Pixel 9a Night Photography

[OspreyO]

Anyone know how to turn off the automatic brightening of night photos in the Pixel 9a.

I turn off flash, turn off night mode, turn off HDR, it still brightens night time scene. No matter what I do it always brightens the scene at night.

 

[OspreyO]

I found it. Its a bug. Turn down the brightness by moving the slider up. Only works one time. You have shut down the camera app and relaunch it to work another time.

Well that a pain.

 

[helpimcrap]

Does anyone know how to turn the flash onto auto?

The only options are off, night vision and flash always on.

It isn't as good at photos at my Motorola edge 40 neo was and that's years old.

 

[OspreyO]

"...Auto Night Sight: In standard Photo or Portrait mode, the camera will detect low-light scenes and turn on Night Sight automatically. You do not need to manually switch modes.

Manual Flash: To use the physical flash, tap the Settings icon (gear/arrow) in the bottom-left corner of the camera app and select On. Note that using the flash disables the automatic low-light photo processing.

Forcing Night Sight: To manually force the feature without waiting for auto-detection, swipe the mode carousel to the dedicated Night Sight option..."

Most of the time you don't need a flash. That's part of the point of the pixel the software can get a photo in the dark without a flash. The auto flash basically always on. But it's almost never dark enough to trigger it.

 

[OspreyO]

Let's be honest neither the 9a or the Motorola have the best camera hardware. The pixel kinda uses great software to get better photos than the sum of it parts.

You might be used to how the Motorola photos look. It gets just ok in reviews. You might be happier with a newer Motorola. It's probably the same camera.

I came from Xiaomi with a 108mp camera. On a good day it was much better than the pixel phone camera I had at the time. But it was one in 20 photos that was good and mostly in good light. The pixel about 16 of 20 photos was decent or usable. Day or night.

 

[OspreyO]

I used to like moto G phones. They started being stingy with the updates and fixes. So I switched away from them. They still have a lot of bang for buck in their segment.