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What is Night Sight and how do I get it?

  • 19 December 2018
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What is Night Sight and how do I get it?
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Fed up with blurry and grainy low light photos? Well you don’t have to put up with them anymore if you’ve got a Google Pixel smartphone. Let us explain…

Google has developed ‘Night Sight’, a new feature that enables you to take incredible photos, even at night!


Night Sight was originally launched on the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL and it was so popular that they decided to add it to the whole Pixel range. But what exactly is it, and does it live up to all the hype?

What is Night Sight?


It was almost two decades ago that a camera was first added to a phone, and since then we’ve had to put up with poor quality night photos.

Most modern smartphones have a ‘Night Mode’, but it tends to only work if nothing in the scene is moving and you keep your hand completely still. Otherwise, the results will usually be blurry and grainy.

Even high-end modern smartphones struggle to take good quality low-light photos, meaning it’s often a better option to use a dedicated camera… or is it? Because now, Pixel phones use some very clever technology to help you take impressive low-light photos.

How does Night Sight work?


Dedicated cameras like DSLRs or even much cheaper digital cameras benefit from bigger lenses than you’ll find on a smartphone. This means they’re able to let a lot more light in.

Because the lens on your phone is a lot smaller, it needs to use clever technology to get around the problem. It’s the software in the Pixel that makes the camera so good. When you turn Night Sight on and take a photo, it captures up to 15 frames, then it stitches all the images together to make the best possible picture.

This in itself isn’t a unique feature, but Google doesn’t stop there. It has another clever feature called ‘Optical Flow’, which can tell how much movement there is in the scene and choose a different exposure time for each frame.

That’s not all… it then checks the image and uses even more clever software to tidy it up and remove any of those nasty grainy after-effects you’d usually get.

The image below shows the difference between a standard photo and one taken using Night Sight, both were taken at night and we didn't use the flash at all...


How do I use Night Sight?


Google has made it really easy to use Night Sight. When you’re taking a photo, your phone will check how much light is in the scene. If it thinks Night Sight will give you a better picture, a ‘Try Night Sight’ button will appear at the bottom of the screen. All you need to do is tap the button.

It’s easy to turn on manually if you don’t see the button. When you’re taking a photo, just tap More > Night Sight.

Take a look at what else the Pixel 3 can do here.

If you’ve got a question about the Pixel 3, why not post it below and give someone in the Community a chance to answer it?

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