The night city is a completely different light, literally and figuratively, with neon lights, glowing car headlights and mysterious building shadows creating the magical atmosphere that one wants to capture, but many Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO smartphone owners are faced with a dark spot of porridge or overlit lanterns instead of atmospheric images.
Modern MIUI and new HyperOS image processing algorithms work wonders, but automation often doesn't cope with the complex contrast light of a metropolis. You don't have to be a professional photographer to take impressive shots. You just have to understand the basic principles of how a matrix works in low light and know where the hidden capabilities of your camera lie.
In this article, we will discuss all the nuances, from using the regular Camera app to advanced settings in manual mode. You will learn how to stabilize a smartphone without a tripod, which shutter speed options to choose for shooting light traces and why RAW-And this can be your lifesaver for post-processing. Let's turn your smartphone into a powerful tool for night photography.
Preparation of equipment and stabilization
The first and most important rule of night photography is not to shake. In the dark, the camera has to keep the shutter open longer to collect more light. Any, even microscopic hand movement at that point will lead to a blurred frame. The ideal solution is to use a tripod, but if it's not on hand, you have to be creative.
Put your elbows on a hard surface, like a parapet, a bench back, or a car hood, which will create an additional foothold and significantly reduce the amplitude of your hand tremors, and you should also turn off all the stabilization features in the camera menu if you use a tripod, as electronic stabilization can try to "compensate" for non-existent movement and blur the frame.
⚠️ Warning: Never use digital zoom in nighttime shooting. This is software-based cropping that instantly kills detail and increases the amount of digital noise.
For owners of flagship models Xiaomi 13 Pro or Xiaomi 14 Ultra with their inch matrix stabilization works differently, but the principle remains the same: the longer the shutter speed, the more reliable the fixation should be. If you shoot with your hands, turn on the Night Mode, which takes a series of quick shots and glues them together, compensating for the trembling algorithmically.
☑️ Checklist for preparation for night shooting
Basic settings of the camera application
Before we get to the complex settings, let's optimize the standard app. Go to the camera settings menu (three bars in the corner) and make sure you have the options enabled. First of all, activate the framing grid display. It will help align the horizon, which is critical for architectural photography.
Also pay attention to the format of saving. If you plan to process photos, it makes sense to enable saving in HEIF format or, if the model allows, in RAW. However, for fast publication on social networks, a high quality JPEG is enough. Make sure that the maximum resolution is chosen in the lens settings, since night shooting often requires cropping.
The “Improving” function deserves special attention. AI». In the daytime, it works wonders, making colors juicier, but at night it can over-lighten shadows, turning night into day and killing the atmosphere. Try taking a few shots with it on and off. AI-The system to understand the difference.
An important parameter is white balance. In automatic mode, the camera can make mistakes, going yellow from sodium lamps or blue from LEDs. In standard photo mode, you can quickly switch the presets of white balance by clicking on the "WB" icon in the top menu, selecting the most natural shade for the current scene.
Night mode vs Manual mode (Pro)
Most users rely on a special Night mode, which is designated by the moon icon. It's a powerful tool that uses multi-frame noise reduction technology. The camera takes multiple images with different exposures and combines them, resulting in a bright, clean image, but often with lost detail in the lights (the lights become just white spots).
Manual mode (Pro) gives you complete control over exposure, you decide how much light will hit the matrix, the main advantage is the ability to keep the light structure in the lights and texture of dark areas, which is often not possible automatic mode, but working in manual mode requires understanding the three whales of exposure: shutter speed, ISO and aperture.
| Parameter | Night mode (Auto) | Pro Mode (Manual) | Influence on photo |
|---|---|---|---|
| Excerpt. | Automatic (series of frames) | Configured by the user (up to 30 seconds) | Length of light traces and brightness |
| ISO | Automatic (often high) | Fixed (better 50-100) | Digital noise levels |
| Focus | Autofocus. | Manual guidance (Infinity) | Sharpness of stars and distant objects |
| Noise suppression | Aggressive (smoothing) | Minimum (details retained) | Texture and detailing of the frame |
Use Night mode for fast reporting when you don't have time to set up. Switch to Pro mode when you want to get an art shot with light plumes from cars or shoot stars while preserving the natural contrast of the night city.
Set up parameters in Pro-mode
To go professional, select the tab "Enter → Pro" in the camera app. Here you will see a set of sliders. First, set the focus to MF (Manual Focus) mode and move the slider to the extreme right position (mountain or infinity icon), which ensures that focus does not get lost on the nearest object.
Try to keep your ISO (sensitivity) to a minimum of 50 or 100. An increase in ISO increases brightness, but adds graininess, which is especially noticeable in the dark sky and in the shadows of buildings.
Shutter speed (S or T) is your main tool. For static cityscapes, 1/10 to 1/4 second is enough. If you want to capture beautiful long tracks from car headlights, increase the shutter speed to 2-4 seconds. Remember, the longer the shutter speed, the brighter the frame, but the risk of lubrication is higher.
The Secret of White Balance in Pro-Mode
The manual EV option is often inactive, as you control brightness directly through ISO and shutter speed. Watch out for the histogram (if available in your version of MIUI) - the graph should not "stick" to the right edge, which means overlight.
Photography of light plumes and long exposure
One of the most spectacular night photography techniques is traffic, and to turn chaotic traffic into flowing rivers of light, you'll need a shutter speed of 2 seconds or more, and find a high ground: a bridge, a balcony, or a second-floor window that overlooks a busy highway.
Set your smartphone on a reliable support. In Pro mode, set ISO 50, and start shutter speed with 2 seconds. Do a test frame. If there are few traces, increase the time to 4-8 seconds. If the frame is too bright and the lights are “knocked out” in white, reduce the shutter speed or close the aperture (if your Xiaomi model supports variable aperture, like the Xiaomi 13 Pro).
⚠️ Warning: When shooting with long exposure, even the sound of footsteps nearby can cause the ground or railing to vibrate, which will blur the frame.
To create the effect of "silk water" in the city fountains also use a long exposure, the water will become smooth and milky, creating a beautiful contrast with the sharp outlines of buildings, in which case a tripod is mandatory, since the hands can not hold 4 seconds motionless.
Use of RAW and post-processing
When you shoot in RAW (DNG), you save raw data from the matrix, and the files take up more space and look paler than JPEG, but they contain a huge amount of editable information, and this allows you to pull the details out of the deep shadows and remove the lights in the lights, which is impossible with a conventional JPEG.
For processing RAW-Lightroom Mobile or Snapseed are great for your smartphone files. In Lightroom, work with Highlights and Shadows sliders. Lower the lights to show the structure of the lamps, and raise the shadows to show the details in the dark. It is also useful to add a little “Texture” and “Clarity».
And don't forget color correction. Night towns often have mixed lighting, and use Curves or HSL tools to separate the saturation of orange (street lamps) and blue (sky, windows) colors, and this gives you a professional look.
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Keep the original. RAW-You may always want to redo the retouch after a year when new skills or plugins are available.
Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
Beginners often make the mistake of trying to capture the night sky or the city just by holding the phone up, in which case they often get their own fingers covering part of the lens, or the flashlight from streetlights that create glare on the lens. Always check the edges of the frame before lowering the shutter.
Another problem is the dirty lens, and in the daytime, the little snuffs don't show up, but at night they turn into radial rays that radiate from each light source, and rub the lens with a soft cloth in front of every serious shot, which is a trivial, but most effective way to improve sharpness.
Ignoring composition is also destructive. At night, light itself creates lines and shapes. Look for symmetry, leading lines of roads, or reflections in windows and puddles. Don't be afraid to leave a lot of "negative space" (darkness) in the frame, which enhances the feeling of night.
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The main secret of high-quality night photography on Xiaomi is not so much camera setup as a clean lens, reliable stabilization and shooting in RAW format for later processing.