The iPhone’s New Night Mode Will Make Your Dark Restaurant Food Photos Look A Whole Lot Better
Another iPhone is upon us. Apple announced the iPhone 11, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max this week from Cupertino, CA, all three of which will be available in stores September 20. And since there is nothing quite as embarrassing as being the person who uses flash to take a still-subpar food pic in the middle of dimly lit, fancy restaurant, Apple is finally gifting us with "night mode."
The feature is part of all three iPhone 11 models and is similar to Google's Pixel 3 Night Sight mode, Eater notes. I used Google's version of function inside a dark-ish wedding venue recently and the difference in color quality is INSANE, so I can only imagine the wonders it'll do for food photos.
Per Apple's description, the feature turns on automatically when you're in a dark setting. When you take a photo, "the camera takes multiple images while optical image stabilization steadies the lens." The camera then aligns images to correct for movement, so you're not left with a blurry photo. It also adjusts contrast to avoid weird shadows and fine-tunes colors to keep the photo looking natural. The result is a photo where you can actually tell what's in the frame without upping the brightness and saturation a million percent.
Of course, this is useful in many settings beyond dark restaurants, but in the food world, it means you may start to see better-quality photos from restaurants where influencers may not have previously flocked (is it just me or is every Italian restaurant dimly lit?) as well as better-photographed cocktails, as most bars are dark, to say the least. It also means less disruption for wait staff and customers who don't care to document every course of their meal.
Another interesting photo feature is the new triple camera system on the iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max (the iPhone 11 has two cameras). Both Pro versions have a 12-megapixel wide lens, a 12-megapixel ultra-wide lens, and a 12-megapixel telephoto lens, which work together to give you access to a wider shot—"four times more scene than ever," the Apple website says. This is likely more useful for outdoor shots, but you never know when a massive spread of food will call for a photo.
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