VHS Rarevision Camcorder iPhone App Video Review

Really a huge fan of the VHS Camcorder (Rarevision) for iPhone.

Sample video of VHS CAM in action:

Video Review of VHS Rarevision Camera App


Why I think VHS CAM is great.

This is my thought:

We shouldn’t be chasing for better ‘image quality’ or ‘video quality’. Perhaps aesthetics are more interesting, beautiful, and free when we ‘degrade’ or ‘worsen’ the “image quality”.

What I mean is this:

  1. When you use VHS cam, there are all these ‘hipster’ analogue/retro effects. I actually think they’re super cool! The ‘lo-fi’ aesthetic is far more beautiful and interesting to me than the Uber-clean default video setting on iPhone or any other commercial smartphone.
  2. The date and timestamp is really fascinating. It gives you a sense of time and place– and it adds more dynamic moving elements to the video.
  3. Recording things “lo-fi” takes up less storage and space, which also makes it faster to upload it online. Compare this to shooting 4K video — which takes FOREVER to upload online. It seems that smaller file sizes are better.

Extracting stills from VHS CAM

This is a fun thing you can do from video:

Re-play the video, then pause the video and take screenshots of moments you find interesting.

It is like ‘double-dipping’: you can shoot video AND photo at the same time!

Shooting stills WHILE recording videos

Another function:

On VHS CAM, while you’re recording you can push and hold the record button to take still photos. This allows you to take a hybrid approach to photography and video– to get the upside of the dynamic moving videos and audio, while also being able to extract still images.

Shoot both video AND photos!

I’ve been thinking a lot about how we can continue to evolve and grow as visual artists.

A simple idea:

Embrace both photo AND video.

It seems the best film makers (Stanley Kubrick) we’re also great photographers.

Also, great photographers (Robert Capa) also experimented with shooting films.

Ultimately if you want more inspiration for your photography (or videography)— embrace the opposite, to feed into this creative cycle of inspiration and motivation. There are many things video can do which photo can’t do, and many things photo can do that video can’t do.

In life, you can have your steak and eat it too. Do BOTH video AND photo!

ERIC

App link

VHS CAM (Rarevision) App Store link >