Summary: So which Apple device shoots the best video? Well, best is a matter of opinion. But to help form that opinion, I shot some identical video using an iPhone4, iPhone4S, iPad2 and the new iPad. All of the clips were shot indoors using only the available lighting (on a sunny day, mid-afternoon). And all of the footage is untouched, straight off the devices. Technically, the iPhone4S and new iPad should be the runaway winners...they shoot 1080P video at 21mbps...while the iPhone4 and iPad2 only do 720p video at 11mbps. That means, technically, they shoot video at roughly twice the quality of their older counterparts. But if you look at the footage, that's not necessarily the case. While the the iPhone4S and new iPad do provide a sharper picture, they seem to struggle assigning the correct exposure. The older iPhone4 and iPad2 have the opposite problem. And none of the devices are completely accurate with color reproduction. But whatever device you think has the best looking footage, one thing is clear; iOS devices still can't match traditional video cameras when it comes to the quality of the footage they produce. And the final thing to keep in mind...this was just a simple test to see how the footage varies between devices in an extremely common shooting situation. Had I done even more shots under different conditions, the results may have varied even more.
