Over the past few years, Apple has steadily added pro-grade video capture capabilities to the iPhone's camera arsenal. The ability to capture ProRes videos, support for Log format, and 4K 120 fps recording are now possible on the flagship iPhones. However, these files also take up a lot of space, so much so that Apple even limits the capture quality on iPhones with only 128 GB storage. That's a necessity because ProRes files can take roughly 30 times more space than your average HEVC videos on iPhones.

Thankfully, Apple lets you capture hi-res videos and write them directly on an external storage drive. The best part is that you don't need to go through any technical hoops on your iPhone to capture videos on an external drive. All you need to do is enable ProRes mode for the camera app, plug in the storage drive via the USB-C port, and you're good to go on the shutter button. In other good news, Apple hasn't locked this facility to its own app; you can also take advantage of this flexibility in third-party apps like Blackmagic Camera.

If you prefer the features available in the stock iPhone camera app, just follow these steps to enable external video capture: