‘Night Sight’ Comes to Pixel Phones for Better Low-Light Photos

The Night Sight Mode will be available for Pixel phones from Google, soon. Here’s how it works.

Pixel phones are getting an enhanced mode this week. 

(Photo: The Quint)

Google has finally released one of the most anticipated camera-centric features for Pixel phones – Night Sight.

The search giant has confirmed that the camera feature will be available for all Pixel phones: Pixel, Pixel 2 and Pixel 3 series. This, Google claims will offer better images in low-lighting.

Night Sight is designed to use machine learning to adapt to night-lighting conditions and balance the colour of the photos so that objects show their natural colour at night. The feature also measures the natural handshake while clicking a picture, Google said in its blog post.

The feature would be rolled out over the next few days with an update to the Google Camera app on Pixel smartphones. So, don’t worry if you haven’t got it yet.

How to use Night Sight on Pixel’s Camera

• Open the Camera app on your Google Pixel phone
• Click on More, which will show you other options
• Select Night Sight
• Click a picture by holding the shutter button for a while
• Remain still while the camera adds light to the image

We developed ‘Night Sight’ – a new feature for the Pixel camera that helps you capture vibrant and detailed low-light photos without a flash or tripod.

Alexander Schiffhauer, Product Manager, Computational Photography, Pixel, Google

How Night Sight Works

Google says that “before you press the shutter button, Night Sight measures your natural hand shake, as well as how much motion is in the scene.” Low-light photography has been a tough process to pull through, but of late, we’re seeing phone cameras that are slowly but surely taking care of the deficiency.

With Night Sight, Google is showing that good hardware-software integration can reveal some interesting results.

Night Sight looks at maintaining the colour balances of photos. 

In simple terms, the camera clicks multiple photos in this mode, and with the help of machine learning and AI, photos are merged to offer the best possible result.

Shot with iPhone XS (left), Shot with Pixel 3 XL in Night Sight mode (right)

“Instead of capturing one bright and blurry photo, Night Sight captures an equal amount of light over a burst of many photos that are dark but sharp. By merging this burst, Night Sight prevents motion blur and brightens the photo, giving you a bright and sharp photo.”

<a href="https://www.blog.google/products/pixel/see-light-night-sight/">Google blog post</a>

In low light, the Night Sight option will pop up on its own. 

Google says that the use of Night Sight could ensure that pictures clicked even in the darkest conditions will turn out clear and bright, and from our brief time with the feature, we can vouch that it works.