Introduction When it comes to night time
photography with your iPhone, things work a little bit
differently compared to the daytime because your iPhone works
best in well lit environments. And when the sun goes down, they need help. And that is exactly what I'm
gonna show you in this video, how to capture the highest
quality photos possible with your iPhone in low light. And when I say low light, I
don't mean complete darkness. I mean, in a situation like this
where we've lost the sun and the light is minimal, it's mainly being provided by
streetlights and buildings. Stabilizing Your iPhone Let's start by talking
about camera shake. In low light, your camera
shaking even ever so slightly is much more likely to produce
a blurry image because your iPhone needs more time
to gather the light. And while it's gathering that
light, if the camera moves, that's what causes
the blurriness. For example, in a
well lit situation, I can even take a photo like this
and it produces a sharp result. Whereas if I try to do the same
thing in low light, it's blurry. So it's crucial to keep
your iPhone as still as possible. And the easiest way to do that, if no other option
is available to you, is to simply use two
hands instead of one. Keep your stance nice and wide. Bring your hands
close into your body. And when you're ready
to take a photo, gently caress the
shutter button. That's all it needs. Don't jab it because that
will cause camera shake. And take multiple photos
instead of just one to give yourself more chance
of getting a sharp one. But one of the best things you
can do for stability, though, if it's an option, is to rest
your body or your arms against a solid surface like this. But even better than
this is to use a tripod. Tripods for iPhones come
in all shapes and sizes. In fact, this one here isn't
specifically for an iPhone. It's just a regular tripod. What makes it usable with
an iPhone is this phone holder, which you will need as well. Now, with your phone on a tripod,
you could even set a timer of 3 seconds to really
avoid camera shake, and now, barring a massive gust
of wind or an earthquake, you're nigh guaranteed
a sharp image. But high quality iPhone photos
at night is about more than Capturing Details just a lack of camera shake. There's also the details. How much detail is in your
photo and how good those details look. Because when your iPhone isn't
able to gather much light, the details can appear mushy. And one of the most important
things to remember is that your iPhone's main camera,
the 1x camera, is by far the highest quality
camera that your iPhone has. And one of the main reasons
for that is that it lets in significantly more light
than the other cameras. So if you want the highest
quality image with your iPhone in low light, always
use the main camera. Using Night Mode But the main weapon in the
iPhone's arsenal when it comes to low light photography
is Night mode. Night mode can brighten your
shots and capture more detail in low light situations. And it's an automatic mode, meaning it's only gonna come on when
the iPhone thinks it's dark enough. And I want to preface this
Night mode demonstration by just letting you know that
Night mode's availability differs across the iPhone range. This 15 Pro Max, for example,
has Night mode on all of its cameras, whereas
yours might not. And here is a full list letting
you know which iPhones and which cameras Night
mode is available on. Okay. I'm gonna launch the camera and
take some photos in Night mode. And you can see Night mode has
just sprung to life straight away. It is that moon icon up here. And if I move the phone around,
you can see now it's gone to 3 seconds. Over here, it is 2 seconds. And that is telling me that
Night mode's gonna take 2 seconds to capture the photo. And if I tap on Night mode, I
can actually still turn it off. This is the icon that you might
see popping up from time to time as the light
is getting low. And if I tap it, it
has gone on to auto. So auto is your iPhone's way
of letting you know that the light's getting low. You might wanna consider
Night mode in this situation, but you don't
necessarily need it. And let's see. If I move the iPhone around,
yep. We've gone to 2 seconds. Now it's gone back to auto. But we can force it to come
on by opening the hidden menu and tapping
the Night mode icon in here. We drag from auto to 2 seconds. Now, I've not selected
that 2 seconds. There's nothing in between here. This is the iPhone determining
that it needs 2 seconds in Night mode. And when I capture a photo, I'm gonna bring my arms a
bit closer, keep them steady, because even in Night mode, it's crucial that you keep
your iPhone nice and still. And it might even flash
up a hold still image. Yep. There it is. Because now, during that time, the iPhone is gathering loads
and loads of light and it's doing some extra special
processing as well behind the scenes to brighten
up your image. In fact, if I turn
turn off Night mode, the image gets a lot darker
when I turn it on giving me a preview of what it's
gonna look like. So that is really, really cool. Just keep in mind
that Night mode images are 12 megapixels regardless
of which phone you're using, which camera, which lens,
which resolution you've chosen, it will be 12 megapixels. Even if I have RAW Max
selected, which I do now. And that leads me on
nicely to my ultimate Combining Night Mode with ProRAW iPhone low light combination. Handheld, at least, anyway. Which is ProRAW plus Night mode. This is the most effective
combination you can use when capturing photos with your
iPhone in low light because ProRAW files contain so much
more data than other formats. It's not even funny. They are significantly larger
and that data means that you can capture much more
natural looking details, cleaner details. And if I take a
RAW Max photo here in Night mode,
2 seconds, and then, I turn off ProRAW and take the same
Night mode photo, which for me will
be a HEIF photo. And we compare these
two photos side by side, look at the difference in
the textures and the details. Okay. Let's bring
it all together. Camera Comparisons and Conclusion I have my iPhone on a tripod
to avoid camera shake. I've got Night mode
and I have RAW Max, ProRAW. And you can
see I'm in the 1x lens. Now look at how much
more light that 1x lens actually gathers than this
other 5x telephoto lens. We have Night mode
here, 8 seconds. But if we go to a
telephoto, we get 25 seconds because that is how much longer
Night mode actually needs because this lens is not gathering
anywhere near as much light. And you might think,
25 seconds. Wow. Yeah. Because when you're on a tripod
and the iPhone doesn't detect any shake, gives
you a lot longer. So let's take advantage of that. I'm going to zoom all the
way in using my 5x lens. And I'm going to
open the hidden menu, set the timer just in case. And actually, first, I'm
going to turn off Night mode. I wanna show you a
before and after. So if I capture a photo now and I will turn on Night mode again, I want the maximum time,
please, Night mode. So it's saying 10 seconds now. If I focus on it, 16 seconds. And three, two, one. Remember it's an automatic mode
so before I had 25 seconds now I've got 16 seconds there's
not much I can do about that. And it's all about how much
light is around and how much camera shake you've got as
to how long Night mode will actually capture for. So Night mode has finished. And if I come into
the Camera app here, and I see now it's
saying 25 seconds. And the longer you get, the
more quality, the detail that you will get in your
photos will increase. And wow, look at that.
16 seconds worth of Night mode. I can zoom in there. Look at those details. Look how clean that
image is for 16 seconds and if I swipe look at
the one without Night mode oh poor iPhone see that is
the iPhone's secret weapon. Well, it's not a
secret, but it's a very, very powerful weapon in
the iPhone's arsenal. And that is Night mode bringing
it all together for you.