LG Cine Shot is an easy way to make cinemagraphs on the LG V40

You’re likely wondering what a cinemagraph is, and why LG wants you to create one.

First off, it is like a GIF, except only a specific part of the image is moving. The result is an impressive visual effect that might stand out from all the Boomerangs on Instagram. On the upcoming LG V40 ThinQ smartphone, LG wants to give creators and everyday users alike an easy way to make one.

Cine Shot allows you to make a simple cinemagraph from the main camera app. So while there are plenty of third-party apps for iOS and Android for making them, this wouldn’t be an extra download.

This camera mode will be available first on the LG V40 ThinQ, an upcoming smartphone that features a triple-lens rear camera. It’ll be one of the camera app’s many modes, but LG considers it a standout feature.

Cine Shot records a 3-second video, processes it, and then lets you brush over the area you’d like to animate. You can pinch and zoom for more accuracy when selecting those areas. However, after you make choices, you can’t go back and edit the animation since it saves the image as a video file. Hopefully LG will address this in a future update since it limits what you can do. 

For now, you can’t easily shoot Cine Shots one after another. After recording one, the app requires you to choose what to animate and save it as a locked video file. Cine Shots aren’t meant to be rapid-fire.

Still, it’s relatively easy to use quickly, and having a Cine Shot mode in the main camera app means a lot more people will use the feature who otherwise wouldn’t. I used it to get arty with all kinds of moments — from traffic going into the Lincoln Tunnel in New York City to stopping time for someone jumping on the street, keeping everything else at a standstill. 

And the more important takeaway is Cine Shot is really fun! A feature like this is typical LG, which often introduces new, differentiating features with each device. Sometimes they go over like lead balloons and are abandoned, but every now and then one catches on. We’ll know which one this is if you see it on the iPhone a couple of years down the road.