How to record portrait and landscape video at the same time on iPhone

Short answer: your iPhone captures one frame per take, so "both portrait and landscape" is really a cropping problem, not a two-camera problem. You have two real options: (1) record once in one orientation and crop a copy to the other shape afterward in Photos, or (2) capture both crops live as you record. Method 1 is free and built in but loses quality and edge content; method 2 keeps full quality for both and decides framing at capture. PostReady Dual Recorder Camera is the method-2 path.

Why this is a cropping problem (the part most articles skip)

When you record video, the iPhone writes a single frame buffer per take at one aspect ratio. There is no hidden "other format" recorded alongside it. So getting a 9:16 and a 16:9 of the same moment always comes down to: from that one captured area, which rectangle do you keep?

That's why a second physical camera isn't the answer to this particular need. Front+back/multicam gives you two angles, but for cross-posting the same shot you don't want two angles, you want two crops of the one angle. (If two angles is genuinely what you want, that's a different tool; see dual-aspect vs dual-camera.)

Method 1, record once, crop a copy in Photos (free, built in)

1. Record your video, ideally in the wider 16:9 orientation (so there's more frame to crop from).
2. In Photos, duplicate the clip so you keep the original.
3. Open the duplicate, tap Edit, use the crop tool, and crop it to a 9:16 vertical.
4. Save. Now you have a wide original and a vertical copy.

The honest downsides: you can only ever crop inward, so the 9:16 copy discards roughly the side thirds of the wide frame, if you didn't frame for it, you'll clip heads or text. You also re-export the cropped copy, which adds a generation of compression. And you have to remember to frame loosely enough that a vertical crop even works, which is exactly the thing that's hard to judge after the fact.

Method 2, capture both crops live (PostReady)

1. Open PostReady. You see two live guides at once, the 9:16 portrait crop and the 16:9 landscape crop.
2. Compose so your subject sits well inside both guides.
3. Record once. PostReady writes both crops from the same source frame and saves a portrait file and a landscape file to Photos.

Why it's better for this job: you decide framing for both formats before you commit, so neither version is a compromise of the other; and each file is written from the source rather than re-cropped from an already-exported clip. Free output is 1080p30 with audio, no watermark, clips up to 1 minute each.

The honest limit: the live overlay is a framing guide, not a pixel-exact preview of the saved files. It tells you where each crop sits; give edges a little margin rather than treating the guide line as a hard boundary.

Which method should you use?

	Crop in Photos (Method 1)	PostReady (Method 2)
Cost	Free, built in	Free tier; Pro for longer/4K
Quality	Re-export adds compression	Each file written from source
Framing	Decided after the fact	Decided live, for both
Edge content	Lost on the crop	Composed for both up front
Effort	Per-clip manual crop each time	One take, two files

If you only occasionally need a second format and don't mind the manual crop, Photos is fine and you already own it. If you do this regularly and want both formats framed right, capturing both crops live saves the repeated work. See PostReady vs cropping in Photos for the deeper comparison.

Educational note: "single frame buffer per take" and the in-Photos crop/duplicate steps describe standard iOS Camera and Photos behavior on current iPhones (Apple, support.apple.com, Photos editing). The product steps describe PostReady directly.

Get it

If you want both formats without re-cropping, download PostReady Dual Recorder Camera on the App Store.