Tech InDepth: How Night Mode on smartphones makes Diwali pictures pop

Diwali is almost here, and soon, many of us will be busy decorating our homes, dressing in our best clothes and taking a lot of pictures of our family and friends. Of course, the one camera feature you’re likely to use while taking these pictures during Diwali parties and celebrations is the Night Mode, which is now part of most smartphone cameras, including the budget-friendly options.
Night Mode helps take brighter, better pictures at night and in low-light scenarios, making the feature ideal for occasions such as Diwali. But how exactly does Night Mode work on phones and what makes the feature so great for low-light scenarios? Let’s find out in today’s edition of Tech InDepth.
What is Night Mode?
This is a dedicated picture-capturing setting that is present on most modern smartphones. Night Mode has improved drastically over the years. While brands may ins on having different approaches and implementations of the feature, the larger working of a low-light shooting mode remains the same. The primary lacking factor in low-light photos is light.  Poor lighting adds more noise to pictures, takes the vibrancy out of colours and decreases the overall pleasing look of most images. A Night Mode’s main function in such scenarios is to add more light to an image and improve on all of the above-mentioned factors to make a low-light image pleasing to the eye.

Taking better photos using Night Mode
Night Sight will help make your low-light photos better, but to make the most of it, you’ll need to take care of a few elements. The first of these is stability. The more stable your phone is while clicking a picture, the better the multiple exposure shots will align, resulting in better details in the final image.
So make sure when you take a photo with Night Mode, you are standing very still. Your subject would also benefit from staying still. Some Night Mode options show a timer option– maximum of two-three seconds– and it is expected you stay still while this timer is on. This is how long the camera takes to capture and process the image. The duration depends on the light that is present as you take the picture.

Another aspect to pay attention to is the available light. A well-angled shot should make the most of the exing light. This can be done placing the camera in the direction of the light source so that both the camera and light source are looking at the subject, without all three being in one straight line. Remember you do not want any unwanted shadows on the subject.
Finally, even with Night Mode you still need some light to be in the frame. Most premium smartphone cameras will ensure stunning low-light photos even with bare minimum light or some light source in the dance. But no light at all makes it impossible for the camera to capture anything.
How does Night Mode work?
There are two ways to get more light, either make the sensor bigger to capture more light, or keep the shutter open for longer. The size of the sensor is something phones cannot really change, but control over the shutter speed is possible via software.
However, while keeping the shutter open for longer allows in more light, it can also durb the dynamics of the image – colours on the main subject may look washed out and darker areas simply risk looking weirdly unnatural. The key is a term called exposure or the amount of light that gets to the camera sensor to define an image.

When Night Mode (or any other name given to low-light enhancement) is in use, instead of changing the parameters of one single shot, cameras will take multiple shots at different exposure levels in rapid succession. Artificial intelligence algorithms allow most cameras with a Night Mode to understand how dark a setting is and take more or fewer shots at various exposure levels accordingly.
Stitching the shots together
These multiple images are then stitched together using a technique called bracketing, which smartly detects objects in the multiple images and aligns them accurately. While combining these images, the lower exposure shots help give the image its colours and details, while the light data from the higher exposure shots facilitates this with brightness.
Modern smartphone cameras offer Night Mode or its equivalent features at the touch of a button and the feature does all this – detecting subjects and settings, shooting multiple images and intelligently stitching them together – usually in under a second, with the process being particularly faster in flagship devices.

This results in a slight delay between you clicking a Night Mode photo on most phones and you actually get the final image, something that is more noticeable in entry-level and mid-range phones. Although note that taking a photo in Night Mode will always be slower than normal pictures, even if the difference is small on newer phones.
Night Mode is not the same on all phones
Just because a phone has Night Mode doesn’t guarantee good pictures in poor light always. Other factors such as processing power, sensor size and quality, lens quality, and of course, photography skills all work together to click a good low-light shot. Moreover, the implementation of Night Mode varies across brands, and so do the results.
The ‘Night Sight’ feature on Google Pixel devices, for instance, is considered one of the best implementations of the feature. The same holds true for other premium phones such as the iPhone 14 Pro, the iPhone 13 Pro, the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, the OnePlus 10 Pro, and the Vivo X80 Pro. In these phones, the camera hardware and software ensure that the Night Mode gives an excellent result, no matter the lighting situation.
Night Mode is also present on mid-range and budget phones, and might not always ensure the best results. This is because the sensor, the processor, etc on the device also make a difference. But it will ensure that the photos are brighter.