August 5, 2021
New toys are a BLAST!
Well, after many years my cell phone gave up the ghost, but it came at a good time. I managed to pick up a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra! I could have chosen a cheaper phone but there were a few reasons that this one came to me… mostly because it has one of the best video capabilities of any phone on the market… truly they are starting to put out some impressive quality video… up to an astonishing 7680×4320 at 24 frames per second (though the chipset can support up to 30 FPS, which it may one day be able to do via firmware update). Of course it supports 4K video easily enough too. I took the one with the most storage capacity (512gb) which is way more than enough for my needs.
First thing that I did was protect it when I put the phone in an Otterbox Defender case (my case of choice for my last phone and my current 12.9″ iPad pro).
I knew that I wanted to mount it on a tripod, and to later mate it with high quality audio, I used the 1/4-20 screw of my Zoom F4 and installed an adjustable phone holder there… perfect for fast and easy “slap it down and record something” in really decent audio and video!
So what does it look like, and how does it work? Let’s take a look!
I have one more future surprise here with this setup… the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra has a mode called PRO VIDEO… in which not only do you have some really nice features like fixed focus and manual controls of exposure, ISO and more, it has one feature that I think will be great for me… it has Bluetooth, but not just any Bluetooth, it has the ability to record audio from 2 BT audio sources at the same time, it’s internal microphones and external BT units. With this I hope to do all kinds of uber cool things like use the Samsung Buds Pro as a wireless lavalier… or, get this… I can use a wireless Bluetooth transmitter, connect it to the 8X, and quite literally receive the sound from the 8x wirelessly from the accordion directly to the phone! In terms of being cool, there are few things that are cooler! 🙂
More to come as the transmitter is coming all the way from Asia (read: coming in about a month).
Enjoy!