Astrophotography's no longer just a hobby amongst enthusiasts, especially now that more phones are increasingly making it a part of their camera features. Tom's Guide took three phones, the iPhone 14 Pro Max, Galaxy S23 Ultra, and Pixel Fold to see how they stack up against each other - while also throwing in a Sony mirrorless camera to see if it can match the low light king.
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00:02 One area where we're seeing great advances in
00:09 is an area of low light photography
00:10 with all the different night modes out there.
00:13 So we've taken the flagships from Apple, Samsung, Google
00:16 to see how well they do
00:17 when it comes to capturing the night sky,
00:19 the stars, the moon in this astrophotography face-off.
00:27 Interestingly, it was the Pixel 3
00:29 that launched all of this with Night Sight.
00:32 And then came the iPhone 11 with its own night mode.
00:35 And eventually the Samsung Galaxy S22
00:38 came out with its version that was called Nightography.
00:41 So what is night mode?
00:43 Well, it's actually nothing really new.
00:45 It's a form of long exposure photography.
00:48 So essentially what happens here
00:50 is that when you take a photo,
00:51 there's more light being drawn into the camera sensor
00:54 over a period of time.
00:56 One of our video producers here at Time's Guide
00:58 actually went out to Cherry Springs State Park.
01:01 It's a dark night preserve
01:02 and it's actually the perfect conditions
01:05 for astrophotography
01:06 because there's minimal to zero light pollution in the sky.
01:10 He took the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra,
01:12 the iPhone 14 Pro Max,
01:14 and the Google Pixel Fold
01:16 to see how they stack up
01:17 when it comes to capturing the night sky.
01:19 He also used the Sony A7S III,
01:22 which is renowned for its low light capabilities
01:25 for photos and video,
01:26 but he also set it up using a tripod,
01:28 which I want to mention
01:30 that you'll probably want to use too with a phone
01:33 because you want to have as minimal shake as possible
01:36 to capture the night sky.
01:38 Here we have the Sony A7S III
01:40 and as you can see here,
01:41 we have a pretty great image,
01:43 but what can you expect from a $5,000 low light beast?
01:46 We have some major celestial bodies here,
01:48 properly white balanced images,
01:50 and lots of stars.
01:53 Now we have the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra
01:55 and the iPhone 14 Pro Max.
01:58 They don't exactly stack up, but that's okay.
02:01 These were taken in standard night mode
02:02 with about 30 second exposure time.
02:04 Both of these images are okay, but not great.
02:07 You could make out some of the same constellations
02:09 between the two,
02:10 but we didn't get anywhere near the same result
02:12 with the A7S III.
02:13 The Samsung lineup has a lovely feature called Pro Mode,
02:16 complete with ISO and shutter speed control.
02:20 Now this is where it gets interesting.
02:21 With the ability to dial in your settings,
02:23 it seems we're able to get an overall better image
02:25 on the S23 Ultra compared to the iPhone 14 Pro Max,
02:30 which has no such feature available.
02:32 You can make out a few more stars
02:34 and a bit more of the nebula in the arm of the Milky Way.
02:36 For Apple, this is a major disadvantage
02:39 in the low light department,
02:40 and it puts the latest that Apple has to offer
02:42 behind the competition.
02:44 Now what about the pixel fold?
02:45 Well, this just may be the king of astrophotography
02:48 at a first glance, although we do have some caveats.
02:51 We're definitely seeing the most stars and constellations
02:54 in the pixel fold's image.
02:56 Our only issue is how much of the image
02:58 is actually captured and how much of it is filled by AI.
03:02 Your guess is as good as ours.
03:04 Pixel's astrophotography mode takes about five minutes
03:06 and captures a lovely little five second time lapse
03:09 of the night sky.
03:10 It's a unique feature to the pixel phones.
03:12 We're guessing this probably exposes
03:14 several 20, 30 second images over five minutes
03:17 to achieve this.
03:19 Now, if you want to get started with astrophotography
03:21 and you don't want to spend the thousands and thousands
03:24 of dollars on a DSLR with a fancy lens,
03:27 then go with the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra,
03:30 primarily because of its Pro mode.
03:33 The Pro mode is unique because it gives you
03:35 those DSLR-like features.
03:37 You'll be able to tune in the settings like the ISO,
03:40 the shutter speed, and even the white balance.
03:43 As for the iPhone 14 Pro Max,
03:44 it's sorely lagging behind competition
03:47 when it came to capturing the Milky Way
03:48 because it's missing the manual controls
03:51 that we found the other phones.
03:52 And as a result, it didn't capture quite as many stars.
03:56 On the other hand, if you could afford the $1,800,
03:58 check out the Google Pixel Fold
04:00 if you don't mind those AI enhancements,
04:02 because in our testing,
04:04 it did produce some really crisp looking images
04:06 of the night sky.
04:08 And you also get the live photos
04:09 with the astrophotography mode.
04:11 So what do you guys think?
04:12 Which phone did the best?
04:13 Was it the Pixel Fold, the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra,
04:16 or maybe the iPhone 14 Pro Max?
04:19 Let me know in the comments.
04:20 Make sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook,
04:22 Instagram, and TikTok.
04:24 I'm John V, and I'll see you in my next video.
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