Google’s Pixel Can Now See in the Dark

by Jonathan Etheart November 16, 2018

by Jonathan Etheart November 16, 2018 0 comments

On Wednesday night I had the opportunity to preview Google’s new “killer app”, Night Sight.

Google is touting this feature as the answer to all of your terrible nighttime photos, think concerts, dark restaurants, and outdoor evening events. The venue, West Edge, was a purposely dark space right above Chelsea Market and Google gave me and select group of others the opportunity to test the Night Sight feature in real life conditions. Upon arrival, I was handed a White Pixel 3 XL and encouraged to take some predetermined sample photos as well as any other photos of the scenery and the crowd that I wanted throughout the night. As an iPhone X user, I was excited to do take some comparison photos and I have to say, with no flash, the Night Sight crushes the iPhone in low light settings.

Check out some proof in the photo comparisons below to see for yourself.

The Google camera team had a few main situations that they wanted us to test including a concert, where, let’s be honest ALL of your current photos look terrible and you probably never look at them again. Check out the contrast here between the iPhone X and the Pixel 3 XL.

Some other scenes included taking a selfie at a bar, which in the photo below, you can barely make out on the iPhone X.

A dinner at dark, trendy restaurant

A campfire and a creepy doll sitting in a tree

Best of all, what Yael Pritch, the Lead Research Engineer on Night Sight told me was her favorite feature, the fact that with Night Sight, you can literally see things in the dark that the naked eye can’t see.

So, you must be asking yourself how all of this works, the answer…..magic and wizardry.

In all honesty, Night Sight works by taking up to 15 different photos and using Google’s machine learning and AI capabilities to measure the steadiness of your hand and change the exposure to gather in whatever light is available and apply it to whatever you’re photographing. If you want more details around the specifics, take a look at Google’s blog.

Overall, I have to say I’m extremely impressed. As a 10 year iPhone user, I will admit that there were times when Samsung had a clearly better camera and I would argue that the iPhone X did a lot to catch up (especially in portrait mode), although with Night Sight, Top Shot, and Group Selfies, the Google Pixel certainly takes the crown in the mobile camera wars. The only issue is that to achieve the Night Sight effect, you need to focus on holding still for about 7 seconds, however, the results can be worth it depending on the situation. I asked Product Manager, Alexander Schiffhauer about shortening the time you need to hold still and when the feature will be available for video and he assured me that the team is “working on it”.

Night Sight is available now as a software update across all Pixel devices (not just the new Pixel 3), so if you have to see it to believe it, go check out Night Sight, you’ll truly be amazed by what you see.

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