All iPads iPad for basic video editing and decent photo editing?

[Kay_Ess]

Hi!

I’ve never had a tablet so I really have no idea whether it could be fun for me or whether I should just get a Windows laptop again. So any tips and helpful information are very welcome! I like to make videos of me cooking recipes and I’d like something to edit those videos on.

My iPhone 14 Pro Max can do videos in ProRes codec which should make it easy to edit those videos and to do color grading. Can you do that on iPad without needing an active paid subscription to something? I don’t need any fancy options. Preferably just some presets to try and see whether color grading can be fun for me. I just sometimes have the lighting change for example and then the video just looks like it is different sources stitched together and I want to make the end result more uniform.

Is it possible to get the smallest storage option and put the project files in iCloud or would that be too slow? I have good WiFi. I could make a NAS if iCloud would be too slow. Do you think that would work?

Do iPads have comparable cameras to iPhones? Reason I ask is that I’d like to be able to film the same action from 2 different angles and then use it in a video with a uniform end result.

What about photo editing? The pictures of my iPhone are pretty good but they don’t pop. They’re definitely not usable yet for making websites for example. I have higher demands of photos than I have of video. With video a uniform end result is the goal but for photos I’d like to transform a couple pictures every week into pieces of art. Could that be done on an iPad with an app that doesn’t require an active paid subscription or do I need a Windows machine for that?

Would I need a 200 dollar Apple Pencil or is a third party one good enough for everything I want?

What kind of iPad would you recommend for the above use cases? Like normal, Air, Pro? I think the normal iPads have no support for ProRes editing. Could an Air 4 do what I want for the next years to come or should I look for a 2023 Pro for example? At the moment I’m mostly trying to figure out what it would cost for me to use an iPad.

Thanks! Hope to hear from you!

K.

 

[Regulus67]

The iPad has become a lot better lately, for this kind of work.

Look at these videos on the colour grading. DaVinci Resolve for the iPad is free.
Daniel Kovacs and Michael Tobin

You might also wish to add a magnetic stand, which makes it look and feel like a mini iMac.
iPad stands

You can use the iPad camera for video, at least I do on my iPad Pro. Normally I record videos on my iPhone 7+, so I can't comment on how it would compare in your case.
Affinity Photo might be the best photo editing app?
The iPhone photos are not always great, because of the post processing done on the phone. Shoot in RAW to get the best possible photos to work with.

I would also recommend you read the Lux blog where you can find a lot of answers.

 

[Kay_Ess]

The iPad has become a lot better lately, for this kind of work.

Look at these videos on the colour grading. DaVinci Resolve for the iPad is free.
Daniel Kovacs and Michael Tobin

You might also wish to add a magnetic stand, which makes it look and feel like a mini iMac.
iPad stands

You can use the iPad camera for video, at least I do on my iPad Pro. Normally I record videos on my iPhone 7+, so I can't comment on how it would compare in your case.
Affinity Photo might be the best photo editing app?
The iPhone photos are not always great, because of the post processing done on the phone. Shoot in RAW to get the best possible photos to work with.

I would also recommend you read the Lux blog where you can find a lot of answers.

Thank you! Lots of reading to do. I did not expect an app like Davinci Resolve to be free. What do they do to make money with that, do you know? Is there a lot in app purchases for example?

 

[Regulus67]

The app is kind of "limited", where it will tell you to purchase access to the full version. But as Daniel Kovacs discovered, it is the full version, but you need to use keyboard shortcuts to access them. See his early videos, a year ago.

Besides, it will probably bag BlackMagic more paying customers, as some will also want it on their macs.
I know I am planning to buy the Speed Editor, with the mac version included.

edit: I see BlackMagic as a hardware company, much like Apple. And I might be considering going for one of their pocket cameras in the future. Especially if I learn how to use their software properly

 

[Regulus67]

By the way, it's only $30 for the iPad version. At least it was when it was launched a year ago, when I purchased it

 

[j26]

LumaFusion works well on my 6th Gen iPad Mini for video, including prores. It’s not free, but is reasonably priced. It can work with files on an external ssd. You could put them on iCloud, but it would have to download the files to use them, and that could take some time.

I use a Metapen Pencil which cost about 30 euros. It works perfectly fine and charges magnetically.

 

[sparksd]

LumaFusion works well on my 6th Gen iPad Mini for video, including prores. It’s not free, but is reasonably priced. It can work with files on an external ssd. You could put them on iCloud, but it would have to download the files to use them, and that could take some time.

I use a Metapen Pencil which cost about 30 euros. It works perfectly fine and charges magnetically.

I'll second LumaFusion. I use it with 4K vids on my M1 12.9. I do some RAW image processing on my iPad with Lightroom - it's my preferred app as I have used it on my other devices since its inception as a Beta. Affinity is another very good app.

 

[Kay_Ess]

I'll second LumaFusion. I use it with 4K vids on my M1 12.9. I do some RAW image processing on my iPad with Lightroom - it's my preferred app as I have used it on my other devices since its inception as a Beta. Affinity is another very good app.

Thank you for the input!

LumaFusion works well on my 6th Gen iPad Mini for video, including prores. It’s not free, but is reasonably priced. It can work with files on an external ssd. You could put them on iCloud, but it would have to download the files to use them, and that could take some time.

I use a Metapen Pencil which cost about 30 euros. It works perfectly fine and charges magnetically.

Thank you, I will look into both products!

And iPads have USB-C, I think, so an external SSD shouldn’t be a problem.

By the way, it's only $30 for the iPad version. At least it was when it was launched a year ago, when I purchased it

It’s 95 now, I think. But as long as I know that in advance and it’s not a paid subscription model then I’m fine with everything.

The app is kind of "limited", where it will tell you to purchase access to the full version. But as Daniel Kovacs discovered, it is the full version, but you need to use keyboard shortcuts to access them. See his early videos, a year ago.

Besides, it will probably bag BlackMagic more paying customers, as some will also want it on their macs.
I know I am planning to buy the Speed Editor, with the mac version included.

edit: I see BlackMagic as a hardware company, much like Apple. And I might be considering going for one of their pocket cameras in the future. Especially if I learn how to use their software properly

Haha yeah, that’s true. If I can work with Davinci then I’d love one of those tiny BlackMagic cameras. It’s been a long time since I researched them but I remember like 5-10 years ago they already had an 11 stop camera that could fit in your purse for around a thousand bucks. Epic stuff.

 

[bradman83]

Is it possible to get the smallest storage option and put the project files in iCloud or would that be too slow? I have good WiFi. I could make a NAS if iCloud would be too slow. Do you think that would work?

That depends on what specifically you'd be accessing via cloud or network. Cloud storage would maintain a cache of recent and frequently used files on your iPad, so a lot of files, photos, and videos that you just created would be on the machine until you stop accessing them frequently. The cache would be limited by how much internal storage your iPad has. NAS storage is always over the network, which would make it unsuitable for things like video given that you'd likely be using WiFi. Plus the iPad only supports networking over the SMB protocol (and possibly NFS) and Apple's implementation of SMB is notoriously... awful.

You could also consider an external storage drive, specifically an SSD. That would give you plenty of fast storage to work with while avoiding the performance penalties of accessing network shares or cloud storage.

For standard HEIF photos cloud storage or network storage would be workable. For ProRAW or actual camera raw images, or any video it would get a bit more dicey and I'd recommend going the route of either more internal storage (more convenient) or an external drive.

 

[Kay_Ess]

That depends on what specifically you'd be accessing via cloud or network. Cloud storage would maintain a cache of recent and frequently used files on your iPad, so a lot of files, photos, and videos that you just created would be on the machine until you stop accessing them frequently. The cache would be limited by how much internal storage your iPad has. NAS storage is always over the network, which would make it unsuitable for things like video given that you'd likely be using WiFi. Plus the iPad only supports networking over the SMB protocol (and possibly NFS) and Apple's implementation of SMB is notoriously... awful.

You could also consider an external storage drive, specifically an SSD. That would give you plenty of fast storage to work with while avoiding the performance penalties of accessing network shares or cloud storage.

For standard HEIF photos cloud storage or network storage would be workable. For ProRAW or actual camera raw images, or any video it would get a bit more dicey and I'd recommend going the route of either more internal storage (more convenient) or an external drive.

Thank you, that’s helpful.

I guess I’d be stuck always using an external SSD if I’d want to work on an iPad. Wouldn’t be very modern and always needing cables plugged in also kinda defeats the purpose of a tablet.

 

[sparksd]

Thank you, that’s helpful.

I guess I’d be stuck always using an external SSD if I’d want to work on an iPad. Wouldn’t be very modern and always needing cables plugged in also kinda defeats the purpose of a tablet.

Yeah, but a whole lot of us waited a long time to get that external storage support. 2TB internal would be great but Apple charges a premium for installed storage.

 

[Kay_Ess]

Yeah, but a whole lot of us waited a long time to get that external storage support. 2TB internal would be great but Apple charges a premium for installed storage.

Yes, I was about to say, it’s just not designed for me. 256GB would be okay but I’m not comfortable spending >1000 bucks on a tablet. I’d like to use an iPad for my hobbies and to browse/read a little on the couch, not to earn money with. Never had a tablet before so I’m not missing anything anyway.

Thanks for the help anyway, everyone!