Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Photography
  3. News

Don’t call it a gimbal — Freefly Movi is a ‘cinema robot’ for iPhone shooting

Hillary K. Grigonis
By
Freefly Movi - Your Personal Cinema Robot
Freefly is known for creating the gimbals used in Hollywood, from Captain America to Game of Thrones, but the company’s latest gimbal isn’t for big Hollywood directors — it’s a $299 device for smartphone creatives. Oh, and the newest Freefly Movi not exactly a gimbal, but a “cinema robot” packed with both stabilization and preset camera effects.

Launched on Wednesday, December 6, the Freefly Movi for iPhone brings the company’s cinematic effects in earlier models like the $2,700 model for DSLRs into a compact form for shooting smartphone shots. The mobile version uses a backward L-shaped handle with a set of controls at the top that allows users to pan or tilt the camera around with the press of a button. On the bottom end of that L, a smartphone cradle that can adapt to different cases and add-on lenses sits on top of the electronics that control the stabilization and camera movements. The design also means you can just set the entire unit down on a table without needing a tripod or any extra supports.

The Freefly Movi mobile uses a gyroscopic system to stabilize video, but Freefly is calling the system a cinema robot, because like other Movis, it does more than just take out the camera shake. Used with the iOS app, the Freefly Movi contains a number of different shooting modes that imitate Hollywood-level camera effects with a smartphone and a single operator.

Related

Echo mode allows videographers to select a start and end spot and a duration, allowing the system to move between the two points at a steady place while immobile or even while the operator is moving as well. An orbit mode helps rotate around subjects. Time-lapses and moving time-lapses can also be programmed inside of the app.

Recommended Videos

Settings inside the majestic mode offer more controls over how the Movi stabilizes the shot. Videographers can, for example, turn off the horizontal stabilization to create rolling effects or to shoot the scene at a diagonal.

Freefly says the Movi for mobile incorporates much of the technology of the pro-level rigs in a size and price point for iPhone videographers. The Freefly Movi for iPhone lists for $299 and is available for pre-order, with shipping expected sometime during the second quarter of 2018.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Hillary K. Grigonis
Hillary K. Grigonis
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Hillary never planned on becoming a photographer—and then she was handed a camera at her first writing job and she's been…
I don’t charge my phone at night because OnePlus broke me (and it’s awesome)
OnePlus 10 Pro charging port.

Here's a fun fact for you. I have absolutely zero idea as to what charge level my phone is at right now. It's on; I can tell you that. But what battery percentage is it at? I couldn't tell you. I couldn't care less and that's because I don't have to. At first, it was scary, but now it's just beautiful.

Here in the U.S., we don't really have to worry about charging phones; we charge them overnight. Maybe we set our phone down on one of the best wireless phone chargers, or we snap on a MagSafe charger (even on Android), or we simply plug the phone in. I used to be one of those people.

Read more
Don’t hold your breath for an in-screen Touch ID on iPhones
Concept render of an iPhone with Touch ID under the display.

Apple might not offer an under-display fingerprint sensor on its iPhones for the next couple of years at least. KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claims that the slate of iPhones coming in 2023 and 2024 will most likely stick with Face ID as the biometric authentication protocol.

Kuo, who maintains a fairly reliable track record at predicting Apple’s future product road map, claimed last year that an iPhone with under-screen Touch ID will arrive in 2023. Separate reports from Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal also claimed that Apple has been experimenting with an under-display fingerprint sensor for a while now.

Read more
Don’t you dare moan about the new iPhone SE’s higher price
iPhone SE 2022 colors.

The iPhone SE (2022) is more expensive than the iPhone SE (2020), and there’s a chance some may see this as a reason to knock Apple, or deem the cheapest brand-new iPhone as less of a bargain offering than before. In reality, it’s the opposite. Yes, the price has increased by $30, but you get a whole lot more than $30 worth of value in the new iPhone SE.
Value-driven features
Launched during Apple's Peek Performance spring event, the two big new features in the iPhone SE (2022) are the A15 Bionic processor and the addition of 5G connectivity. Launched today, with pre-orders starting Friday, the new SE has the same chip as the iPhone 13, which starts at $799. It has a six-core Central Processor Unit (CPU), and a four-core Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), plus a 16-core Neural Engine. All this means more speed, more power, more multitasking ability, and crucially, more longevity.

The A15 Bionic also adds more computational photography features to the camera, making it more fun to use, and potentially longer battery life due to increased efficiency. Longevity is also the big benefit of the new 5G modem. Not everyone will want or even be able to use 5G right now, but that will change. Having 5G as an option means you may not have to upgrade your phone as soon as you would a phone without it.

Read more