I mentioned yesterday that my new Pixel 6 Pro phone has not just a pretty good normal camera but also an awesome low-light camera. I'll show you an example.
In the early hours of the morning everyone is asleep except me, and the only light in the bedroom is my reading lamp. I can tell you from experience that my regular camera is barely able to take a legible picture in this light, but the Pixel 6 didn't have a big problem:
Not great but not bad. It's perfectly good for everyday purposes like posting to Facebook or something like that. But here's what you get when you turn on Night Sight:
This is much better. It's less shadowy, less noisy, and the colors are more accurate. It's not super sharp, but even on this score it's not bad.
There's no magic in how this is done: Night Sight keeps the shutter open for four seconds. My regular camera could do just as well or better if I used a long shutter speed like that.
But a 4-second exposure with my regular camera would only work if the camera were on a tripod. Even with image stabilization, I couldn't keep it steady for nearly long enough with hand holding. All I'd get is a big blur.
This is where the magic comes in. The Pixel 6 software apparently has some kind of wildly great image stabilization. It works better the steadier the camera is, but even if you're hand holding the phone it does pretty well. I don't know for sure what it's doing, but I suspect it's a combination of super stabilization plus stacking (taking multiple pictures and then merging them).
Now, one thing to keep in mind is that super stabilization will remove camera shake, but it won't remove target shake. That is, if your subject is moving then you'll get a blurred subject. In a picture like this, however, where everyone is snoozing, it works fine.
Sweet kitties and a beautiful quilt. Love Marian's quilts! Oh, and the camera did a nice job.
+1 on both the kitties and the quilt.
If it's about stacking what happens if you use Night Sight in daytime?
I am not an expert on this, so my thoughts may not be worth much, but on my iPhone the "night mode" starts up automatically when there is not enough light. Thus, in the daytime, there's no way to manually "turn on" Night Mode, so far as I know. So, as regards the iPhone, in answer to your question, you can't use Night Mode in the daytime. The camera simply takes a picture as usual with a relatively fast shutter speed.
Lovely photo's. I adore the quilts. Marian is so talented. I'm glad you didn't awaken her for your experiment.
This must be the same as the iPhone’s night mode, which was new to me with the iPhone 12 in fall 2020. I can shoot a street scene at night and it looks like daytime. I assume the software is shooting a short video, then using some super duper AI to figure out what’s a human figure or a car and should be placed in the final image from only one frame, then lightened up. This is exactly the kind of shot that may ultimately kill off camera manufacturers, because Apple and Google have a massive advantage in that they can throw many billions into this kind of software development that, say, Nikon or Canon or Fuji can never match.
Couple weeks ago a friend of mine sent me shot he took in total darkness of his two daughters on the beach at night in the DR. Looked like daytime, though your eye tells you something is funny because there’s no daytime shadows.
I believe I have heard some photography Youtubers refer to this as “computational photography” though I’m no expert.
Ha, here’s a great article about it. A fair amount of complex math and physics in here, but explained in a way a (diligent, focused) non-scientist can understand.
https://vas3k.com/blog/computational_photography/
thanks for the link!
You're welcome! Well done article indeed. I like it when he says in the not-too-distant-future regular old cameras will attain the status of vinyl records and printed books. I suspect he's right. My Fuji X100 series camera is already flirting with that kind of nostalgia (with great commercial success it seems), I must admit... (much as I like the camera)
Computational Photography. What I believe is happening, is that the camera is taking multiple images and then combining them to render the final version. The magic is the computational tech which eliminates, as best it can, camere shake or subject movement from the image. My Iphone 12's main camera performance is also quite remarkable and in certain applications can be better than my so called "real" camera.
Marian, does that bed ever get made???
Kevin, how could you spend that much space discussing that photo without mentioning the most important thing about it: the presence of two gorgeous, adorable representatives of the most photogenic species on Earth? Hilbert and Charlie— and, okay, Marian’s splendid quilts— make it all worthwhile.
I got the Pixel 6 pro for the camera and have been pleased. But it is a pretty buggy phone overall. I've never had an iPhone, but my next phone probably will be. And my next main computer a Mac (after a long series of Dells).
I just had to replace my Mac Air after almost nine years of service. A second couch dropped on it was too much. It still works, it couldn't get last fall's new OS, and I'll still use it as a USB smart hub.
Nine years seems good, yes?
Most people can't even drop one couch on their computer, two seems like a miracle.
Just don't drop it, I've broken the edge of my Pixel 6 pro twice already.