IPhone 7 Road test

[Tusk]

You know how I've struggled one way or other with the sound quality of the video I take, especially in regards to how well the microphone on the various cameras I've used. I've had a long standing issue w/ Apple, the company, so have kept their products at arms length. But there has been enough times where I've been impressed w/ the quality of audio of videos I've seen, then to find they only used their iPhone, that I finally broke down and got one.

I knew I wanted to test it in action, a live band. This last Saturday, I searched around bars to find one with a live band nearby (*I had no interest in driving all the way into Seattle). After the 2nd bar of asking, I finally found one, thrash metal bands, headlining was Skinlab.

It turns out, the iPhone 7 records 4K video, so this was a good opportunity to see what that's all about, as well as find out for myself if the iPhone microphone can withstand LOUD thrash metal..... Here is the product. The band's name is "Pinned Red". Since I wanted to post it to see the result of 4K video and the sound, I thought I might as well do it properly and edited the video/audio, in case the band wants to use it... Did a little research, put their logo as watermark.....no idea the name of the song,...

The 4:30 minute file was 1.4gb large

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I also bought a acessory pack that had three lenses (Macro, fish eye, wide angle) a mini tripod w/ bendable legs, a switch that you can pair with your iPhone so you can remotely activate the camera, a plug in extra light and a directional microphone (I can't use the last two because I'd have to get an adapter to plug a headphone jack into the ONE slot in the phone...and the phone's microphone works so well, I don't see a need to add anything onto it)

Here's a pic using the macro lens.

So, so far, I'd have to say so far so good

[Sinces10]

Tusk, thanks for the update on the V7. The video looks great, I can't tell if the audio is good or not, you are much better at that than I am. It certainly was loud and did not seem to be clipped. I am ready to replace my Samsung Galaxy 4 (ya it's been awhile), I like the macro on the IPad, I bought an expensive macro lens for my dslr both of which are large and usually not around when I need them.

[Tusk]

It certainly was loud and did not seem to be clipped.

That's really the key, audio is hard to listen to when it's clipped which happens sometimes when Haley hits her high notes (happened on all video sources I got from the Durty Nellies show---Of course this could be because of the DN's sound engineer....Harry told me the next day that they had a problem with him too. Alternately, at BGDays, where I got my best non-inline board audio, Harry had only good things to say about their sound engineer. Said they had worked w/ him for many years, so as good as your recording device might be, it can't help if you have a poor sound engineer ). Other distortion comes from the bass and I don't hear that being a problem either. Believe it or not, this was pretty loud, my ears were still ringing half an hour after the show and the mic pick up on the iPhone performed like a champ.

This was the kit I bought....not too bad for $50

The lenses are screwed into this clip that attaches to the side near your phone lens, you have to align the acc. lens to the phone lens. The Tripod legs are bendable, in theory, you can attach your phone to it and wrap the legs around things to place it if you want.

This would be a HUGE revelation for me....I've bought 4 cameras since following Haley, two point and shoots a camcorder & DSLR...each have their strength, each have their weakness, but all have the possibility of not being allowed into a venue, especially the camcorder and DSLR. Even if you got them in, good audio is not guaranteed (I've become fairly good at improving audio, all I need is decent source with no clipping and no bass buzz)..... I don't know if the 7 is that more improved than if I had bought the iPhone earlier, but I have to say, so far, this has been very encouraging, to not have to lug all the equipment around, zoom mic, lenses etc., if all I need to do is bring an iPhone and maybe some phone chargers

I bought the 128gb memory for my phone which should be plenty to record at 4k for any one show, as long as I back it up and remove it from my phone, before the next show (I just picked up a 2 terrabite portable external drive at Costco for $70 for that)