Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Which phone takes better photos at night? The Galaxy S24 Ultra or the Pixel 8 Pro?”.
Take a look at this photo now. Take a look at this one at a glance they look pretty similar both show the same boat on the same dock in the Baltimore Harbor taken at night. However, one was taken using night sight on the Google pixel 8 Pro, while the other was taken using night mode on Samsung’s new Galaxy s24 Ultra. The question is, can you tell which one is which there are some differences in how Galaxy Ai and the tensor G3 process their lowlight photos? So let’s get into how night photography works and whether Samsung or Google actually has a better claim to the night mode Crown. If you already know how night photography or night ography as Samsung likes to call it works, you can probably skip ahead for the next minute or two with this video, if not strap in cuz, it’s kind of an in-depth process with a dedicated camera like a DSLR Or a mirrorless setup low light photography relies on a careful balance of three things. You either have to keep your shutter open longer.
You have to raise the iso or the amount ount of grain in your photo, or you have to open your lens wider to let more light in up front over time. Photographers learn how to carefully balance all three of these elements, while setting up a shot. Knowing that any miscalculation can result in an underexposed photo an Overexposed photo or just too much grain that you can’t make out your subject on a smartphone, however, low light, photography uses a series of exposures and a number of postprocessing algorithms to achieve a pleasing result. Night sight has been around since Google introduced it on the single lens pi pix 3, but it’s only grown and become more powerful, as phones have picked up, more rear, sensors, more powerful processors and machine learning has come a long way in practice. You usually see night mode manifest as a 1 to 3. Second, countdown after you press the shutter, during which time you have to keep your phone as still as you possibly can, while you watch those seconds tick off, your phone is actually capturing a series of exposures. Some shorter, which means they’re darker, but have slightly finer details and some longer, which means they’re going to be brighter, but they’re going to be a little fuzzier.
This process is called bracketing, but those initial bracketed images aren’t actually saved to your phone individually instead they’re put into at least in the pixel’s case. What’S called A Memory Bank, your phone can then take those shots in the memory bank. Combine them into one final pleasing image and that’s what you’ll actually see in your camera roll now with that spark notes of an explanation out of the way. Let’S get to some samples we’ll come back to the pair of boats from the introduction in a second. But up first, we have a pair of ultra wide images taken facing Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. Although both capture many of the same details, the first difference, you’re probably going to notice, is the vastly different color Recreation. The Samsung Galaxy s24 Ultra, for example, pulls a lot more of the green tones out of the treated wood and the water of the harbor itself, while the pixel 8 Pro leans a little bit more towards a natural Brown shade in both elements. Another difference between the two is how they handle the series of lights that stretches all the way across the harbor, both above and below the water line.
Samsung is able to capture slightly more detail above the waterline, especially to the left side of the image. Where you see see the red neon sign, it’s able to get a little closer to the words Rusty Scupper, which is what the sign actually says, while the pixel 8 Pro kind of reduces it to a red rectangle. However, the advantage flips once you go below the waterline and start looking at Reflections, the pixel 8 Pro makes up for its Rusty, Scupper shortcomings with much cleaner details in the blue reflection off to the right side of the image. It manages to separate the blue Shades that are reflected from the waves in the aquarium, so you can actually make out a couple different blue tones, while the Galaxy s24 Ultra turns them into a generally shapeless blue Mass.
This probably comes down to the difference between Samsung using a lower resolution: 12 megapix Ultra wide sensor and Google, using a higher resolution, 48 megapix Ultra wide sensor that it then has to been down in process afterwards. This next pairing punches into 5x Zoom, which just so happens to be the length of the optical telephoto sensor on both the pixel 8 Pro and the Galaxy s24 Ultra. It shows another Inner Harbor staple lovingly called Mr Trashman man and offers a better illustration of the detail that both phones are capable of capturing in low light. And, if I’m honest, this is one of the samples that I actually let out an audible. Oh wow, as I was capturing it simply put the Galaxy s24 Ultra pretty much wipes the floor with the pixel 8 Pro. In this example, its image is both sharper and more color accurate, preserving both The Thin Red strip of Lights along the side of the trash wheel and the series of ropes that keep it mored in place.
The Galaxy s24 Ultra also nailed the strip of yellow buoys that helped to funnel the trash toward the wheel itself, while the pixel8 pro gave up on both detail and colors, switching from a true yellow to a little bit more of an orange shade. Samsung’S final success at the 5x telephoto length comes once you start. Looking into the background, it’s far sharper showing plenty of detail in the apartments that sit across the harbor while the pixel 8 Pro kind of reduces them to bright, yellow and white blobs flipping. The cameras around tells a similar story with the Galaxy s24 Ultra handing in a better selfie shot too, although being brighter, isn’t necessarily an immediate key to success. Samsung manages to find a better balance between brightness and detail that Google’s tensor G3 just doesn’t seem interested in matching. You can actually pick out individual hairs in my beard in the Galaxy s24 Ultra photo, as well as the line of stitching across the brim of my cap, while Google kind of reduces my beard to a brown shape, and you don’t get any of the stitching on My hat Google also Smooths out a bit of the Shadow across my face, while the Galaxy s24 Ultra is able to keep a couple different tones both on my nose and around my eyes.
Samsung’S colors are once again more accurate, especially in my jacket. The Galaxy s24 Ultra pulled out a much better shade of kind of slate blue, as well as the red fleece liner inside of my jacket, while the pixel 8 Pro leaned a little more towards a green shade and made a much darker red color, almost like wine. Now, let’s cycle back to the original pair of images showing the boat mored in the harbor, based on what you’ve seen in the last few examples, it’s probably a lot easier to figure out which shot came from which phone one of the first giveaways is that Samsung.
Once again pulled a much brighter Shade of Green from both the hull of the ship and the water of the harbor, just like it did in the ultra wide shot. It also captured significantly better details in the planks of the dock and along the water line, where the metal supports reach the harbor. On the other hand, the pixel 8 Pro missed out on several of those same details, whether due to the night sight, processing itself or the lower resolution primary sensor. That being said, some people might still prefer the pixel 8 Pro’s final result, as it doesn’t quite feel. As artificially brightened and the green shade on the boat is actually closer to real life, ultimately, though, you’ll have to make that decision for yourself now before you click onto another video, there’s a couple things that I noticed during my comparison, shooting that didn’t quite fit into Any one pair of images, the first being that Samsung’s night mode is lightning fast significantly faster than Google’s.
I took all of the same photos in the exact same situations with both devices, but I rarely had the Galaxy s24 Ultra ask for more than a 1se. Second countdown, while the pixel 8 Pro regularly ask for two or three seconds, Google’s need for a longer exposure might also make picking up a tripod more of an essential purchase. Once you reach three or maybe even push it up to 6 seconds of a countdown. It’S going to be pretty hard to keep your phone steady, so you might want something to prop it up on another night mode.
Quirk that I noticed is that Google is much quicker to kick into automatic night sight than the Galaxy s24 Ultra is to ask if you want to use night mode, it doesn’t need that much darkness before I already see a one or two second timer pop up, While the Galaxy s24 Ultra usually Waits until it’s really dark and then it’ll still ask if you want to try night mode instead, I’ll admit that I was kind of surprised by the results of this shootout. We’Ve trusted Google and its censorship as the go-to for post processing for a few years now, but Samsung turned in the much stronger performance across telephoto selfie and the original photo when it comes to details, it captured better colors and more detail than the pixel 8 Pro And it did so with shorter exposures across the board, I’m going to say there’s a new night mode, King in town and its name is the Samsung Galaxy s24 Al ult ra. If you want to dig deeper into the photos specifically used in this comparison or check out a whole bunch more, you can do so over on androidauthority.com .