When Google announced the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL, it touted Night Sight as a major new feature of the new Pixels that would dramatically improve your low-light photos. Now the feature is rolling out to all Pixel phones.
Google says that over the next few days, Night Sight is coming to all three generations of Pixel phones via an update to the Google Camera app. The feature works on both the front and rear cameras on these devices. Google does say that Night Sight works best on Pixel 3, as the learning-based white balancer is trained for that phone. The company also notes that it uses shorter exposures on the original Pixel because it has no optical image stabilization.
If you're taking a photo in low light, the Pixel will suggest using Night Sight. You can manually navigate to the mode, too. After you press the shutter button, Google suggests that you hold still until Night Sight finishes capturing the photo to ensure a good image. Below you can see a comparison of a photo taken without Night Sight and one taken with it.
Night Sight works by measuring your natural hand shake as well as how much motion is in the scene to ensure that your photo turns out well. If your phone and scene are still, Night Sight will spend more time capturing light to minimize the noise in your photo. If there's more motion, Night Sight will use shorter exposures, which will capture less light but minimize motion blur.
Google also explains that Night Sight uses machine learning to balance the color of your photo so that the natural colors of your scene show in your photo.
Night Sight looks like an awesome feature. The comparison images shown by Google are totally different photos, with Night Sight getting you good-looking images out of a scene where some other cameras may produce unusable shots. It's great to see Google bringing this feature to older Pixel 2 and Pixel phones, too; while the feature may work best on Pixel 3, giving Night Sight to older Pixels helps to prolong their lifespan and treats users to a great new feature just for being Pixel owners.