depth of field alterations).

I would simply test (at the CORRECT TIME OF DAY AND WEATHER) that you want to record in.

LianJietChoo

CMF1_hacker thank you so much for the info! It’s still abit hard for me to understand and how to adjust to make the outcome nicer, but will try around! I’ll ask again if there’s any questions or feedbacks! 👍

MorningAll

I use nothing phone 3 to film my family and 4k on auto mode is generally ok for most situations but for anything more expert mode is needed 100% imo