Testbench SMARTPHONE ROUND-UP
Many top-line smartphones have well-performing Night modes – but which are the best? Amy Davies rounds up some options and shares shooting tips
Shooting in low light is a fun challenge for any type of kit, but many smartphones take a lot of the hard work away, and yield very decent results. It’s something many smartphone makers have been keen to shout about in marketing materials, so there’s been quite a lot of effort from all the major producers to outdo each other in this field. Almost all the current smartphones have a Night or Low Light mode, which often kicks in automatically when there’s not much light detected in the scene.
Of course, one good thing about your smartphone is you’ll generally always have it on you, ready to grab a quick shot. Smartphones are also good if you’re not keen to lug heavy kit such as tripods around. Most smartphones, if they have a night mode, work entirely handheld, allowing you to get good results with minimal effort.
But some do perform better than others. Generally you’ll (unfortunately) find the best-performing night modes on the more expensive flagship phones – which we’ve mostly included here. But you can save cash by going for an older-generation model, or buying used.
How does a smartphone’s night mode work?
While not all smartphones are the same, the reason most allow you to shoot night shots handheld is down to the way they operate in low light. As a rule, they work by shooting several multiple frames at varying exposures, then merging them (in-device) to create the impression you’d shot it with a much longer exposure.
Using artificial intelligence to assess how much light is in the scene and how it thinks it should look, results usually appear pretty quickly, and you might be surprised by how much detail there is.
Some phones have additional low light functions, such as Night Portraits (iPhone, Samsung, Pixel) which blends the night functionality with the portrait functionality for shallow-depth-of-field effects. You might even find special functions such as Astro mode (Google Pixel) for shooting stars. If you have a smartphone tripod – or another stable surface – you can sometimes get the phone to shoot even longer exposures for even better results, but the fuss-free options are pretty good these days and don’t require too much tinkering with.
iPhone 15 Pro Max
From £1199
The recently announced iPhone 15 Pro Max has three lenses, which includes for the first time in an iPhone a 5x optical zoom lens.
With the main 1x (24mm f/1.8 equivalent) lens, you get 48MP, with a 24MP default resolution.
There is a Night mode, which kicks in when the phone detects there’s not much light. This has the effect of reducing the def
