Night – smartphones are not a hindrance, or why mobile cameras have become so good at shooting in the dark

Based on materials from Android authority

Night - smartphones are not a hindrance, or why mobile cameras have become so good at shooting in the dark

Starting with the P20 Pro, the company's flagships Huawei have become some of the best, if not the best, smartphones in low-light conditions. The newest Mate 30 Pro is being praised for taking this a step further, but its lead is challenged by Google's new Pixel 4, which also excels in low light.

Samsung's Galaxy flagships can also take good low-light shots, and this feature continues to grow in importance for the overall smartphone camera score. After all, almost any device can make a decent shot in the light. Let's take a look at what companies are doing to ensure that their smartphones deal with the lack of light when taking photos.

It all starts with 'iron'

The key to capturing cool shots in the dark is that the camera's sensor can pick up as much light as possible. In the case of a small mobile camera sensor, this is easier said than done compared to a DSLR. Three key components are responsible for capturing light in any camera module: the quality and aperture of the lens, the size of the sensor and its pixels, and, of course, exposure. And for each metric, smartphone manufacturers have their own tricks.

Wider aperture = more light

First and foremost is the wide aperture (large aperture). The Huawei P20 Pro and Mate 20 Pro had f / 1.8, while the P30 Pro and Mate 30 Pro had an even wider aperture of f / 1.6. The Samsung Galaxy Note 10 has a variable aperture, f / 1.5-2.4, and the Google Pixel 3 has f / 1.8, while the Pixel 4 went to f / 1.7. B iPhone 11 aperture f / 1.8.

A wider lens opening allows more light to reach the sensor. But high quality small size wide lenses are very difficult to create without distortion. This is why not all manufacturers offer this wide aperture. A wide aperture also provides a softer depth-of-field effect, which makes these cameras great for macro photography, but not better for focusing in landscape shots.

Aperture is only one factor, so smartphones that match this criterion Huawei, such as the OnePlus 7 Pro, do not perform as well in low light. There is also such a factor as the size of the sensor.

Night - smartphones are not a hindrance, or why mobile cameras have become so good at shooting in the dark

Huawei P20 Pro f / 1.8

Night - smartphones are not a hindrance, or why mobile cameras have become so good at shooting in the dark

Huawei Mate 30 Pro f / 1.6

Large sensors and pixel binning

When more light is exposed to the camera, a larger sensor is the best opportunity to capture that light. The analogy with a bucket would be most appropriate here. The wider it is, the more you can collect in less time, which means, in our case, the better the footage shot in low light will be. In other words, going back to still photography, you can get shorter exposures and lower ISOs, and you end up with less hazy and noisy footage even in low light.

Huawei in terms of sensor size ahead of the rest. The two latest generations of the P and Mate series feature a 1 / 1.7-inch sensor. That's significantly more than many of the company's competitors like Apple, Google and Samsung with their 1 / 2.55-inch sensors. Huawei claims their sensor picks up 137% more light than iPhone 11 Pro Max. And if so, this factor has a big impact on the amount of light that is captured in the dark.

Night - smartphones are not a hindrance, or why mobile cameras have become so good at shooting in the dark

However, the sensor from Huawei is 40-megapixel, while its competitors are usually 12 megapixels. This means that each individual pixel has a size of 1 μm versus 1.4 μm for competitors with a smaller sensor. And competitors Huawei, therefore, should take pictures with less noise in low light. However, the sensor from Huawei uses a technology known as pixel binning (or quad Bayer filter). And in reality this is not a 40 MP sensor with a pixel size of 1 μm, but rather an improved 10 MP with a pixel size of 2 μm.

Pixel binning is growing in popularity in cameras. This technology is applied in the flagships Huawei and OnePlus, smartphones of the middle and budget segment of the brands Realme and Honor. In theory, it should combine the best of both worlds – high resolution mode for daylight and larger pixels for low light. However, in reality, such cameras do not allow you to maintain the image quality when switching to the highest possible resolution.

What really matters is the size of the individual pixels. Apple, Google and Samsung have stopped at 1.4 microns and achieve excellent results. Huawei went further with its large 2μm pixels, albeit bundled with a Bayer filter.

Exhibition as art

Google laid the foundation for today's low-light technology with its first Pixel. HDR + combines multiple exposure options to enhance highlight detail in both good and low light. In turn, Huawei in their P20 Pro introduced 'one-shot HDR' technology, which is also useful for shooting in low light. It assumes that color information is taken from a 10MP pixel binned frame, and 40MP is taken for exposure information. Half of the pixels are used for long exposures and the other half for short exposures. This lighting data is then combined to create just one HDR image, not several.

In the same year Huawei and Google introduced their long exposure night modes. This technology combines long exposure and short exposure footage to create more dynamic and well-lit night shots. All you need is to hold your smartphone still for a few seconds.

Multiple exposure and night modes are mainstream in current camera applications. This is no longer a flagship privilege and you can find the same ideas in a variety of low-cost devices. However, results will vary depending on camera quality and software algorithms. Night mode won't help a camera that doesn't shoot well in the dark. But he can turn tolerable shots into exceptional ones. And perhaps the leader here is Google with its Astrophotography mode in the Pixel 4.

Night - smartphones are not a hindrance, or why mobile cameras have become so good at shooting in the dark

OnePlus 7 Pro with Night Mode disabled

Night - smartphones are not a hindrance, or why mobile cameras have become so good at shooting in the dark

OnePlus 7 Pro with Night Mode enabled

Night - smartphones are not a hindrance, or why mobile cameras have become so good at shooting in the dark

Night Mode in Huawei Mate 30 Pro

Night - smartphones are not a hindrance, or why mobile cameras have become so good at shooting in the dark

Night mode in iPhone 11

Night - smartphones are not a hindrance, or why mobile cameras have become so good at shooting in the dark

Night mode in OnePlus 7T

New technologies for sensors

All of the above technologies, one way or another, are present in many devices, but the next one is exclusive from Huawei.

In the P30 range, the company has replaced the traditional RGGB filter technology with a new RYYB SuperSpectrum filter designed to collect more lighting information. In short, the SuperSpectrum sensor from Huawei replaces the traditional RGB (red-green-blue) filter with an RYB (red-yellow-blue) filter. This type of filter captures more light, but uses different color filters than will be used to create the final image.

The key to understanding the technology is that yellow filters collect information about both green and red. And so they end up capturing a broader spectrum of light. However, as a cost, we get the need to recover the green data from yellow light by the algorithm. This is doable, but the process is complex, and colors do not always end up correctly. Huawei has significantly improved the technology between the release of the P30 and the Mate 30 Pro.

This technology is not indispensable for producing good shots in low light. However, it is she who allows the smartphones of the Huawei P30 and Mate 30 lines to shoot exceptionally bright and detailed shots in a lack of light without using night mode. And the big plus is that the risk of getting a blurry shot due to hand shake or moving objects is reduced.

Night - smartphones are not a hindrance, or why mobile cameras have become so good at shooting in the dark

Conclusion

A combination of hardware and dedicated software is required to get great shots in low light conditions. Smartphone manufacturers are improving their cameras in this regard with superior lenses and sensors. Software algorithms also play a huge role in controlling exposure, reducing noise without sacrificing detail, improving the quality of multiple exposure night mode shots.

Flagship smartphones, especially those from Google and Huawei, have excelled in almost all of these areas of technology, producing great shots in less than ideal shooting conditions. Some manufacturers are still trying to tackle the problems associated with shooting in low light, but don't be surprised if we see a technological leap in the budget segment soon. It looks like low-light photography will remain the main battleground for smartphone cameras over the next year and beyond.

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