AndroidTutor2018- Smartphone cameras have a problem: the Image sensors are extremely small. At night, it is especially difficult to have sufficient light for a nice photo, which often makes your photos come out full of noise or blurry. We’ll show you a few tips and tricks on how you can shoot good photos in the dark.
Best Android camera phones
How to take better photos with your phone
Why low light is a problem
For starters, here's some background on physical and technical aspects of why taking a photo in the dark is so difficult. As I already mentioned in the intro: size is the problem. The light-sensitive area in most sensors that are integrated in smartphones is roughly 15 to 30 mm². In comparison: Full-format image sensors from our editor’s DSLR camera have an area of roughly 860 mm² – that is 30 to 60 times more.
While small smartphone sensors can gather enough light during the day, the chip simply receives too little photons in the dark. However, there are now several ways that phones take a bright picture, although each has its pros and cons.
The blue and red areas illustrate the size ratio between the image sensor in a professional DSLR and the largest one that you can find in current high-end smartphones. / © AndroidPIT
Greater sensitivity
Whether you’ve tinkered around with ISO values before or not: you must have encountered the term at some point. To produce a bright picture in low light using a small sensor, you can simply amplify the image sensor’s light sensitivity. The camera app does this by itself when taking pictures in automatic mode.
However, greater ISO sensitivity also produces greater read errors that manifest themselves as image noise, loss of detail and washed colors, among other things. In short: The pictures are indeed bright and mostly sharp, but they're not really presentable most of the time.
Greater ISO sensitivities produce a brighter image and faster shutter speeds at the same time. However, image quality is increasingly affected above ISO 400. / © AndroidPIT
If your smartphone doesn't let you manually adjust ISO sensitivity, there are different apps you can use instead. Camera FV-5 Lite (Android) or Pro Camera (Apple), for instance, offer numerous settings options. Unlike the iPhone, however, most Android smartphones and their camera apps offer numerous manual options.
More light
How to take better photos with your phone
Why low light is a problem
For starters, here's some background on physical and technical aspects of why taking a photo in the dark is so difficult. As I already mentioned in the intro: size is the problem. The light-sensitive area in most sensors that are integrated in smartphones is roughly 15 to 30 mm². In comparison: Full-format image sensors from our editor’s DSLR camera have an area of roughly 860 mm² – that is 30 to 60 times more.
While small smartphone sensors can gather enough light during the day, the chip simply receives too little photons in the dark. However, there are now several ways that phones take a bright picture, although each has its pros and cons.
The blue and red areas illustrate the size ratio between the image sensor in a professional DSLR and the largest one that you can find in current high-end smartphones. / © AndroidPIT
Greater sensitivity
Whether you’ve tinkered around with ISO values before or not: you must have encountered the term at some point. To produce a bright picture in low light using a small sensor, you can simply amplify the image sensor’s light sensitivity. The camera app does this by itself when taking pictures in automatic mode.
However, greater ISO sensitivity also produces greater read errors that manifest themselves as image noise, loss of detail and washed colors, among other things. In short: The pictures are indeed bright and mostly sharp, but they're not really presentable most of the time.
Greater ISO sensitivities produce a brighter image and faster shutter speeds at the same time. However, image quality is increasingly affected above ISO 400. / © AndroidPIT
If your smartphone doesn't let you manually adjust ISO sensitivity, there are different apps you can use instead. Camera FV-5 Lite (Android) or Pro Camera (Apple), for instance, offer numerous settings options. Unlike the iPhone, however, most Android smartphones and their camera apps offer numerous manual options.
More light
More light is required to keep the sensor sensitivity low (and hence also reduce image noise). As silly as it may sound, this can be achieved by adding sources of light to the subject. The smartphone’s integrated photo LED is always available here. Many modern phones even have several LEDs to adjust the flash’s light color to the environmental lighting. It's quite effective at preventing color casts and the images look decent.
However, these integrated camera LEDs also have their drawbacks. The flash from the camera’s line of sight eliminates all shadows – often making the subject look very two-dimensional and even “flat”. Therefore, the integrated flash should only be used when absolutely necessary.
In most cases, however, there are other options to ensure more light. If you take a picture of a moving object, then the location changes. When taking a portrait, take a few steps over to the nearest street lamp, or to a brighter corner of the bar. Take all steps to ensure that light does not come directly from above to the greatest extent possible, since that causes awful-looking shadowing on the face.
Longer exposure time
If you can no longer add any light to the subject, then you must give your smartphone more time. A longer exposure time lets the image sensor “see” the subject longer and gather more photons. As well as brighter photos, it also has an additional effect: Anything that moves is blurry. In the worst-case scenario, it causes blurry shots, but it also for example, it turns passing cars into long trails of light.
Many current smartphones offer a pro mode with manual options. The shutter speed here is set to 1/20 second. More seconds may be used at night, too. / © AndroidPIT
To increase the exposure time, you need the manual mode, often called “pro mode” or something similar. This questionable option is called shutter speed, exposure time or is simply and poignantly abbreviated with “S”. Most smartphones in automatic mode take pictures at a maximum speed of 1/10 second – longer exposure times require you to keep your hand very very still or else the shots will come out blurry.
Passing trams and cars or fireworks in the sky turn into beautiful traces of light at two to eight seconds. To depict a landscape illuminated by the moon, you may need to use a 30-second exposure time, which is the maximum in many camera apps. If the images turn out too bright at longer exposure times, you must ensure that the ISO sensitivity is set to “automatic” or to a low value. If that doesn’t help, then the subject is quite simply too bright and you need to correct it by decreasing the exposure time.
In this photo, a Mate 9 is simply leaned against an office window that's wet with snow. For such shots, Huawei’s camera app offers the “light painting” option, which opens the shutter for as long as the user wants - in this case, roughly 65 seconds. / © AndroidPIT
Of course, for long exposure times, it's extremely important that the smartphone does not move during the shot. To do this, you can either fix or lean your phone on something, or use an accessory, which brings us to our next point.
Accessories
Anyone who finds nighttime photography fun and regularly takes shots in the dark should probably consider one accessory: a tripod. Since smartphones are light and compact compared to full-fledged cameras, the same applies to the tripod as well. For instance, you can obtain a small Gorillapod for less than $15 or you can get the Gorillapod and a corresponding smartphone universal adaptor for $20. Both objects together fit comfortably in your jacket pocket and are ready to use in a few seconds.
While the LG G6 requires accessories for long exposure times, the Xperia XZ Premium can stand on its side by itself. / © AndroidPIT
Sony also gets another bonus point: Most smartphones from the Japanese company have a particularly flat bottom, so they can sit on their sides without requiring extra accesories for long exposure times.
Summary
You can choose between many different accessories to take beautiful pictures, even in poor lighting conditions. As is generally the case when it comes to photography, I can only give you one piece of advice: Take the time to try different things out. Familiarize yourself with your camera app’s settings. And above all, take many many pictures, because photography itself - not reading articles like this one - will make you a better photographer.
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9 Rothman 2 months ago Link to comment
The picture shoot by Mate 9 above is fabulous and impressive!
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6 thenext 2 months ago Link to comment
thanks for article
0
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25 Dean L. 2 months ago Link to comment
I currently use my photo gorilla pod and use my selfie stick holder on it to hold my phone to take difficult night shots. I also use any flat surface as well. But I have to say that not all phone sensors and apps work well for night shots. My phone has a night shot mode and it doesn't really do that great of a job so I've resorted to using the manual mode. I also just started using the open camera app and need to play around some more with it and compare shots from my stock camera app but I do like it. Thanks for sharing this info.
2 Rothmanthenext
Reply
2 Arkaya Bach 2 months ago Link to comment
Quite informative. Thanks Stefan!
0
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18 Albin Foro 2 months ago Link to comment
Good basics about the three exposure variables: ISO, shutter speed and aperture. Simple camera apps limited to "Auto" exposure will ratchet up the ISO and spoil low light shots, if so it pays to install a good third party app for control. I bought Camera FV-5 years ago, it's excellent but the "Lite" version is seriously crippled and FV-5 doesn't support video. The most complete free camera app right now is Open Camera (Mark Harman) - but camera GUIs differ a lot and it's worth testing free versions of highly rated ones and buying the most personally comfortable. (A big benefit of third party camera apps is they'll follow the user to new or different phones, no time wasted learning changing OEM stock apps.)
UPDATE: I was surprised to find the excellent free Open Camera requires Camera2 API for slow shutter, while paid Camera FV-5 will do 30 seconds on any Android 5+ phone.
One small tip about slow shutter speeds is to set several seconds of delay between the shutter press and activation. Even on a tripod, the camera movement from a finger can blur the shot.
2 RothmanDean L.
Reply
12 Doug D. 2 months ago Link to comment
Very nice write up, I enjoy articles of this sort a great deal. Thanks.
1 Manuel
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Write a comment!
However, these integrated camera LEDs also have their drawbacks. The flash from the camera’s line of sight eliminates all shadows – often making the subject look very two-dimensional and even “flat”. Therefore, the integrated flash should only be used when absolutely necessary.
In most cases, however, there are other options to ensure more light. If you take a picture of a moving object, then the location changes. When taking a portrait, take a few steps over to the nearest street lamp, or to a brighter corner of the bar. Take all steps to ensure that light does not come directly from above to the greatest extent possible, since that causes awful-looking shadowing on the face.
Longer exposure time
If you can no longer add any light to the subject, then you must give your smartphone more time. A longer exposure time lets the image sensor “see” the subject longer and gather more photons. As well as brighter photos, it also has an additional effect: Anything that moves is blurry. In the worst-case scenario, it causes blurry shots, but it also for example, it turns passing cars into long trails of light.
Many current smartphones offer a pro mode with manual options. The shutter speed here is set to 1/20 second. More seconds may be used at night, too. / © AndroidPIT
To increase the exposure time, you need the manual mode, often called “pro mode” or something similar. This questionable option is called shutter speed, exposure time or is simply and poignantly abbreviated with “S”. Most smartphones in automatic mode take pictures at a maximum speed of 1/10 second – longer exposure times require you to keep your hand very very still or else the shots will come out blurry.
Passing trams and cars or fireworks in the sky turn into beautiful traces of light at two to eight seconds. To depict a landscape illuminated by the moon, you may need to use a 30-second exposure time, which is the maximum in many camera apps. If the images turn out too bright at longer exposure times, you must ensure that the ISO sensitivity is set to “automatic” or to a low value. If that doesn’t help, then the subject is quite simply too bright and you need to correct it by decreasing the exposure time.
In this photo, a Mate 9 is simply leaned against an office window that's wet with snow. For such shots, Huawei’s camera app offers the “light painting” option, which opens the shutter for as long as the user wants - in this case, roughly 65 seconds. / © AndroidPIT
Of course, for long exposure times, it's extremely important that the smartphone does not move during the shot. To do this, you can either fix or lean your phone on something, or use an accessory, which brings us to our next point.
Accessories
Anyone who finds nighttime photography fun and regularly takes shots in the dark should probably consider one accessory: a tripod. Since smartphones are light and compact compared to full-fledged cameras, the same applies to the tripod as well. For instance, you can obtain a small Gorillapod for less than $15 or you can get the Gorillapod and a corresponding smartphone universal adaptor for $20. Both objects together fit comfortably in your jacket pocket and are ready to use in a few seconds.
While the LG G6 requires accessories for long exposure times, the Xperia XZ Premium can stand on its side by itself. / © AndroidPIT
Sony also gets another bonus point: Most smartphones from the Japanese company have a particularly flat bottom, so they can sit on their sides without requiring extra accesories for long exposure times.
Summary
You can choose between many different accessories to take beautiful pictures, even in poor lighting conditions. As is generally the case when it comes to photography, I can only give you one piece of advice: Take the time to try different things out. Familiarize yourself with your camera app’s settings. And above all, take many many pictures, because photography itself - not reading articles like this one - will make you a better photographer.
172 Shares
Share on Facebook Tweet on Twitter Share on Google+ 172 Shares
More from the web
Single in Monterey Park? See Who’s on MatchMatch.com
We Tried HelloFresh: Here's What HappenedPopdust for HelloFresh
Monterey Park, California: This Brilliant Company Is Disrupting a $200 Billion IndustryEverQuote Insurance Quotes
Do You Come From Royal Blood? Your Last Name May Tell You.Ancestry
by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links
6 comments
Write a comment!
Write new comment:
SubmitCancel
9 Rothman 2 months ago Link to comment
The picture shoot by Mate 9 above is fabulous and impressive!
0
Reply
6 thenext 2 months ago Link to comment
thanks for article
0
Reply
25 Dean L. 2 months ago Link to comment
I currently use my photo gorilla pod and use my selfie stick holder on it to hold my phone to take difficult night shots. I also use any flat surface as well. But I have to say that not all phone sensors and apps work well for night shots. My phone has a night shot mode and it doesn't really do that great of a job so I've resorted to using the manual mode. I also just started using the open camera app and need to play around some more with it and compare shots from my stock camera app but I do like it. Thanks for sharing this info.
2 Rothmanthenext
Reply
2 Arkaya Bach 2 months ago Link to comment
Quite informative. Thanks Stefan!
0
Reply
18 Albin Foro 2 months ago Link to comment
Good basics about the three exposure variables: ISO, shutter speed and aperture. Simple camera apps limited to "Auto" exposure will ratchet up the ISO and spoil low light shots, if so it pays to install a good third party app for control. I bought Camera FV-5 years ago, it's excellent but the "Lite" version is seriously crippled and FV-5 doesn't support video. The most complete free camera app right now is Open Camera (Mark Harman) - but camera GUIs differ a lot and it's worth testing free versions of highly rated ones and buying the most personally comfortable. (A big benefit of third party camera apps is they'll follow the user to new or different phones, no time wasted learning changing OEM stock apps.)
UPDATE: I was surprised to find the excellent free Open Camera requires Camera2 API for slow shutter, while paid Camera FV-5 will do 30 seconds on any Android 5+ phone.
One small tip about slow shutter speeds is to set several seconds of delay between the shutter press and activation. Even on a tripod, the camera movement from a finger can blur the shot.
2 RothmanDean L.
Reply
12 Doug D. 2 months ago Link to comment
Very nice write up, I enjoy articles of this sort a great deal. Thanks.
1 Manuel
Reply
Write a comment!
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