We update Kino regularly. Check here for details on what we changed in our updates.
Kino 1.2 is a huge update to Kino. “Casablanca” gives Kino a new look, brings Kino to 10 new languages, packs in Camera Control support for iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro with several Adjustments, Grade organization tools, support for high frame rate recording (up to and including 4K 120 FPS on the latest devices) and more.
Thanks for your feedback and love — we hope you love this big update.
Here’s what’s new:
A NEW LOOK
Wow, did you notice that new icon? Kino gets a new, friendlier face, along with support for iOS 18 icon customization like tinting and more. We think you'll reel-y like it.
UPDATED IN SPEED
Kino supports high frame rate capture! That's right, you can capture graded footage at up to 120 frames per second — and that goes up to 4K 120FPS on iPhone 16 Pro! Note that some format options might require an external SSD at the highest quality settings.
UPDATED FOR CONTROL
Speaking of the iPhone 16 Pro, we now have our first update our to support Camera Control. With a few swipes, you can adjust your exposure, tweak your focus, or quickly switch between grades. To prevent accidental swipes mid-recording, we also have a Lock option like in Kino’s sister app, Halide. Stay tuned — there’s even more cool features taking advantage of the Camera Control on iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro coming.
Kino’s great for all sorts of iPhones, though. This is a bit of control many wanted: we know everyone has a different favorite grade, so we now let you reorganize them in our grade settings. Move your favorites to the top for easy access in the grade picker or Camera Control adjustment.
UPDATED FOR YOU
Hallo! Bonjour! こんにちは! We've localized Kino into Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Traditional Chinese.
UPDATED IN DEPTH
Last but not least, we've polished the app's design. We've tweaked edged, rounded some circles, and we are adding more icons to [REDACTED] in the hidden [REDACTED].
If you love this release, please leave us a review in the App Store! It really helps a lot and supports our continued development of the app.
While we're hard at work on our next big Kino update, we're releasing this smaller update with quality of life improvements and bug fixes. For example, the record button is easier to tap when you want to stop a recording! We've also improved how we parse LUTs, which should improve compatibility with some LUT generating apps.
This small update fixes a crash affecting some users on launch. It also fixes some quirks on "newer hardware."
Hey everyone! There are no new features in this update. Instead, we focused on improving performance and stability on older devices.
We've also improved how recordings are handled should Kino close unexpectedly, or if you accidentally unplug your hard drive mid-recording. But please don't do that. It's still bad.
We have much more planned for Kino, so stay tuned. In the mean time, check out everything we did with our last major update.
Kino 1.1 is our first big update to Kino, coming hot on the heels of our initial big release. “Blade Runner” packs in 3 new Grade presets, powerful white balance controls, toggleable tap to focus and more.
This has been influenced by your comments, emails, and other feedback - so thank you for telling us what you want and please send us more of your feedback if you have it!
Here’s what’s new:
GRADE NEWS
Great news for those that love our grades: new! grades! Stalman Film 03 is a brand new beautiful balanced film look by Tyler Stalman and earns a new slot at the top for all of you Apple Log shooters. Our own Sebastiaan de With has also added a moody, cool set of presets called Wallace and Tyrell. Tyrell is a cold-tinted, moody contrasty Apple Log grade perfect futuristic and architectural shots. Wallace is a Rec709 preset, packing all of Tyrell’s moodiness into all other color spaces.
BALANCED, LIKE ALL THINGS SHOULD BE
Speaking of color, white balance is a crucial aspect to shooting video. We now give you full control of white balance with our new, powerful white balance controls, in the Kino Quickbar. Choose from a set of presets or get precise with our new manual white balance dial, allowing you set a range of Kelvin temperature values. You can also quickly lock or unlock white balance in the new white balance menu.
REVOLUTIONARY NEW TAP TO FOCUS
Kino has great manual focus with our long-throw focus dial. But in Kino 1.1 a unique, intuitive new focus method is packed in too: you can now tap anywhere on the screen to set a focus point. We think you are going to love it. And if you do not, you can turn the feature off entirely to prevent any accidental taps from ruining your focus. A note: our focus attention point stays until Kino detects a scene shift. You can always tap the focus reticle to immediately dismiss it.
QUICK(ER) START
Are you a new user or still learning, or curious about Kino’s features? Those setting up Kino will be presented with a few quick tips, including our new 10 minute Quick Start video where Sebastiaan will show you around. Not new, but interested? Find this via the Settings - just tap the top card to view it.
BUGS, TWEAKS, SECRET STUFF
This update also packs in numerous tweaks, fixes and more. You’ll be delighted at the little touches we added and improved. And if you’re a particularly thorough fan of our apps, you might find a really nice bonus hidden somewhere in there. It might take you a few taps, though!Thanks for being a Kino user! Team Kino is shifting a bit towards our big Halide update next; stay tuned. If you love the work by our small team, spread the word, leave us a review, and share your beautiful videos with us on social media. Thank you!
I was expected to just write ‘bug fixes and minor improvements’ in here, but I refuse!
I am a creative, a writer, and this is my canvas. A blank sheet of expression, like a block of marble for a sculptor.
Can I, instead, take you, my humble reader, on a journey into the world of Kino? A story of a small team that relished its user feedback and bug reports so it could make its video app even better? Dive in:
Kino 1.0.6 is here!
Kino hasn’t been out for a month yet, but here is our sixth (!) update. And if you think that’s impressive, you should see what’s coming very soon.
In this update, Ben worked hard on this one:
• Fixed audio dropping if the device is under heavy load
Sometimes, iPhones can get extremely heavy system load from recording video and audio. It is about the most intensive thing for the hardware for your iPhone to do. This can degrade recordings, but we do our best to keep things running smoothly. We found an issue, however, where audio would very rarely get affected by this and skip or fail to save properly. This update fixes that.
• Persist the grid and waveform settings between launches
You asked, we shipped. We now persist your last chosen setting for the grid and waveform between launches.
• The 2.5× lens label looks nice now
It didn’t before. It had a makeover. It is happy about the result, which “represents [my] character and personality much better”. It’s said the 2.5 lens label is living its best life and “vibing”, whatever that means.
• Added volume button capture support
Click the volume button to start or stop recording. This also means Kino can capture / start recording with a host of accessories. If you have one, please test it and let us know if it works!
• Fix onboarding getting stuck if photo library access is denied
We would love to get Photo Library access if you intend to save videos to Photos, or want to apply a filter to your videos in Kino.
Just a reminder: we have no analytics and do not gather any personal info or photos and videos — that’s how a camera should work. We should also respect it, however, if you choose not to share access to your Photo Library with us, and we previously had an issue around that. This update fixes that.
We hope you love Kino. If you do, please leave us a review, and give us a shout out on social media! It really helps. Thanks from the Kino team!
Hello folks, welcome to another episode of Kino: Pro Video for iPhone.
In this episode, our characters spoke to users and tested things to find and fix issues relating to audio, stability and grade presets.
Read on for the plot summary of this week’s intruiging events:
[Spoilers ahead!]
Crash: Kino 1.0.5 fixes a crash some users could see when recording / writing a huge file under stress. Thanks to everyone who helped us troubleshoot this. If you had any issues with crashing, please let us know ASAP and we’ll work hard to fix it!
This particular issue was caused by the system being under heavy stress. A note from the team: recording 4K video at 60FPS in ProRes is amongst the most intense things your phone can do, so while we of course shouldn’t crash, you can except occasional slowness and high battery drain when in these kinds of settings.
Audio Stutter: Similarly, when under extremely high stress and when iPhone was hot, Kino could occasionally suffer from audio issues, including stutters or cut-outs. This version should fix that.
Where are my Grades?: Our top question by far via support has been, 'hey, where are all my grades?'.
In Kino, when you are picking a grade preset, we only show the ones compatible with your record settings. That means that you will see our special Apple Log presets for Apple Log, and regular presets in non-Log. That can be confusing when you see all of them in Settings. If you are looking for your preset, try switching capture modes from Apple Log to say, SDR P3. We will have a way to swich settings quickly in the Grade picker in a future update. That being said, only iPhone 15 Pro can record in Apple Log. Despite this, we still showed all presets that Kino has bundled in our Settings menu, which was confusing. We now only show the presets that are compatible with your device in the Settings menu for Grades.
Posterization: Some LUTs showed some banding at times, which we addressed. Less banding at lower quality settings for all.
There’s, of course, little tiny changes, improvements and touches about.
That is it for this episode.
If you enjoy Kino, leave us a nice review — it really helps us a lot! Our tiny team is thrilled with your feedback, so send us any including any bugs you might encounter so we can fix them for you promptly. All the best from your Kino + Halide team
In 1.0.4 we've fixed an issue where recording might stutter, an issue with banding on HEVC files, and worked around a bug in iOS that prevents the telephoto camera from working.
If you have any issues, please let us know at support@lux.camera.
Speed is here!
We're humbled by the kind words, and listening carefully to your feedback.
We have big plans ahead, but first, we're releasing these small updates to add some more polish and fix bugs.
In 1.0.3 we've improved performance. This means that Kino will feel more responsive, animations will run smoother, and your phone will use less power.
If you have any issues, please let us know at support@lux.camera. If you appreciate our hard weekend work, we'd love it if you could leave us a nice review. It goes a long way!
Thank you for using Kino! What a launch. Here's our second update.
We're humbled by the kind words, and listening carefully to your feedback. We have big plans ahead, but first, we're releasing these small updates to add some more polish and fix bugs. In 1.0.2 we...
- Fixed an issue where the first few frames of your first recording might flicker
- Fixed grades not being applied in the reviewer if you were at the end of the clip
- Fixed a crash when switching capture configurations and toggling stabilization
- Fixed the UI breaking in a few places if you have a large text settings
- Fixed the remaining storage estimate being off when Instant Grade is enabled
- Fixed files having long, random looking filenames when you share them
- Fixed USB-C microphones sometimes not connecting
- Fixed audio sometimes playing through the earpiece instead of the speakers
- Fixed a crash if you tried to contact support after deleting the Apple mail client
- Updated the Lektar Grade
- Added lots polish around padding and spelling
If you have any issues, please let us know at support@lux.camera. If you appreciate our hard weekend work, we'd love it if you could leave us a nice review. It goes a long way!
Thanks,Team Kino
Welcome to the very first Kino update! (that was quick)
We’re addressing a few small items in this update:
- Some recordings had an issue with the first moments of video not capturing audio correctly; this has been promptly fixed
- We removed a few high-framerate settings that were not possible
- The footer at the top of the Libraries hierarchy would confidently, yet incorrectly claim you were saving to Files when you had actually set Photos as storage for your recordings. It has been reprimanded and corrected in its behavior
It would mean the world to us if you could tell your friends about Kino during our limited-time launch sale, and leave us a review if you love the app! Thanks from Ben & Seb.
This is our initial release of Kino. We're excited to introduce Kino to the world with Instant Grade, AutoMotion, a simple and powerful interface and tons of features for pro level filmmaking.
Make great video easy! Kino lets you just press record and create cinematic video with color presets created by expert filmmakers—no edit required. Plus, with “AutoMotion,” the app automatically creates that smooth "film look" you see at the movies. Shoot great video with no film school required.
Are you an experienced filmmaker? Kino includes all the features you need to shoot like a Pro, such as a full manual mode, focus peaking, color waveform, audio meters, and more. If you’re experienced in color, you can import LUTs quickly and use the same powerful Instant Grade feature to output video with baked in LUTs.
Regardless of your skill level, Kino adapts to your needs. Pick your experience level when setting up the app to dial things in your way or go with recommended, simple settings. The beautiful, simple interface shows only essential things, while keeping powerful features under thumb’s reach.
INSTANT GRADE
Kino comes packed with pro color presets by experts like Stu Maschwitz, Sandwich Video, Evan Schneider, Tyler Stalman and Kevin Ong. With one tap, you can shoot video with cinematic, film-like color by selecting a Grade preset. With Instant Grade, you don’t have to apply it later or do any editing steps: Kino just saves the processed video for you, ready to share.
LEARN ALONG
Getting started with video? The Kino team has a free series of lessons prepared you can dive into right away to learn filmmaking with the app. Start out with our simple recommended settings and enroll in a lesson plan to get lessons emailed to you that are easy to follow and let you unlock every feature of the app to use for making better videos.
PRO TOOLS
Kino’s simple interface does not mean it lacks in powerful pro tools. Start out with automatic exposure with EV adjustment and AE and WB lock, or drop into full manual mode with shutter speed, angle and ISO adjustment. Compose a shot with the grid with built in level, check exposure with the RGB waveform, and pull focus with focus peaking. Kino can store your recordings in Files instead of Photos for better and easy shot management, and even features a screen lock to prevent inadvertent taps messing up your shot. Set custom recording settings (like 4K 60FPS Apple Log ProRes422HQ on iPhone 15 Pro) or get started with presets for flexibiltiy.
BEAUTIFUL INTERFACE
Thoughtful touches are abound in Kino: from a screen-wide telltale ring to show you are recording, to beautiful custom typography throughout with our own bespoke fonts, Kino balances beauty and simplicity with flexibility and control for users of any skill level.
AUTOMOTION
Get cinematic motion like in feature films. Introducing: AutoMotion. Kino biases exposure towards a 180° shutter speed by default. If you land in this sweet spot, and available light supports it, the ‘Auto’ label turns green — showing you are in the sweet spot for great cinematic motion. Bright day out? Pop an ND filter on your iPhone and don’t worry about adjusting manual settings: Kino will take care of prioritizing shutter angle so you can just shoot and get great results.
LUT FRIENDLY
One of the powerful aspects of Kino is being able to download new looks from your favorite creators or your own making. Author .cube LUT files in Pixelmator Pro, Davinci Resolve, or other apps (up to 33x33) and open them in Kino with a tap.
TRULY PRIVATE
None of our apps gather or collect data, or analyze your videos and photos. We believe the most important thing a camera can be is private.
CREATOR SPECIAL
Are you a creator or filmmaker and want to get started with or love using Kino? Get in touch with us to get our ‘Creator Kit’: see the Kino website for more details. When sharing your work, tag it #shotwithkino so we can feature it online.
Thanks for making it this far! Kino is made by friends — Ben Sandofsky and Sebastiaan de With, with the help of Katie-Rose Summerfield and Doug Broussard. We made this app with love and care and we hope you love it.
