IPhone portrait mode came in 2016 as a beta. The Bokeh effect photography feature has improved and evolved over the years, but Apple has not yet offered the feature to record videos. Now, a new app called Spotlights Live adds the functionality to record grand opening videos with a Bokeh effect on iPhone.
Shortly after Apple released Portrait mode for photos, my colleague Michael Steeber wrote a detailed article in 2017 that describes how the iPhone could take the feature further by offering Portrait mode for videos. He pointed out the most common options for obtaining the effect on video:
If you want to create the same effect in a video today, there are two common options. The first and easiest thing to do is spend the money on expensive cameras and lenses with a wide aperture – that’s what gives you a shallow depth of field.
The second and more tedious option is to use post-production software like Adobe After Effects to build your own depth maps or video masks to specify which parts of a scene should be in focus. This can involve a strenuous process called rotoscopy, a time-consuming task that is often done frame by frame.
Since then, some apps have tried to tackle adding a Bokeh effect to iPhone videos only with the software, but that generally doesn’t work too well.
Now, just four years after Portrait mode arrived, what appears to be the first app to offer Portrait mode video has arrived (via Ben Geskin). Live Spotlights lets you capture a large aperture with Bokeh video for iPhones “in dual camera, triple camera and front camera with face ID”.
The app seems to offer a variety of advanced features and granular controls including object tracking and automatic aperture adjustment, simulated multiple-choice aperture diaphragms, layer adjustment control, speed boost, video reverse option, an editor for independent audio and more.
Spotlights Live is available as a free download with in-app purchases to unlock the full feature set at $ 1.99 / mo, $ 8.99 / yr or $ 14.99 for a lifetime subscription. So far, the new app has an average rating of 4.4 / 5 stars.
After testing it, Ben noted that it doesn’t offer stabilization for some reason and that it works better with faces than inanimate objects.
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