The phone camera settings that actually matter

Open the camera settings on a modern phone and you are looking at a wall of options, most of which will never affect your videos. Here are the four that do, and what to do with each.

Resolution: 1080p is usually the right answer

Your phone probably offers 4K. For short-form video you rarely need it. 4K files are three to four times larger, they fill your storage, they slow every edit down, and the platform is going to compress the result heavily anyway.

Shoot 1080p unless you have a specific reason not to. The exception worth knowing: if you plan to crop into the shot during editing, the extra resolution gives you room to do it without the image falling apart.

Frame rate: 30fps as standard, 60fps when there is motion

Frame rate is how many images per second get captured. At 30 frames per second, normal movement looks normal. At 60, fast movement stays clean and you have the option to slow a clip to half speed later and still have it look smooth.

Shoot 30 for talking, demonstrating, most things. Switch to 60 when something moves fast and you want it legible — or when you think you might want slow motion.

Turn on the grid

This costs nothing and improves every shot you take. The grid overlays two vertical and two horizontal lines on your viewfinder. Two uses:

• Level horizons. A shelf, a table edge or a doorframe that sits a few degrees off looks subtly wrong and most people cannot say why. The grid makes it obvious before you record.
• Placement. Putting your subject on a line, rather than dead centre, tends to produce a more comfortable frame — and it leaves space for on-screen text that will not cover a face.

Stabilisation: on, with one caveat

Leave stabilisation on. It smooths out hand shake and it is doing more work than you realise.

The caveat: stabilisation works by cropping in slightly and shifting the image within that crop, so your frame is a little tighter than the viewfinder suggests, and it can produce a strange floating effect when you walk. If a walking shot looks like it is swimming, that is why.

What to ignore

Filters applied while filming bake a look into the footage that you cannot remove later. Beauty modes do the same thing to faces. Both are decisions better made in the edit, where they can be undone.

HDR video is worth avoiding early on — it can look wrong on devices that do not support it, and the failure mode is washed-out, grey-looking footage on someone else's phone.

Set these four once, then stop thinking about settings and start thinking about what you are filming. The camera stopped being the limiting factor years ago.