Video in camera app vs video in messages - interesting find

Hey guys. Noticed something very peculiar just now. Was filming a video in low light conditions within the messages app (hitting the camera button and choose "take video") and I noticed how bright and very clear the video was. Not dark at all.

Switch to camera and take a video in the same conditions and it's extremely dark and you barely could see much. Switched back and same thing as previous with messages; much better low light sensitivity.

Why is it that the ISO can adjust pretty well to lighting conditions when taking a video within messages but is stuck on low ISO in the actual camera app. Can anyone else confirm if it's the same for you?

EDIT: I also noticed that it takes the video in low resolution if in messages so that may be why.

Small White Car said:

It's most likely this. Think of it like a retina display in reverse.

With a retina display you take one software pixel and split it up over 4 physical pixels. The opposite is happening here: Since there are less pixels in the video the camera can use multiple sensor pixels to represent one video-pixel. This means it's essentially getting more light per video-pixel and can essentially see in the dark better.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's what I thought. It would be nice if the camera app allowed for user-selectable resolutions. Extremely useful in low light, at the cost of quality of course. I was amazed at how bright the video was, when it was extremely dark at default res.