Kino Reviews

Now that I’ve gotten the chance to use and play with Kino for a long time, I noticed the shutter manual control option is non responsive. Tapping on 180 and 360 involves multiple taps to register. And tapping on the 45 and 90 is non responsive. I’ve reached out to support but their response time is extremely slow. Last response I’ve gotten has taken over a month. Please fix this issue!

Original review:

So far, loving Kino over the BlackMagic camera app and the Moment app I used to use. My only request to make Kino perfect is to please add a White Balance Tint option. It would seriously be amazing to have that feature. Also, a lock screen and camera control button option would be amazing for launching Kino on the lock screen or by pressing the camera control button.

Heavily do not recommend Kino. The entire app freezes up when recording, and captures glitchy and spotty recordings. I’ve tried full 4k with 24, 30, 60 fps and it has not recorded a single good video. Color grading seems to be great and everything is awesome, but it doesn’t matter at all if it can’t even capture basic video. Not even close to worth the money if this doesn’t get fixed soon. iPhone 13 and iOS 17.4.1

Edit: did some more testing and it seems to just be an issue with processor overload. I bet Kino works great on newer phones, but my phone’s not *that* old, and kinda disappointing to know that they didn’t do any real testing to make Kino backwards compatible. Would like to love Kino, but this needs to be fixed ASAP or just only offered to newer iPhones.

I wish I could leave a better review. Bottom line - for $20 I expected better customer support. It’s been several weeks since I contacted support and have only received one response asking me more questions that were already in my ticket. Kino advertises that it will write to a thumb drive or hard drive but it will not stop writing to my phone even though it detects the drive. The LUTs also only work with HEVC and not with ProRes which is disappointing if you want to bake in one of their looks. To be honest though, I would never use any of these LUTs professionally as they all look stock and none feel appropriate for any content. I hope Kino improves over time but I don’t recommend the purchase in its current form. Stick to the camera app on iPhone, this doesn’t go above and beyond.

Professionals (and amateurs) beware. Kino is limited and overpriced. That might be fine (who am I to stop people being separated from their money) if it actually worked. What’s wrong with it? Let’s see:
LUT import is broken, effect selection is laggy beyond belief, focus peaking is useless, the video feed freezes constantly, and most importantly, the footage is not consistent or reliable. Kino skips to the point that 120 fps video becomes 50 fps or lower. That’s on a BRAND NEW, top of the line iPhone with NO effect applied. It’s even worse on older phones even at lower frame rates.

There are plenty of good camera apps on the store so look elsewhere.

I shot a live concert yesterday using this app exclusively. Kino crashed a few times, which is forgivable for a V1, but when I play back the successful recordings, the audio is unusable. The quality of the audio seems ok, but it’s way out of sync with the image, and seems to cut entire chunks out. If it was just a timing issue, I could adjust it to match, but it’s unworkable and unusable. During capture, the VU meters were peaking at the slightest noise and there’s no setting to reduce the input levels. Very disappointing for a paid, professional app.

Honestly LOVE the way this makes my videos look! But on iPhone 16 pro, I noticed that the mic quality is really quiet or easily muffled and it’s very frustrating. I’m sure it’s bc of the new pro mic array. Would love if a new update would allow for better use of all of the mics in the phone with proper audio mixing, and a HUGE bonus if it could take advantage of the pro mic audio features (Cinematic audio, in-frame audio, etc) An update like this would easily bump this up to a 5 star app for me.

Pros:
The interface is very intuitive, clean, and simple.
The automotion and the instant grade features really differentiate Kino from the competition and simplify the shooting process.

Cons:
More than half the grades are only available for log footage so if you don't have an iPhone 15 you won't have access to them. It's a shame they couldn't produce equivalent grades for standard rec709 as well but maybe they will in the future? I also tried to import multiple LUTs from my davinci resolve folder but could not get any to import successfully despite the LUTs working fine in Davinci. The .cube files were within the 33x33 size limit as well so not sure what the issue was there.

Also external microphones do not seem to be supported. I tested with the Hollyland Lark m2 Bluetooth microphones and was unable to get it to work. This is a shame given that this is supposed to be a pro app and audio quality from the onboatlrd iphone microphone leaves much to be desired. Hopefully this can be added in the near future.

Finally, there is no tap to focus or tap to adjust exposure like there is in the default iphone camera app. This may have been a deliberate design decision but it would be nice to have the option to enable/disable these features for those who want them.

I honestly do love Kino as long as I keep it in auto mode, but as soon as I switch to manual mode and attempt to change the shutter speed with the buttons on top, it rarely recognizes the touch input and I’m sitting there for minutes just trying to change the shutter speed. As for the ISO slider, you’d expect to be able to slide it up and down by touching the actual slider, but I have to touch slightly above the slider for it to actually register the input. I am using an iPhone 16 Pro Max for those wondering.

It feels like, especially with the BlackMagic Cam release and iOS camera updates, that all of the features included in Kino should be made standard to cinema camera apps by now.

What separates it? Their key feature of shooting with filters is time saving, but VSCO and other apps have this.

The one thing that none of these video apps have is the ability to shoot/filter with film grain. But this app doesn’t differentiate itself in this way either.

So far I’m liking what I see. Nice layout and easy to use controls. A couple things I’d like to see improved in the next version: an option for a larger histogram window and manual white balance controls. Hoping this will eventually become my main video camera app but it still has some catching up to do. That said, it’s a great v1 release and I look forward to seeing where it goes.

First off this is an incredible app; functionality, design, and user interface are top notch. However, as an iPhone 14 Pro Max user I am very disappointed all of the grades are not available. I would understand on a technical level how the processing power of an older iPhone would be limited, but between an iPhone 14 and 15 it’s pretty negligible. I suppose we’re 3 months away from the new iPhone, but still. Apps like this are only purchased for the ability to use filters, or in this case Grades. Hopefully more will be allowed for the iPhone 14 Pro and Max.

Love Kino but I was really hoping to be able to customize the preset shooting modes to be able to switch framerates with one click. For example there are 3 preset shooting options, 4k 30 HDR, 4k 30 P3, 4k 24 Log and customize. I don’t shoot 4k 30 at all and especially not in hdr. And 4k 24 in log is ok but I prefer ProRes LT so either way I have to go in and customize every time I want to change my frame rate. Seems like it should be a no brainer to make that entire section fully customizable. Would love to see this in an update please. Will change to 5 stars

Thanks for this terrific app. Excellent functionality and interface design. Makes shooting on my iPhone a real treat. Hits the sweet spot for video camera apps- useful automation with enough user control to make the iPhone able to produce high quality work. Perfect app for what you would use an iPhone, as opposed to a cinema camera, to shoot.

I’m really enjoying the cinematic touch Kino gives iPhone videos. In so many ways, Apple hardware is capable of pro-level content. But the software is of course focused on everyday users, leaving a lot of potential unrealized. Apps like this one solve that problem for people who want to make pro-level stuff on a device in their pockets or who want their everyday stuff to look just right.

A few feature requests:

1- Sliders on the color style options. All the LUTs look great for longer, movie-length works. But most of us are making 45-second stories and reels that need a more subtle look.

2- An iPad/Mac control and monitor app. This may be moot with iPhone mirroring now available on Mac. But it would allow us to use the front camera for talking head videos.

3- Something like Apple’s Cinematic/Portrait Mode. I know it’s distinctly not pro or cinematic, but it’s nice sometimes to blur the background a little more than the hardware allows for.

as a Vlogger Kino hits it out of the park! Ive asked for the volume shutter to work and the added that.. now my vlogging set up is complete!!! this is better than the Final cut camera app from apple.. plz keep this simple to use and i love i can record non pro res video on an external SD card! apple default camera only lets you record pro res on external SD cards or ssd that are fast enough! thanks team!

I bought this app on launch and it is a fun to use. There are a couple of features I would like to see added. The ability to save manual settings after closing and reopening Kino would be great. It’s mildly annoying to have to reset them each time I launch Kino . It would also be nice to incorporate anamorphic desqueeze into the options. Keep up the great work this app team. Excited to see what’s to come.

Kino is a must have for anyone wanting to take their video to the next level. For non-professionals, it gives you both the benefits of Log without having to mess with it, but also works well as a way of introducing you into the format.

For professionals, there are a variety of benefits to Kino. If nothing else, it’s a great way to quickly set up a shot and see how the post processing Lut is actually going to render.

I love the fundamental concept behind this app and I applaud how hard the team is working to put the finishing touches on this great app. The provided LUTs are interesting but I’d like to see a curated library of LUTS users can individually download. I’ve gotta say that after using Apple’s new FCP camera app - I was more than happy to go back to this app. One last comment - as I said - I applaud the fresh take on controlling the camera’s essential features while allowing the camera person to keep their concentration on the story they are telling. This is one great app!

I’ve been using Halide for years on my iPhone, and feel like it helped me kickstart my career in photography.

Video on the other hand, was never my thing and honestly I struggled. Just owning an iPhone, and being able to edit photos quickly was a plus, but…just using my iPhone, video editing and color grading seemed almost out of reach. Complex apps, shooting in large file sizes.. it never felt worth it. However, this app brings the ease of the native Camera app with the crazy flexibility and customization of Halide, to video. It makes shooting something that looks good idiot proof!

With this app, I feel the same sort of creative spark that Halide gave me, something that feels easy and inspires me to grab my iPhone and just video something. A few buildings, a passenger seat in a car, and a rainy window? You’d swear we’re in a noir crime movie.

It’s less than an average lunch nowadays too. Grab it, and let your creativity run wild ya’ll.

This is the best app for beginner and experienced filmmakers like myself who don’t want to carry a lot of gear but still want that professional looking footage. I would like to see them add remote control feature for solo creators that want to use 2 iPhones when filming alone. One phone for recording and the other for managing the controls of the stationary phone at a distance and without being behind the camera.