How to take pictures of stars on Xiaomi: settings and modes

Xiaomi smartphone owners often wonder how to capture the grandeur of the night sky using only the camera’s built-in capabilities. In the past, expensive mirroring and astrophotography skills were required for such purposes, but today, artificial intelligence algorithms and advanced sensors allow even beginners to do this. If you have a flagship or even a mid-range model in your pocket, you already have a powerful tool for creativity.

The key to success is to choose the right location and understand how your sensor perceives light. Urban light can make all your efforts go to waste, so you need to move away from artificial light sources to get quality images, and only in the dark will the real potential of your device's optics be revealed.

In this article, we'll take a look at everything from location selection to fine-tuning your exposure settings manually, and you'll learn why simply pressing the shutter button won't work, and what hidden functions you need to activate for long shutter speeds. Get ready to dive into the world of mobile astrophotography.

Choosing the perfect time and place to shoot

The first and most important step is to find a low-light location, and the light pollution from streetlights and advertising creates a parasitic light that eats away at the dim light of distant stars, and you need to find a place away from major cities where the sky looks really black, not dark gray.

The moon's phase is also critical, and the full moon illuminates the sky so much that it's almost impossible to see the Milky Way even with a professional camera, and the ideal time is the new moon period, or when the moon is low above the horizon.

⚠️ Warning: Never look into the lens of a flashlight or another phone’s screen while shooting, this will knock down the camera’s exposure settings and can damage the sensitive sensor when illuminating for a long time.

Weather conditions are as important as lack of light. Clouds, even a slight haze or high humidity, can completely spoil the frame. Before you go, be sure to check the forecasts of not only precipitation, but also the transparency of the atmosphere. Clear, dry skies are your best friend.

Equipment required: tripod and accessories

Stars are not hand-held, and any, even microscopic camera jitter when the shutter opens will lubricate the image, so having a stable tripod is a must, not a recommendation, and without it, it's physically impossible to get a sharp shot.

If you don't have a tripod, you can use any fixed surface, like rocks, parapets or sandbags, and you can keep your smartphone completely still for seconds or even minutes, and in some cases, you can use a timer to keep the device from touching when you're descent.

Advanced photography may require an additional light source to illuminate the foreground, such as a tent or tree, and powerbank will also be useful, since night shooting modes and screen operation actively consume battery power.

• 📸 Status - provides absolute immobility of the body during the exposure of the frame.
• 🔦 Lantern – necessary for setting the focus in the dark and illuminating objects in the foreground.
• 🔋 Powerbank – ensures that the shooting is not interrupted due to battery discharge in the cold season.
• 🧤 Warm clothes – in the cold, batteries discharge faster, and fingers lose sensitivity.

Use of the built-in mode "Night"

Modern Xiaomi smartphones, especially the Mi and Redmi Note series, feature a powerful algorithmic Night mode, which automatically takes a series of images with different exposures and combines them into a single frame, removing noise and increasing detail. Try it first, because it requires minimal settings.

To activate this mode, open the camera app and find the "More" option, then select "Night" and the camera will prompt you to lock the device, and after pressing the down button, you need to hold the phone still or leave it on a tripod until processing is complete.

Xiaomi's algorithm does a great job of white balance and digital noise suppression. But automation doesn't always know what you're shooting, and sometimes it can over-lighten the sky by making it gray, or vice versa, under-expose the shot.

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If the sky in the photo turns gray, try to press the brightest star on the screen and slider exposure slightly to reduce the brightness before shooting.

For a more controlled result, you’ll need to switch to a professional mode, which will allow you to manage your own ISO shutter speed and senses, which is critical for astrophotography.

Setup of professional mode (Pro)

Pro mode gives you full control over the shooting parameters, and when you switch to it, you'll see a set of tools for manual adjustment, and the first thing you need to do is to switch the focus to manual mode, because autofocus in the dark will be "scouring" and will not be able to catch stars.

Point your camera at a bright star or a distant lantern. Turn the focus ring until the object on the screen is as sharp as possible. Usually, for infinity, you need to twist the ring to the right, but sometimes you need to take a step back so that the stars become dots rather than circles.

Then we adjust the shutter speed. It takes a long shutter speed, usually 10 to 30 seconds, to capture the sky, and the longer the shutter speed, the more light will hit the matrix, but there's a risk of getting lubricated by the Earth's rotation.

Recommended starting settings:


ISO: 800-1600




Exposure: 10-20 seconds




Focus: Manual (Infinity)




Format: RAW

ISO sensitivity should not be too high, otherwise color noises will appear. The optimal range for modern sensors is 800 to 3200 units. Experiment by taking test frames with different values.

Photographing the Milky Way: the subtleties of the process

To capture our galaxy, even more stringent conditions are required: the Milky Way is only visible at certain times of the year and day, and away from cities. It often requires a shutter speed of about 20-25 seconds, after which stars begin to turn into short tracks due to the planet's rotation.

Use RAW if your smartphone model supports it professionally. RAW files store all the information from the sensor, which will allow you to pull the details out of the shadows and adjust the colors without loss of quality during subsequent processing.

⚠️ Warning: If you're shuttered for more than 25 seconds, the stars will start moving, leaving footprints on the photo. For a static shot of the sky, try not to exceed this threshold without using a tracker.

To sharpen your eyes on the stars, you can use the Live Focus method, point the camera at the brightest star (like Sirius or Vega), and zoom in with your fingers on the screen to the maximum. Spin the focus ring until the star is the lowest possible point.

After setting all settings, press the trigger button. It is best to use a 3 or 5-second delay timer so that the vibration from pressing the screen does not pass to the phone body fixed to the tripod.

Image processing and improvement

The resulting image is just a “digital negative” that needs to be processed to shine. Xiaomi’s built-in editor allows you to set the contrast and saturation basic, but for serious results, it’s better to use third-party apps like Lightroom Mobile or Snapseed.

First, work with the parameters of Light and Shadow, and by moving the shadow slider to the right, you'll show the structure of the Milky Way, and correcting the white balance will help remove the unnatural orange or greenish tint of the sky.

Don't overload the saturation. A sky that's too bright, unnatural, looks bad. The processing is to highlight what's already in the picture, not create a new reality.

Common Errors and How to Resolve Them

One of the most common mistakes is to induce stabilization, so even if your arms seem stationary, there are still micro-motions of muscle, and the result is blurred stars instead of clear dots. Always use a support.

The second mistake is a dirty lens. Wipe the camera before you shoot. Fat fingerprints in the facelight from the stars will create unpleasant glare and "noss" that will spoil the whole frame. Microfibre should be your constant companion.

Users also often forget to turn off the flash or HDR mode in automatic mode, which can conflict with manual settings.

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The main secret of high-quality photo stars on Xiaomi is a combination of long exposure, manual focus on infinity and the mandatory use of a tripod to eliminate lubrication.

If the stars in the photo still look like short lines, then the exposure is too long for this focal length. 10-15 seconds.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)