Smartphone cameras don't have a good reputation for elaborate and demanding shots, but users have explored different methods to get around those limitations and achieve results a bit closer to a professional solution. For example, the "bullet time" effect usually demands dozens of cameras, yet the Centriphone accessory allows us to imitate bullet time using just an iPhone.
The Centriphone in action
The introduction of the drone as an alternative platform for cameras and/or smartphones has changed forever the way we capture video. In fact, many products put special emphasis on this aspect, with features like programmed flights and automatic user tracking. The problem arises when we want something a bit more complex. After all, recording video is within reach of any basic camera these days, and a good part of the responsibility falls on editing, which in turn requires advanced tools. Still, at the beginning of this month we came across something called Centriphone. The original video shows a Swiss skier named Nicolas Vuignier in a kind of bullet time, swinging the camera over his head like a lasso. Many comments said it was a tied drone, but Vuignier proved otherwise:
In essence, it's like a distant cousin of a hang glider (if you allow me to see it that way) for an iPhone 6 or 6s, but on the official page we also find a model compatible with GoPro cameras (models 3, 3+ and 4). After two years of development and several prototypes, Vuignier found a design stable enough to swing an iPhone over our heads, and obtain what we can undoubtedly call low-cost bullet time.
Open source and availability
The Centriphone is an open source project, and while there are plans to commercialize both models (32 euros), anyone with a 3D printer can download the plans and reproduce it, or why not, make additional modifications. Centriphone's performance is very good in the hands of someone who has trained with it, but personally, the idea of swinging such an expensive phone over my head doesn't leave me very calm...
