How to take a picture of the moon on your Xiaomi phone

The night sky often attracts photographers, and many smartphone owners are tempted to capture the Earth’s satellite. However, the standard automatic camera mode often turns a bright disk into a white spot without parts and craters. Owners of Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO devices have a major advantage thanks to advanced MIUI and HyperOS software.

To get a good picture, it is not enough to point the lens at the sky, you need to understand the principles of the matrix, set the exposure correctly and use additional stabilization if possible. In this article, we will discuss all the nuances that will help you take a professional picture of the night light.

Preparation of equipment and timing

The quality of the final image depends on the shooting conditions and the stability of your smartphone. Even the most powerful flagship will not be able to take a clear shot if your hands are shaking. The tripod is a must-have for night photography, as the shutter speed increases in such conditions.

If you don't have a professional tripod, you can point your phone against a railing, a rock, or any fixed surface, and it's important to rule out any micro-vibrations that will inevitably lubricate the image when you use a long-focus lens.

• 🌑 Choose a new moon or phase when the moon is high above the horizon to avoid atmospheric distortion.
• 📱 Wipe the camera with a microfiber, as even the slightest dust will create glare from a bright light source.
• 🔋 Make sure the battery is sufficiently charged as the zoom and screen quickly consume energy.

Weather conditions are also worth considering: high humidity or cloudiness can significantly impair visibility and add noise to the photo, and the ideal time is just after sunset, when the sky is not completely black, which will allow you to work out the details better.

⚠️ Warning: Never attempt to photograph the Sun, even using filters or camera settings for the Moon.This can cause the camera matrix to burn out and damage the eyes.

Remember that optical zoom is better than digital. If your smartphone is equipped with a telephoto lens, try to use it by switching between the camera modules.

Use of the built-in "Moon" mode

Many of Xiaomi’s and Redmi’s current models are equipped with a special artificial intelligence algorithm that automatically recognizes the Earth’s satellite, a mode called “Moon Mode” and available in the Camera app.

To activate the function, open the camera app and go to the "More" section. Find an icon with a picture of the moon. If there is no such separate item, the algorithm can work automatically in "Photo" or "Video" mode with sufficient approximation.

Point the camera at the moon and zoom in smoothly. When the disk is big enough, you'll see a pop-up hint or a Moon icon. Click on it to activate a special processing algorithm.

The system automatically selects optimal exposure parameters to remove the overlights and emphasize the texture of the surface, a method ideal for beginners who do not want to understand manual settings.

• 🌕 AI algorithm independently determines the phase of the moon and adjusts the sharpness.
• 🚀 Processing occurs almost instantly after pressing the down button.
• 🎨 Color reproduction can be slightly modified for greater artistic value.

It is worth noting that in some regions or firmware versions, this mode can be hidden or removed, in which case manual shooting mode will come to the rescue.

Setting up Pro-mode for detailed shooting

For those who want to fully control the process, a professional Pro mode has been created. It allows you to manually control all the parameters of the lens, which is critical for shooting bright objects against a dark background.

Switch to Pro mode via the camera's main menu, where you can access ISO settings, shutter speeds, focal length and white balance. Automatic settings are not suitable for shooting the moon, as the camera will try to illuminate the dark sky, turning the moon into a white spot.

The first thing you need to do is to reduce the sensitivity of the matrix, set the ISO to a minimum (usually 50 or 100), which will ensure the minimum level of digital noise and maximum detail.

ISO: 50-100


Exposure: 1/125 - 1/400 sec




Focus: Infinity (MF)

Then adjust the shutter speed. Because the moon is a bright object, the exposure time should be very short. Start at 1/200 of a second and experiment by making values shorter or longer depending on the brightness.

Focusing also needs to be switched to manual MF mode. Move the slider to the extreme right position (mountain or infinity icon) to ensure maximum sharpness of the remote object.

Working with zoom and stabilization

The main difficulty in shooting the moon is to use maximum zoom. Digital zoom often degrades quality, so it is important to know the capabilities of your particular device.

Xiaomi's flagship models are often equipped with periscopic lenses that give a 5x or 10x optical magnification. The use of optics is always preferable to digital crop.

When using zoom above 10x, image stabilization becomes critical. Even breathing can shift the frame. Turn on timer mode for 3 or 5 seconds to remove the shaking from pressing the down button.

⚠️ Attention: With strong digital magnification (above) 30x-50x) Image quality can drop dramatically due to pixel interpolation, making the image "soapy».

Avoid using maximum zoom unless absolutely necessary. Often, a 10-fold or 20-fold zoom gives a cleaner and more detailed picture than a maximum 50-fold zoom.

Comparison of models and their capabilities

Different smartphone models have different capabilities of arrays and lenses, and here is a table comparing the potential of different series of devices when shooting the moon.

As you can see from the table, the telephoto lens is critical, and devices without optical zoom rely solely on software processing and cropping in the central part of the matrix.

Owners of devices without a telephoto lens should use third-party applications or shoot in RAW format for later processing.

Post-processing and preservation of the result

Even a perfectly shot often requires easy correction. Xiaomi’s built-in gallery editor allows you to quickly improve your photos without resorting to complex programs.

Open the picture, click Change, and go to the light settings. Reduce Lights and Whites a little bit to return the texture to the craters if they get lost.

Add a little "Sharpness" and "Structure" to accentuate the surface relief. Be careful with saturation - moonlight should stay cold and natural.

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Save the originals in RAW format (if your phone supports) to be able to handle colors and lights more flexibly in professional editors.

For deeper processing, you can use applications like Lightroom or Snapseed, which allow you to work with curves and selective color correction.

Frequent errors in shooting

Beginners often make the same mistakes that nullify their efforts, and one of the most common is trying to get the moon through a window glass.

Glass creates glare, reflections, and reduces overall sharpness. In addition, autofocus can focus on dust on the window instead of on the moon. Always shoot outdoors.

• 📉 Flash usage: Flash is useless for shooting remote objects and will only illuminate the frame.
• 📱 Digital zoom to the point: leads to loss of detail and the appearance of compression artifacts.
• 👐 Hand shooting: no stop lubrication is guaranteed even with short exposure.

Another mistake is ignoring the lens contamination, wipe the camera in front of every important shot, as the greasy footprints scatter the light of the bright moon.

⚠️ Note: Do not use external clip lenses of poor quality, they often introduce severe distortion and chromatic aberrations, degrading the picture compared to a clean lens of the phone.

By avoiding these mistakes, you will greatly increase your chances of getting an impressive result the first time around.

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The main secret of success is the stable position of the phone, the minimum ISO and a short shutter speed to “freeze” the details of the bright disk.

Final recommendations

Shooting the moon on a Xiaomi smartphone is an exciting process that unlocks creativity: Experiment with settings, try different angles and times of day.

Don't be afraid to use manual mode, as it gives you the best control over the outcome, and over time you'll learn to intuitively match the right settings for any lighting conditions.

Remember, practice is the key to mastery, and even if the first frame isn't perfect, error analysis can help make the next shot better.