If the quality of the photos taken with the iPhone leaves a lot to be desired, these tips can be helpful. For example, you have to be careful when using the night mode.
If you want to get better pictures with your iPhone in the dark, you should try these tips. Adobe Stock
Winter days in Finland are mostly dark, and the conditions are not too bad for photography. Fewer of us also have decent adjustable lights in our back pocket, which could be used to illuminate the object or person being photographed.
However, if you own an iPhone 11 or a newer iPhone model, it has a night mode tool that makes shooting in the dark easier.
Night mode should be activated automatically when you open the iPhone’s camera application in sufficiently dark conditions. You know the mode is on when the moon-like icon in the upper left corner of the camera application is yellow.
If the icon is not yellow, the iPhone for one reason or another does not recognize that it is in night conditions. On the other hand, if it is crossed out, it is completely off, and you have to press it to enable night mode.
The night mode can sometimes be accidentally activated automatically even if it is not dark, in which case an otherwise good picture is unexpectedly ruined due to overexposure. So you shouldn’t always wear it.
Keep your phone stable in night mode
It is also possible to adjust the iPhone camera settings yourself.
The camera settings can be accessed by swiping up in the image preview or by pressing the arrow at the top of the image. By pressing the icon that looks like a moon in the settings, you can set the length of the exposure time yourself, which can be from one second to 30 seconds – the longer the exposure time, the brighter the image.
However, a longer exposure time also means that the phone has to be held in the same position and stationary for a longer time, so that the image does not become blurry. Moving objects are also not suitable for shooting with a long exposure time. If the family’s lively dog barks outside spontaneously in the snow at 11 p.m., you will hardly get two pictures of the situation.
The phone can automatically recognize with its gyroscope whether it is completely stationary or not: when holding it in the hand, the exposure time is one second by default, but it can be increased to three seconds if desired. If the phone is completely stationary, for example on a table or a tripod, the exposure time of three seconds becomes the default, and it can be increased to ten seconds.
In extremely dark conditions, the phone allows for a full 30 seconds, although with such a long exposure, the graininess of the image becomes quite high.