When Apple announced the low-light photography capabilities of the iPhone 11, everyone was eagerly awaiting a new Night mode versus Night Sight test, aka Apple against Google.
PC World conducted one back in September, but that was against the Pixel 3 – the smartphone originally crowned the king of low-light photography. There were objections then that it was comparing different generations of smartphone tech, but it seems the position hasn’t changed now that the Pixel 4 is out…
PCWorld’s Michael Simon said in September that the iPhone 11 blew the Pixel 3 out of the water.
MacWorld has now tested the iPhone 11 against the latest Pixel 4 and says that – so far, at least – it’s still, well, night and day.
The site says that sometimes the iPhone 11 did an objectively better job, as in a city street shot.
That’s very surprising. Apple’s Night Mode was largely seen as playing catch-up to Google’s version on the Pixel 3, and we all assumed that the Pixel 4 would take another leap to show Apple who’s boss. That might not be the case. In shot after shot, the iPhone 11 didn’t just turn extremely dark images into useable pics—it brightened the right spots, retained the right shadows, and simply handled the whole scene better than the Pixel 4. It’s subtle, but more often than not, the iPhone produced richer, more detailed shots without losing the natural darkness.
The same was true of another street shot, where the iPhone had much better color accuracy. An indoor shot with the lights off was no contest (iPhone 11 right):
The Pixel (left) did win with this shot:
I would query the significantly different framing in the city street shot at the top, as that could easily impact exposure and processing, but most other shots have near-identical framing.
There’s more testing to come, but so far, writes Simon, the iPhone 11 is the new king of the night. Check out the complete set of comparison shots over at MacWorld.
My own conclusion so far is that Night mode doesn’t meet the high bar needed to act as a travel camera, but does a fantastic job at social photography.
