Back in March this year, Huawei shook the tech world with its then-flagship smartphone, the Huawei P20 Pro. Most notably was its camera capabilities especially in challengingly low light conditions. Indeed, Huawei was ahead of the curve in night photography, where the phone would tap into the dedicated NPU to take stellar hand-held low shutter speed photos no matter how shaky your hands are. Certainly, this left a lot of users in awe. But we all knew it was a matter of time before other manufacturers catch up with the trend.

Fast forward to October, Google (officially) took the wraps off the Pixel 3 and 3 XL, showcasing Google’s software wizardry and their own implementation of a dedicated night mode, dubbed as Night Sight. Traditionally, as is the case with the rest of the software powering their phones, Google raised the bar really high, leaving very little to be desired. But that did not stop OnePlus from trying their hands at dedicated night modes. One of the highlights of the OnePlus 6T launch event on the 29th of October was Nightscape—OnePlus’ vision of night photography.

Given the fact that the OnePlus 6T’s camera hardware was identical to that of its predecessor, we all knew Nightscape will be making its way to the OnePlus 6 in a software update. And before you know it, OnePlus pushed an OTA update to the OnePlus 6 bringing in all the new camera features introduced in the launch event, underlining how OnePlus pays attention to the community. OnePlus phones have always had a soft spot in the hearts of all tech enthusiasts, helping create one of the most active developer scenes compared to any other Android smartphones. Not so long ago, a Gcam port with Night Sight support had been released specifically for the OnePlus 6, a natural progression of a super active developer community. So how does OnePlus’ Nightscape stack up against Night Sight on the OnePlus 6? Well, let’s find out. But before we do, let’s take a look at how each implementation works.

Night Sight

Unlike a traditional long-exposure mode, Google follows a quite unique approach in order to tame any handshake. Instead of keeping the shutter open for unpractically long exposure time, Google’s Night Sight splits the exposure time into multiple frames with an exposure time between one third and one second. This is determined by factoring in the phone’s movement, whether there are any moving objects in the scene and how good the lighting conditions are. In a perfectly lit room with minimum shakiness, the phone would capture 6 frames with an exposure of 1 second per frame. In less ideal conditions, the algorithm will favor capturing more frames at a less exposure time, which can reach up to 15 frames with an exposure of ⅓ of a second per frame.

These frames are then assembled together using a proprietary algorithm similar to Google’s HDR+ algorithm, with a few enhancements to address some of the concerns associated with a poorly-lit environment. Based on the content of the image, a machine-learning algorithm is employed to choose the right colors, eliminate any tints caused by artificial light and cleanse the photo of any evident noise while keeping all the little details in check.

Nightscape

In short, it is essentially a skimmed edition of Google’s Night Sight. OnePlus decided to opt for the same multi-frame burst shot concept when it comes to feeding in more light.

Where OnePlus’ strategy differs from Google’s is the execution. For starters, OnePlus’ Nightscape only takes 2 seconds at max while capturing the multiple frames it needs. Google, on the other hand, can reach up to 6 seconds. In terms of frames captured, that roughly translates to 3-5 frames on Nightscape compared to Night Sight’s 6-15 frames. In all fairness though, a lower exposure time means there will be less handshake encountered during the process.

In order to brighten up the image, the ISO level is bumped up substantially to allow the camera to soak in more light. Afterwards, a more aggressive noise-reduction algorithm is enforced to eliminate the increased noise levels associated with increasing the ISO level.

Last but not least, the details in the shadowy areas are restored in a typical HDR fashion.

Scene 1: Landscape from the roofs

We begin with a classic landscape shot of some dimly lit buildings under the moonlight. Right off the bat, we can spot some distinct differences between the images. Starting with OnePlus’ photo taken in Auto mode, we can notice the slightly overblown highlights evident in the parking space in the bottom right corner and the far lightings in the buildings, accompanied with slight luminance noise in the sky. While it looks well-composed for the most part, it certainly leaves something to be desired. Fortunately, switching over to Nightscape mode seems to address all of these concerns to a great extent, with details retained in the darker areas in the buildings in a typical HDR fashion.

Moving on to Gcam’s shot in Auto mode, we can easily notice Google’s preference to keep the image as close to what it really looks like instead of artificially brightening up the image and blowing the highlights in the process. With Night Sight though, things look rather different and far more appealing. The camera was able to pull far more light than any of the previous modes, and rather impressively the final image not only looked brighter but also very well balanced with nearly no overblown lightings at all. It’s also noteworthy how the image did not suffer from any inappropriate color reproduction, reflecting on Google’s machine learning prowess.

If we are to declare a final winner, it will be no other than Google’s own Night Sight, though OnePlus’ endeavors are not that far off.

Scene 2: A blossom in the dark

Beginning with the 1st shot, we can see OnePlus’ Auto mode reiterating on their strategy of trying to brighten up the image unnaturally at the cost of slight noise. Weirdly enough, OnePlus’ Nightscape mode struggled to keep the yellow flower in focus, blurring the overall image with no other discernible differences to talk about, compared to the previous photo taken in Auto mode.

Switching to Gcam’s Auto mode reveals an unusably dim photo, where the outline of the resting phone is barely visible. Again, Google didn’t opt for brightening up the image in Auto mode, even if it means ending up with an unusable image, leaving it for the user to switch to Night Sight and accept Gcam’s suggestion. Moving on to Night Sight, we can only be impressed by the details preserved in the image in a very dimly lit room. Again, this is a situation where Google’s well-trained machine-learning algorithm proves to be the ultimate solution, leaving OnePlus’ Nightscape far behind.

Scene 3: Pitch black

In the name of science, we have taken some sample images of the same scene with nearly all the lights switched off. Starting with OnePlus’ Auto mode, we notice quite a lot of grain as the phone tries its best to brighten up the image. Predictably, OnePlus’s Nightscape didn’t have any tricks up its sleeves reserved for these ultra-low light conditions, producing a very similar picture in terms of overall exposure, while brushing away nearly all the noise. A side effect of the aggressive de-noising algorithm is that the picture looks more like a Van Gogh painting more than anything else.

Rather excitedly, I launched Gcam and right off the bat it suggested to try out Night Sight before even fully loading up the viewfinder. Since this was merely a science experiment, I took a photo in Auto mode, which was unusable, to say the least. The outline of the flowers was barely visible. Finally, I listened to Google’s friendly suggestion and switched to Night Sight. It took slightly more time than in the previous scenes, which is predictable given the inexisting luminance. The end result, however, left me in so much awe. The difference between Night Sight’s image and its counterparts is almost quite literally night and day. The level of detail Night Sight’s algorithm was able to extract in such challenging light conditions is unbelievable. My only complaint would be how the photo bears an overwhelming yellow hue, but that is just me nitpicking for the most part. Comparing Night Sight to Nightscape is like pitting a Dodge Challenger Demin against a Lada Riva in a quarter-mile drag race.

Scene 4: Dreamworks’ moon

I was amused by the scenery, to say the least, so I decided to pull my phone from my pocket and savor the moment. However, it proved to be a bit trickier than I thought. Brimming with confidence, I launched Gcam first and switched right away to Night Sight, only to be bewildered by the end result. For some reason, there was a very apparent kinda-sorta halo effect in the sky, resulting in a weirdly uneven illumination where the top third of the picture is noticeably darker than the rest of the image. Overblown highlights are not the most surprising thing given the camera hardware of this phone. Still, I feel like Night Sight has blown out the lights more than it should in the process. Overall, Night Sight left a lot to be desired.

After Night Sight left me scratching my head, I decided to switch over to OnePlus’ home-brew Nightscape. While it may not make that much sense, it never looked like a relegation as some of you might think. The sky illumination was perfectly balanced and nowhere near as messy as Night Sight’s image. Noise levels were also in check with the highlights being a tad blown out. These incredibly low noise levels, however, come at a cost. Fine details such as the crests of the waves are smeared away, which might put some people off.

Out of pure curiosity, I switched back to OnePlus’ Auto mode. As expected, the resulting image is very similar to Nightscape’s image, save for slightly higher noise levels in the sky but more discernible details in the dark areas of the sea. In the name of science, I decided to take a photo using Gcam albeit in Auto mode instead. Like the previous cases, I ended up with an unusably dark photo. One thing that is worth noting, this is the only shot where the phone retained the crescent shape of the moon. I took multiple images and ended up with the same result.

Of course, in this particular scene, I cannot declare a final victor—they all trade blows. However, I can say that OnePlus’ Nightscape yields the best results overall, with OnePlus’ Auto mode a very close runner-up. I would personally give Night Sight the lowest rank of all 4 configurations.

Conclusion

In most of the situations, Google’s Night Sight has the upper hand. It is undeniably more sophisticated than OnePlus’ solution, going as far as employing machine-learning algorithms to reach the best results possible. Still, OnePlus was able to show its strengths in one of the trickiest scenes, where Google’s Night Sight shot was clearly off target. However, we must also bear in mind the great possibility that Google’s Night Sight might have been tailored specifically for the Google Pixel 3’s hardware. The difference between the OnePlus 6 and Google Pixel 3 in terms of the camera hardware is very significant.

While we cannot declare a final winner, we can confidently say 9 times out of 10 Google’s Night Sight will hit the nail on its head. And should it fail you, OnePlus’ Nightscape will do just fine.

You can download and install Gcam for your OnePlus 6 (and 6T) here. Huge thanks to my colleague Aryan Arora for grabbing the sample images for this article.

Featured-Image: The Verge