Google Pixel’s Night Sight
Whatever Apple does with the iPhone camera this year, they need to be able to compete with Pixel night mode. All taken on 18 month old Pixel 2 in challenging / dark conditions, and no iPhone photo at night comes close[…]
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Seriously Google camera team: great job. You took a tiny sensor, put magic in the software and the results are unbelievable for a phone camera.
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For those who haven’t used night sight on Pixel, it’s not ~just~ the magic in software. Pics also look better because the mode takes 2-5 seconds to take a photo. More light is captured, and movement stabilised. That’s what gives it the edge. That’s why iOS should offer this mode
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No before/after pics online will do justice to photographing a near pitch-black room and getting a usable photo. Genuinely mind blowing.
Google’s Pixel phones have already changed and improved smartphone photography dramatically, but the latest addition to them might be the biggest leap forward yet. Night Sight is the next evolution of Google’s computational photography, combining machine learning, clever algorithms, and up to four seconds of exposure to generate shockingly good low-light images. I’ve tried it ahead of its upcoming release, courtesy of a camera app tweak released by XDA Developers user cstark27, and the results are nothing short of amazing. Even in its pre-official state before Google is officially happy enough to ship it, this new night mode makes any Pixel phone that uses it the best low-light camera.
Previously: Google Pixel 3 and 3 XL, iPhone XS Users Complain About Skin-Smoothing Selfie Camera, The iPhone XS and Its Camera, iPhone and Android Cameras.
Update (2019-02-05): Stephen Sullivan:
As for a Night Sight comparison:
no flash was used, one photo is from the iPhone XR and one from the Pixel 3 with Night Sight feature on. 😯
3 Comments RSS · Twitter
Night Sight is awesome and is one unequivocal advantage over the iPhone's camera. I don't care about the hypothesis that maybe Apple isn't interested in camera features that can't show in realtime. I want Night Sight on my iPhone.
Huawei's camera app has had a similar feature since at least 2015. It takes super long exposures, up to about a minute, and I think it also takes different pictures at different exposures automatically. The results, even on an old phone like the P8 Max, look better than anything else you can do on any other device. I have no idea why everybody isn't doing this.
