What do you mean by this? Phone camera stills and video are far better than anything I grew up with in the 80s/90s. The technological leap is amazing, especially in low light. And that’s just the phones. The dSLRs and mirrorless are bonkers better. Or are you trying to say that video has lost better pictures by being vertical? I certainly don’t agree with that.
At an LCD Soundsystem concert some years back they asked us to only use our phones to record them/take pictures during one song, otherwise please put them away.
During that song, a message scrolled around the arena: "for god’s sake, record us in LANDSCAPE, not PORTRAIT’.
A lot of the vertical video doomscrollbait now seems to have the ‘content’ in the top half, with unrelated footage of gaming or ‘satisfying visuals’ in the bottom half. It’s almost like portrait format isn’t the right shape!
They can. It never caught on. I have one abandoned app on my phone specifically for this, but it should be a built-in option for every video app.
Why do I use it (when I use it)? Because phones are much more clumsy to securely hold and operate horizontally than vertically. (Plus it rotationally stabilizes the video.)
The answer is simple. It’s much harder to hold the phone horizontally than vertically.
Am I the only one who doesn’t find that to be the case? Maybe I’ve just got big hands (I don’t think I have).
I think it’s generally easier to operate and hold steady a phone that’s in vertical orientation than horizontal - especially if you are operating the camera button with the thumb of the same hand you are using to hold the phone (for most people whose thumbs bend sufficiently to do that - mine doesn’t).
I used to record all of my videos on a phone and I found (when holding it horizontally in my right hand) that if I was moving, there was a tendency for the left-hand end of the phone (where the camera lens is) to flap or bob, causing a lot of shake in the footage. I also found that holding the phone this way requires the elbow to be lifted out to about 45+ degrees (to keep the wrist straight and comfortable) - this could be tiring.
I just tried holding the phone vertically - there’s no ‘flap’, because the lens is directly above your hand, and the elbow can lay down against the side of your body as normal.
For my anatomy at least, holding the phone vertically is more comfortable than holding it horizontally (and I suppose this is why most phones are built to be held that way for normal, non-camera usage these days). Because I didn’t want to actually record vertical footage, I solved the comfort and stability issues by adding a short handle, then later a gimbal, then later, using a different camera altogether, but still one that has a handle that can be held vertically (like say an umbrella handle or lollipop stick); the wrist joint is in a neutral position when I hold something this way.
I doom scrolled twenty videos and got 3 like these and all three were non original content and also old content (one Richard Pryor, one Muhammad Ali), so not stuff that was recorded with smart phone consumption in mind. Of course, this depends on what the algorithm feeds you as if you get more or fewer of these, but in my experience it tends to be repurposed content made ages ago. Sometimes it’s modern content, but usually also stolen, square pegged into a round hole.
Yes, for a still photograph you should choose portrait or landscape based on the composition of the shot.
With video it’s different because video will normally be played on a landscape oriented monitor or TV so it’s best to shoot horizontal. Now, some folks are also going to be watching videos on phones. No problem because you can turn your phone to horizontal to watch video but TikTok, et. al. has “trained” people to view videos otherwise.
Also, people normally hold and read from their phones in vertical orientation and this apparently causes people to shoot vertically. Weird stuff.
I suppose many of these vertical videos are not meant to be used “professionally” in standard video presentation so… whatever… TikTokkers gonna TikTok.
I will very occasionally shoot a close up of a person standing (or other vertically oriented subjects like a skyscraper or rocket) in vertical mode but in post-production I will include that vertical image as just one part of a finished full-screen horizontal video. I will add other content to fill out the screen (generally I’ll push the vertical vid to one side and then add a different, squarish video on the other side to fill out the screen. Most TikTok shooters aren’t going to do that and their finished product will be vertical only.
It all depends on who your intended viewers are. If you are shooting for TikTik or Instagram it’s probably best to shoot vertical. If, however, you are shooting for PBS or the BBC or television/streaming news in general, you had better not do that. PBS and BBC most likely wouldn’t even accept any vertically shot video with exceptions made depending on how important/compelling the video is.*
I think vertical video is a big no-go for anything more important than what Susie just had for lunch.
It’s simple. TVs, computers and cinema screens are 16:9 (give or take) they are not 9:16. Shoot accordingly.
*I call it the “Zapruder Rule”. If you have workable images of the president being assassinated (or plane crash, etc.) then it doesn’t matter how poor the aesthetics of your video are. If you have vertically shot video of a hugely important event even the Beeb or PBS will want to use it (after fiddling with it to better work within their very strict standards). The less important the vertical video you have is, the less that established media will be willing to use it.
In case they want/hope their video to be seen on anything other than TikTok / Insta. As I said earlier–if the video is important enough it doesn’t matter how you shot it but’s that accounts for maybe 2% of all video shot.
Shooting anything vertically other than your friend doing the latest goofy dance craze means it will have very, very little use to the majority of content providers. If you have horizontal video that you
for some reason want to use for a TikTok or whatever you simply post-process it (Premiere, Avid, whatever) to make it suitable for vertical viewing. That works much better than the janky post-production with the blurry sides used to prepare vertical video for horizontal presentation.
Ooooops… three posts in a row. Sorry I didn’t have time to add to the previous post(s).
Well, yes. I’m careful how I’ve been phrasing my responses. For phone, yes, for other media, shoot horizontal.
Seems to me the solution is obvious. Which solution YouTube has already embraced.
A landscape-oriented video viewed on a portrait-oriented phone occupies about one third of the vertical space on the phone screen.
So as soon as tiktok and instagam switch to displaying ads on the bottom 2/3rds of every screen and the actual subject vid only in the upper third, very quickly the public will switch to landscape recording. Because the only thing dumber than viewing a portrait-shot vid on a PC or TV is viewing a potrait-shot vid occupying 1/3rd of the width of 1/3rd of the height of a portrait phone screen.
That is how we stamp out portrait-shot vid.
Good luck with that. Vertical vid ain’t going nowhere. I suppose I won’t be seeing you at any vertical film festivals any time soon (there’s at least three of them. It’s a valid artistic/practical choice.) 
I don’t have a dog in the fight personally.
But I think the power of advertising as a force for enshittification is nearly unlimited. Once the suits at tiktok or instagram notice this opportunity IMO the transition will be quick, but brutal.
An awful lot of videos are played on phones these days. I like the vertical orientation of YouTube shorts.
And most of those news services that show video on TVs are also releasing video on Twitter (X, bluesky, whatever) where they will be viewed vertically.
Got a new device I see.