How to shoot 4K video at 60 FPS on iPhone and iPad

Follow the steps in this tutorial to set your iPhone or iPad to shoot in 4K resolution at 60 frames per second, and get the best possible video quality out of your camera.

Shoot videos at 4K 60 FPS on iPhone

How to shoot 4K video at 60 frames per second

  1. Open the iPhone or iPad Settings app and tap Camera.
  2. Select Formats and make sure Most Compatible is checked.
  3. Now tap the back button from the top left to return to the previous screen. From here, tap Record Video.
  4. Select 4K at 60 fps from the list.
Select 4K at 60 fps in iPhone camera settings

You have set your iPhone to record videos in 4K resolution at 60 frames per second. Now, open the Camera app and go to the VIDEO section. You’ll see 4K . 60 in the top right corner. Now, any video you shoot will be in this format. It will be saved as a .MOV file inside the Photos app.

You can easily change the video quality and FPS just by tapping it from inside the Camera app.

iPhone camera shooting videos in 4K 60 FPS

The good and bad of shooting in 4K at 60 fps

4K resolution provides a higher level of detail and clarity in your videos, making them look more professional and cinematic. And at 60 frames per second, it allows for smoother motion and better captures fast-moving action, such as sports or action scenes. 4K and 60 fps can be especially beneficial when filming activities with a lot of movement or when you plan to edit the footage, as it gives you more flexibility in post-production.

The benefits of 4K at 60 fps are enticing, but they do come with a few tradeoffs. Shooting videos in 4K at 60 frames per second on an iPhone can be quite demanding on the device’s resources, which can lead to decreased battery life and increased heat generation. Additionally, the larger file sizes of 4K videos can take up more storage space on the device, making it harder to keep multiple videos on the phone at once.

Supported iPhone shooting modes

  • 1080p HD at 30 FPS: iPhone 4s and later
  • 1080p HD at 60 FPS (smoother): iPhone 6 and later
  • 1080p HD at 120 FPS (slow motion): iPhone 6s and later
  • 1080p HD at 240 FPS (ultra slow motion): iPhone 8, iPhone X, and later
  • 4K at 24 FPS (higher resolution, film style): iPhone 8, iPhone X, and later
  • 4K at 30 FPS (higher resolution): iPhone 6s and later
  • 4K at 60 FPS (higher resolution, smoother): iPhone 8, iPhone X, and all later models

Higher frame rates modes like 1080p at 240 FPS and 4K at 60 FPS require hardware codec support (HEVC, also known as H.265) built into the A11 Bionic chip and later.

Extra info: At 3,840-by-2,160 pixels, 4K has four times the pixels of 1080p (1,920-by-1,080 pixels).

Related: 10 free ways to send large videos and files from iPhone

File size shootout: H.265 vs. H.264

One minute of H.265-encoded 4K/60 FPS video takes up 400 MB of storage on the device. By comparison, a minute of 4K/30 FPS footage (half the frame rate) compressed with the older H.264 codec will cost you about 350 MB of storage.

Bottom line: The more modern H.265 codec needs only 50 extra megabytes per minute for smooth 4K video at twice the frame rate of its H.264 counterpart without any loss of quality.

About watching 4K video on iPhone

There’s no need to shoot in 4K unless you plan on enjoying your high-resolution footage on a 4K/5K iMac, Apple TV 4K, or an external 4K monitor, or uploading to a platform like that supports it like YouTube. No iPhones or iPads can reproduce 4K video pixel by pixel — iOS downscales 4K video clips to the display resolution, which technically results in loss of detail.

Though the 60Hz and 120Hz display refresh rate on iPhone and iPad allows these devices to reproduce the smoothness of 60 FPS video.

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