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Night Mode and New Cameras in iPhone 11 and 11 Pro Shown Off

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Apple's iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro models both feature upgraded camera systems with some impressive new capabilities, including a Night Mode that's designed to use Apple's machine learning and hardware to significantly improve photos captured in low light.

The feature, which is similar to the Google Pixel's Night Sight mode, was shown off by Apple on stage, but real-world photos have also surfaced today.

iphone-11-night-mode-1-800x599.jpg
Apple's Night mode demo shot​
​

Canadian model and Nomad Management Modeling Agency founder Coco Rocha recently tweeted a night time shot that compares performance between the iPhone 11 and the iPhone X.

Don't ask me how but I got my hands on the new iPhone 11 tonight! 🤫 Swipe through to see the difference between the 11 and the X in low light. 👀#notsponsored #butapplecansponsorme #callmypeople #timapple #iphone11promax #iphoneevent #iphone11 pic.twitter.com/wZHn6ugRQv - Coco Rocha (@cocorocha) September 12, 2019
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The photos show a drastic difference, with the iPhone 11 shot preserving the full content of the image while the iPhone X produces a photo that's too dark to be usable.

The iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max all support Night Mode, which is designed to work without the flash to produce natural, bright photos in low light. A key component of the new Night Mode is the updated Wide camera sensor present in both iPhones.

Night Mode is activated automatically when it's needed, and Apple has outlined how it works. When you capture a Night Mode image, the camera takes multiple pictures in a row while utilizing optical image stabilization to steady the lens.

From there, the iPhone's software aligns images to correct for movement, discards sections with too much blur, and fuses sharper images together. Contrast is adjusted for balance purposes, and colors are fine-tuned to look natural. Noise reduction is employed and details are enhanced to produce the final images.

On Instagram, Apple has also been sharing photos that demonstrate the different camera modes available in the iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max, both of which feature triple-lens camera setups.


These shots demonstrate the capabilities of the telephoto, wide, and ultra wide-angle lenses, with the latter lens being the new option.

The iPhone 11 has a dual-lens camera setup with a wide-angle and ultra wide-angle lens, so while it can do much of what the iPhone 11 Pro can do, it lacks the telephoto lens and the 2x optical zoom that comes with it.


All of the new iPhones support Portrait mode (and in the 11, you can take portraits of non-people, which wasn't possible with the XR), next-generation Smart HDR, Portrait Lighting, and will soon have a new Deep Fusion feature that Apple says will use pixel-by-pixel processing to optimize for texture, details, and noise.

The new iPhones will go on sale starting tomorrow, September 13, with pre-orders set to kick off at 5:00 a.m. Pacific Time. An official launch will follow on Friday, September 20.

Article Link: Night Mode and New Cameras in iPhone 11 and 11 Pro Shown Off
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2019/09/12/night-mode-iphone-11-demo/
Let's hope it works better in real-world than Google's, which has proven to be less-than-stellar in my experiences with it. It has to be manually turned on, is temperamental, easy to blur, and really not as useful as it seems in real world. You basically have to frame a shot specifically to take advantage of it.

I'm more optimistic for Apple's version, but also just excited for the wide-angle possibilities so I can put away my add-on lens.
 
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SDJim said:
Let's hope it works better in real-world than Google's, which has proven to be less-than-stellar in my experiences with it. It has to be manually turned on, is temperamental, easy to blur, and really not as useful as it seems in real world. You basically have to frame a shot specifically to take advantage of it.

I'm more optimistic for Apple's version, but also just excited for he wide-angle possibilities so I can put away my add-on lens.
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Agree completely. It has to be just the right window of light for Google's to work as good as advertised.

Hopefully Apple adds an option to manually turn it on instead of just trusting it to auto-enable (or disable) when needed.
 
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FightTheFuture said:
Still don't really get the idea of taking photos in the dark. Great photography requires great use of light. Not shooting pictures in a bar.
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A 1.4 lens can turn moonlight into daylight but better, because the light is different.

And in any case, sometimes the best photography is with a camera that works with the light you have.
 
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I’m skeptical this is using Night Mode, since there’s a pedestrian crossing the street and he’s not blurred at all. Maybe this is just improved low light performance? Something seems fishy.
 
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FightTheFuture said:
Still don't really get the idea of taking photos in the dark. Great photography requires great use of light. Not shooting pictures in a bar.
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The idea is... well more like an example would be... I'm out at a night out with friends, drinking and having a good time and feel like I need to document a moment even if in a dark dingy bar.
 
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The Twitter one looks fake relative to Apple sample and probably came from Google Pixel. Photo from iPhone X has the signature lens flare so that's valid.
 
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now i see it said:
View attachment 857722

I don't think there's a phone on the planet that would take that first picture that dark. Even the iPhone 4. I'm calling BS to this comparison.
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I don't understand what you mean? Google pixel will nailed this setting every time.

I expect the iPhone 11 to nail this as well - Apple will get killed by the media on all reviews next week if that's not the case.
 
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FightTheFuture said:
Still don't really get the idea of taking photos in the dark. Great photography requires great use of light. Not shooting pictures in a bar.
Click to expand...
Don’t be “that guy”. People want to live life. They want to capture moments. They don’t want to be oh let’s not take these pictures in a bar because they light is just not “quite right“. The whole smart phone camera revolution made it so those spur of the moment pictures look a thousands times better than they use to (I’m talking about every brand not just Apple). That’s a good thing.
 
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FightTheFuture said:
Still don't really get the idea of taking photos in the dark. Great photography requires great use of light. Not shooting pictures in a bar.
Click to expand...
So you’re saying the secret to great bar pictures is to set up lights? Or recreate the bar in a studio?

I like the idea of taking decent pics in a variety of circumstances where the only equipment I have with me is the phone in my pocket.
 
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