How to Shoot Apple Log on iPhone: A Beginner's Guide

The release of Apple Log closed the gap between cinema cameras and iPhone filmmaking even more. It gives your phone the kind of gradeable, high-latitude image that used to require a dedicated cinema camera.

But it is not plug-and-play. Shoot Apple Log the wrong way and your footage will look worse than standard video. This guide covers everything you need to get it right: which phones support it, how to enable it, the exact settings to use, and the exposure strategy that separates clean footage from noisy, unusable clips.

This post focuses entirely on shooting. The grading side is covered separately: what a LUT actually does is in our guide to what a LUT is, and the tool-by-tool process is in how to use LUTs.

What Is Apple Log?

Apple Log is a logarithmic color profile that records video with a flat, desaturated look to preserve the maximum amount of light and color information in the file.

Standard iPhone video applies contrast, saturation, and sharpening in-camera. It looks good immediately, but that processing bakes decisions into the file that you cannot undo. Blown highlights? Gone. Crushed shadows? Gone. There is nothing to recover.

Apple Log skips all of that processing. It encodes the sensor output with a logarithmic curve that distributes tonal information evenly across highlights and shadows. Independent testing puts the result at roughly 13 to 14 stops. Apple Log is not raw: the footage is still ProRes and still processed, just encoded to keep that range intact. The extra latitude is the difference between a sky that is a white blob and a sky with actual cloud detail.

The trade-off is that Apple Log has to be graded before anyone sees it. Uploading it straight to social media will look wrong. What that grade involves, and the difference between a conversion LUT and a creative one, is covered in our guide to what a LUT is. This post stays on the shooting side.

Which iPhones Support Apple Log?

Apple Log requires a Pro model. ProRes itself has been on the Pro lines since the iPhone 13 Pro, but Apple Log arrived with the 15 Pro. One thing the built-in Camera app hides: Apple Log is not locked to ProRes. The stock app only offers it as ProRes, but other recording apps, including Apple’s own free Final Cut Camera and Blackmagic Camera, capture Apple Log in HEVC, which keeps the dynamic range and cuts the file size by roughly ten times.

If you are on a non-Pro iPhone, third-party apps like Blackmagic Camera offer LOG-style profiles, but they are not true Apple Log and do not capture the same dynamic range.

How to Enable Apple Log

There are two ways to shoot Apple Log: the native Camera app or the Blackmagic Camera app. Both work. The Blackmagic app gives you significantly more control.

Method 1: Native Camera App

1. Turn on ProRes. Open Settings > Camera > Formats and toggle Apple ProRes on under Video Capture.
2. Choose the Log encoding. Tap ProRes Log Video Encoding, then pick Log or Log 2. Log 2 is the newer curve on the 17 Pro and later.
3. Select ProRes Log in the Camera app. Open Camera, switch to Video, tap the resolution and frame rate values in the corner, and choose the ProRes Log option.
4. Confirm before you record. The on-screen indicator should read ProRes Log. If it says HDR or plain ProRes, Log is not active.

The native app keeps things simple, but it does not give you manual control over shutter speed or ISO. You can lock exposure by tapping and holding on the screen, but that is about it.

Method 2: Blackmagic Camera App (Recommended)

Download the free Blackmagic Camera app from the App Store. Open it, tap the frame rate/resolution area, and choose your codec: Apple ProRes 422 for maximum quality, or HEVC (H.265) at the High or Max bitrate if storage is the constraint. Then set the color space to Apple Log. The Log curve is the same either way.

The Blackmagic app gives you manual control over everything that matters: shutter angle, ISO, white balance, focus, and exposure. It also shows a waveform monitor and zebra stripes for exposure checking. If you are serious about shooting Apple Log, this is the app to use. It is free and it is built by the same company that makes DaVinci Resolve.

Exposure Strategy: The Most Important Part

Exposure is where most beginners get Apple Log wrong. The rules are different from standard video, and getting this right will make or break your footage.

The Core Principle: Protect Your Highlights

Log footage forgives dark shadows far more than it forgives clipped highlights. Shadows can be lifted in the grade and usually hold up. A highlight that hit the ceiling is gone, and no LUT brings it back. So the first rule is simple: whatever else you do, keep the brightest part of the frame off the clip point. Within that limit, the usual log practice applies. In a controlled scene, exposing about half a stop to a stop brighter than looks right, then pulling it back in the grade, keeps the shadows cleaner. In a high contrast scene, skip that and protect the highlights first.

How to Check Exposure on Set

Your eyes and the phone screen are not reliable for judging Apple Log exposure. The flat image tricks you into thinking the footage is darker than it actually is. Use tools instead:

• Preview LUT. The Blackmagic Camera app can apply a monitoring LUT to the screen without touching the recorded file. You see contrast and exposure the way the graded image will look, which is far easier to judge than the flat log image.
• Zebra stripes. Available in the Blackmagic Camera app. Set them to 75-80%. If zebras appear on skin or sky, you are at risk of clipping highlights. Dial back the exposure.
• Waveform monitor. Also in the Blackmagic Camera app. Keep your highlights below the top of the waveform. If the trace hits the very top and flatlines, those highlights are clipped.
• False color. Some apps offer false color overlays that map exposure zones to specific colors. Red typically means overexposed. This is the fastest way to read exposure at a glance.

ISO: What Actually Works

The native ISO for Apple Log is said to be around 1250, which is where the sensor theoretically captures maximum dynamic range. But theory and practice are two different things.

As Stefan, founder of LUT Studio and Phoneframes, puts it: “Native ISO is said to be 1250 but in practice keeping the ISO as low as possible yielded the best results for me.”

The likely explanation is that the noise the iPhone sensor adds at 1250 costs more visible quality than the small theoretical range gain is worth, especially in the shadows. Whatever the mechanism, the result is consistent enough to plan around. The takeaway: do not obsess over staying at 1250. Keep your ISO as low as you can for the given lighting situation and control exposure using ND filters instead. Lower ISO means cleaner footage with less noise, especially in the shadows where Apple Log needs the most headroom. Going above ISO 2000 introduces visible noise. If you are outdoors with plenty of light, let the ISO drop as low as it will go.

ND Filters: Highly Recommended Outdoors

With a locked shutter and low ISO, your footage will still be massively overexposed in daylight. You can compensate with a faster shutter, but that changes the motion blur, which is why an ND filter is the recommended way to cut the light. On every iPhone up to the 17 Pro the aperture is fixed, so the shutter and the filter are your only two options. The iPhone 18 Pro’s main camera adds a variable aperture with four stops from f/1.48 to f/4, which gives you almost three stops of control before reaching for a filter. The ultra wide and telephoto stay fixed. A variable ND (2-5 stops) covers most outdoor situations. Budget: $40-120 for a phone-mount version.

Storage and File Size: Plan Ahead

In the native Camera app, Apple Log records in ProRes, and ProRes files are massive. This is the biggest practical consideration most guides gloss over. The figures below use Apple’s own stated rates for 4K30 and 1080p30, with the other rows scaled from those. Actual sizes vary with the scene, since ProRes is a variable bitrate codec.

A 256 GB iPhone gives you roughly 30-40 minutes of 4K ProRes at 24fps after accounting for the operating system and apps. A 512 GB phone gives roughly 80-90 minutes. A 1 TB phone gives around three hours. If those numbers are a problem, HEVC is the way out. Recording Apple Log as HEVC in Final Cut Camera or Blackmagic Camera brings a minute of 4K down to a few hundred megabytes, which turns a 256 GB phone from a 30-minute shoot into a full day. Two constraints catch people out: 128 GB models are limited to 1080p ProRes entirely, and recording to the phone itself tops out at 4K30, with higher frame rates requiring an external drive.

External Recording

iPhone 15 Pro and newer support recording directly to an external SSD via USB-C. This removes the storage limitation entirely. A 2 TB SSD gives you roughly 5+ hours of 4K ProRes. Apple requires the drive to be formatted as exFAT, and password-encrypted drives are not supported. Use a USB 3 cable rated at 10 Gbit/s or faster. The drive needs sustained write speeds of at least 220 MB/s for 4K60 and 440 MB/s for 4K120.

If you are planning a long shoot day, external recording is not a luxury. It is a necessity.

Storage Tips

Clear your phone before a shoot. Delete old footage, offload unused apps, and check available storage in Settings > General > iPhone Storage. Apple requires at least 10 percent of device storage to be free before it will record ProRes at all.

Transfer footage to a computer or external drive immediately after shooting. Do not leave 100+ GB of ProRes sitting on your phone. Or record HEVC in Final Cut Camera or Blackmagic Camera and skip most of this problem.

If storage is tight and you do not need 4K, 1080p ProRes uses less than a third of the space and still gives you the full Apple Log dynamic range.

What Apple Log Footage Looks Like (Do Not Panic)

If you have never shot LOG before, your first reaction to Apple Log footage will be: something is wrong with this camera. That is normal.

Apple Log footage is flat, grey, desaturated, and low-contrast by design. That flat image is holding information that standard video throws away. The sky has detail. The shadows have detail. Skin tones have smooth gradations instead of hard clipping. All of that gets revealed when you grade the footage.

Do not try to judge Apple Log footage by how it looks on your phone screen. Judge it after the grade.

What Happens After You Shoot

Apple Log footage needs to be color graded before it is usable. This is not optional. Ungraded Apple Log looks flat and grey and will not work for any final delivery.

That grading happens in DaVinci Resolve or Premiere Pro on desktop, or directly on your phone with LUT Studio, which auto-detects Apple Log and handles the Rec.709 conversion automatically. The step-by-step process for each tool, and the LUTs it relies on, are covered in the guides below.

Two guides cover the grading side in detail:

• What Is a LUT if you want to understand the tools used in the grading process
• How to Use LUTs for the step-by-step process in DaVinci Resolve, Premiere Pro and on iPhone

Four Beginner Mistakes with Apple Log

1. Leaving exposure on auto. Auto exposure shifts constantly. In Apple Log, every exposure shift changes how much dynamic range you are actually capturing. A sudden auto-bright moment can clip your highlights permanently. Lock your exposure before you hit record.
2. Forgetting to set white balance manually. Auto white balance in Apple Log means every shot in your timeline might have a different color temperature. This turns grading into a nightmare because you have to correct each clip individually instead of applying a consistent grade across the project.
3. Shooting without an ND filter in daylight. With a locked shutter and low ISO, bright outdoor footage will be blown out. An ND filter is highly recommended for daytime Apple Log shooting on anything before the 18 Pro; on the 18 Pro, stopping down to f/4 buys you some room.
4. Trying to edit Apple Log in Instagram, TikTok, or CapCut without grading first. Social media apps do not interpret LOG footage. The flat, washed-out image goes out exactly as it is, and that is what your audience sees. Grade your footage first (even a quick one-tap LUT in LUT Studio), then export to your camera roll, then import into social apps.

Make Your Flat Footage Look the Way You Imagined It

Shooting Apple Log is the hard part. Grading it does not have to be. LUT Studio auto-detects Apple Log, converts to Rec.709 automatically, and lets you dial in a creative look at full resolution. No file transfers. No timeline setup. Just the grade.

FAQ

What is Apple Log on iPhone?

Apple Log is a logarithmic color profile available on iPhone Pro models that records flat, desaturated footage with roughly 13 to 14 stops of dynamic range. It preserves maximum highlight and shadow detail for color grading in post-production.

Which iPhones support Apple Log?

Pro models from the iPhone 15 Pro onward, including the 17 Pro and 18 Pro lines. Non-Pro models do not support it, and it was not officially supported before the 15 Pro, even though those earlier Pro models record ProRes.

How do you enable Apple Log?

Go to Settings > Camera > Formats, toggle Apple ProRes on, then tap ProRes Log Video Encoding and choose Log or Log 2. In the Camera app, tap the resolution and frame rate values and pick the ProRes Log option. Alternatively, use the free Blackmagic Camera app for manual control.

How much storage does Apple Log use?

Apple puts it at about 6 GB per minute for 4K ProRes at 30fps and about 1.7 GB per minute at 1080p. A 30-minute 4K shoot takes roughly 180 GB. External SSD recording via USB-C is recommended for longer ProRes projects. Recording Apple Log as HEVC in Final Cut Camera or Blackmagic Camera cuts that to a fraction.

Why does Apple Log footage look flat and grey?

That is by design. The flat image preserves maximum dynamic range in highlights and shadows. It needs to be color graded (converted to Rec.709) before it looks normal. The flat look is data, not a problem.

What is the best ISO for Apple Log on iPhone?

Native ISO is said to be around 1250, but in practice keeping ISO as low as possible yields cleaner results. Use ND filters and shutter speed to control exposure. Avoid going above ISO 2000 to minimize noise.

Do you need an ND filter for Apple Log?

Not strictly, but it is highly recommended for outdoor shooting. Every iPhone up to the 17 Pro has a fixed aperture, so without ND you have to raise the shutter speed to avoid overexposure, which changes the motion blur. The iPhone 18 Pro’s variable aperture (f/1.48 to f/4) reduces the need. A variable ND (2-5 stops) covers most situations.

Can you shoot Apple Log without ProRes?

Yes, with a different recording app. The built-in Camera app only offers Apple Log as ProRes, but Apple’s own Final Cut Camera and Blackmagic Camera both record the same Apple Log curve in HEVC (H.265) at roughly a tenth of the file size. You keep the dynamic range and lose most of the storage headache.

Can you grade Apple Log footage on your phone?

Yes. LUT Studio auto-detects Apple Log, applies the Rec.709 conversion automatically, and lets you apply creative LUTs at full resolution on iPhone. No desktop transfer required.