(Alien music) Hey guys, so one of the Pixel 4’s biggest features is the ability to capture
stars at night time.
Not only that, but it’s arguably the best phone at capturing night time photos in general.
So here are our thoughts on the new Astrophotography mode.
Astrophotography was recently released for the Pixel 4 and 3, and of course works best
on Pixel 4- which we’ll be testing in this video.
To activate it you’ll need a tripod, a dark and clear night, and the latest Pixel software.
So as long as the area is dark enough, you can simply put the phone on a tripod and then
point towards the sky.
So from this point the Night Sight mode is going to automatically transition into Astrophotography
mode.
From there just press the shutter button and the phone will take anywhere from under a
minute to 4 minutes to process the photo, depending on how dark the environment is.
The tripod is necessary to keep the camera still and costs about $10-20.
We tested Astro out in two areas- a dark suburb in North Carolina and also under the bright
lights of New York City.
Both resulted in very different but interesting results.
Starting in North Carolina- the toughest part was finding an area where the trees wouldn’t
be too high as we didn’t want the camera’s view obstructed.
We also checked weather.com every day for a week to find a night where the sky was “clear”,
which didn’t happen until the very end of the week.
First we tested Astro mode on a cloudy night where there weren’t any stars in the sky.
Even though the stars weren’t visible we were still extremely impressed with how well
the phone can see in the dark.
These photos were taken around midnight when the sky was pitch black, however the pictures
themselves almost look like daytime.
Keep in mind all of the lights were turned off- including inside the house- with the
exception of a couple lights in the distance.
Now for a look at this same area on a clear night- as you can tell there are now some
stars in the sky.
If you’re watching this on a small screen then it may be tough to see the stars, but
many of these images actually have hundreds of stars so I’m going to crop in on some
of the best patterns.
Overall it did an excellent job and picked up many, many more stars than the human eye
can see.
We went to a more open field afterwards and were able to see more stars.
Generally it’s ok if there are street lights in the distance, you just can’t be directly
under one when taking as Astro photo.
Here are a few more comparisons between the regular camera mode and also the Astrophotography
mode.
Of course the Astro photos are far better.
We’ll move on to New York in a second, but overall we loved the North Carolina results.
We did however come across a few small issues.
First just for example, airplanes created some weird patterns, though of course it is
rare for one to fly by.
Second, if we adjusted the camera angle on the tripod, then we’d usually need to exit
and reenter the Night Sight mode to get back to Astro mode.
Finally if we pointed the camera straight upwards then the sky wasn’t always a consistent
color, however when we cropped the imagine then we did like the results.
For the most part each photo took between 3 minutes and the maximum 4 minutes to process,
but the results were definitely worth it.
Here are a few more samples before we move on to New York City.
Now for New York City.
It’s generally impossible to see the stars at night time due to all the light pollution
in the sky.
We chose an area in Queens close to the East River with a nice view of Manhattan.
This area was still near some street lights- we’re actually outside a Costco right here-
but fortunately wasn’t pointing towards any besides the ones way out in the distance.
Also, to avoid any confusion these were taken within Night Sight’s Astrophotography mode,
so here the terms Night Sight and Astrophotography mean the same thing.
Amazingly the Astrophotography mode actually picked up a few stars that weren’t visible
to the human eye, and of course weren’t visible with Night Sight turned off.
Aside from that, the Night Sight photos also produced far better colors and details.
Now cropping in on one of the buildings in this photo, you can see there’s a star above
the building with Night Sight turned on, but much more importantly than that, the Night
Sight photo is far clearer overall.
For this reason the Night Sight mode does an excellent job taking any type of night
photo, even if you’re not primarily focused on the stars.
Overall Astrophotography has some room for improvement and I’d definitely like to test
it under more ideal conditions.
That said, considering it can see the night sky better than the human eye can, we were
extremely impressed with the results overall.
No other phone- not even the iPhone 11- can take photos of the stars this well.
If you’d like to download some of these New York City photos then definitely check
out my Instagram, or if there is a photo you’d like to download which isn’t featured there
then ask me on Twitter.
Thanks to my wife who actually took most of the photos, and also my dad for helping out,
and of course thanks to you all for watching!