Back at the launch event for the iPhone 11 last fall, the developers of Filmic Pro got on stage and showed off a new app that allowed iPhone users to record videos using both the front and rear cameras on their iPhone simultaneously. And today, that app finally made its official debut in the form of Filmic’s new DoubleTake app.
While Filmic plans to eventually roll DoubleTake’s functionality into Filmic Pro itself, for now, DoubleTake exists as a free standalone app that lets modern iPhones take full advantage of every camera on the device. Using a pretty streamlined UI, iPhone owners can switch between various camera views with just a couple taps and select which lens (or lenses) they want to shoot with, which should give mobile filmmakers even more control and flexibility over their work.
By using DoubleTake’s Shot/Reverse Shot feature, which records video from both front and rear cams at the same time, suddenly it becomes much easier to record an interview capturing reactions on both sides in a single take and without additional gear. DoubleTake even has a picture-in-picture mode that allows you to place a smaller video in the corner of the frame while using another cam to record the bulk of the action.
However, while DoubleTake can be installed on older iPhones, you will need a late-model iPhone (such as an iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, or iPhone 11 Pro Max) in order to record video using multiple rear cams at the same time. Older iPhone XS-era devices are limited to grabbing footage of just the front camera and one rear camera simultaneously, and anything before that can only record video with one camera. And regardless of which iPhone you’re using, video recordings are capped at 1080p instead of 4K due to some technical limitations.
Unfortunately, if you’re looking for some of the more advanced video features found in the standard Filmic Pro app, such as the company’s Manual Arc Sliders for controlling ISO, shutter speed, and other settings, you’ll have to wait for Filmic to integrate DoubleTake’s capabilities into the company’s flagship video recording app.
All told, DoubleTake seems like a great way for iPhone users to start exploring the power of multi-cam recording on a single device. That said, I’d be remiss not to mention that similar alternatives have been available on various Android phones for years, dating as far back as the Samsung Galaxy S4 from 2013.
In more recent years, the Galaxy S7 featured a downloadable camera add-on that allowed for recording using both front and rear cameras, and in 2017, Nokia introduced the annoyingly named but functionally similar Bothie mode on the Nokia 7 and Nokia 8. In 2018, LG put multi-camera photo and video capture in the LG V40.
Either way, with the number of cameras on the front and backs of new phones increasing every year, it’s nice to see both iPhone and Android users have wider access to more sophisticated video features like this.