14 DAY TRIAL // The coveted Night Sight feature that initially arrived only on Pixel 3 phones exclusively is now available for all supported Pixel phones.
When Google presented, fleetingly, the new Night Sight feature for Pixel 3, a lot of people were a little bit dismissive, and for good reason. There was no way that a phone could take such amazing pictures in low light environments.
Fast forward a few weeks later, and people started to test the new Night Sight feature. And, lo and behold, it’s actually better than originally presented by Google. In fact, it’s so good that no other competitor has anything that comes close. Probably, the latest Samsung Note with its variable aperture option could compete, but it’s still not enough.
What exactly is Night Sight?
We all know that if we try to take a photo in low light conditions, with no flash, of course, the results are usually terrible. There are multiple factors at play here, such as the small size of the sensor in the camera, the tightly packed pixels that produce noise, and the lack of manual options.
There are two solutions to the low light problem. One is longer exposure, and the other one consists of multiple overlaid images of the same area (also referred to as HDR+). Longer exposures work great, but you need a steady hand and a larger sensor to eliminate most of the noise.
Since phones don’t have large camera sensors, the second solution is preferred. So, Google figured out a way to overlap multiple images, taken very rapidly, and use a powerful algorithm to enhance the overall exposure.
The result is impressive, with a single drawback. You can’t have anything moving in the shot, but that’s also true for long exposures. A much more comprehensive technical explanation was laid out by Google’s Marc Levoy and Yael Pritch in a blog post.
Now available on all supported Pixel phones
Shortly after the new feature arrived on Google Pixel 3 phones, the application was made by the community to work on Pixel 2 as well, and a few other devices. Now, Google updated the app to work with all the supported Pixel phones.
The update is still rolling out, so it might be a while until you get the update for the Google Camera. If you don’t want to wait, you can always download the official APK from Softpedia and sideload it to your favorite Pixel phone (a handy tutorial is available as well). It should work on the first generation of Pixel phones, although not with the same great results since it doesn’t have optical stabilization.
Without Night Sight (default settings, no flash)
With Night Sight
