Until recently, capturing quality photos of the moon and stars with a smartphone was considered a challenging task. However, due to the continuous advancement of smartphone cameras, this has become possible today. Here are some techniques that can help you in this process.
To achieve impressive results, it is necessary to apply certain techniques and use specific resources, such as manual mode, which allows you to control ISO, aperture and shutter speed. Furthermore, you cannot rely solely on your cell phone to be successful in this endeavor. It is crucial to use additional equipment, such as a tripod, which helps to stabilize the device during the capture process.
Poor lighting
Brightly lit areas, such as large cities, tend to obscure the brightness of stars. If you want to capture a stunning photo of the night sky, it is advisable to carefully choose a location where there are minimal streetlights, buildings, and other light sources. By doing so, you can ensure that the resulting photograph is of higher quality and more closely resembles what is seen with the naked eye.
Disable HDR and flash
Now that you’ve chosen a location to photograph the sky, it’s time to set up your phone accordingly. First, disable the HDR option in your camera settings. This feature, while designed to improve the sharpness of your photos, captures a wide range of light and can end up adjusting the light in an undesirable way. Additionally, using the flash is unnecessary at this point.
Save photos in RAW
If your smartphone supports RAW format photo capture, it is recommended that you enable this function through the camera settings. This option allows you to store the images in an uncompressed file, making it easier to edit them later in software such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom and similar. However, if your smartphone does not offer this option, there is no need to worry: the photo can also be recorded in JPEG format.
Pay attention to the cell phone's features
Some companies incorporate specific features to improve photo capture in low-light environments. One example is the night mode present in iPhones (iOS) and Android smartphones, which helps compensate for light in dark places.
Samsung, in turn, offers the Expert RAW app, which includes the “Astrophoto” option. This feature provides a constellation guide to help you capture images of the sky. It is worth noting that the app is not available on all Samsung Galaxy phone models.
Manual mode
If your phone’s camera doesn’t have a dedicated night mode or specific features for photographing the sky, you can choose to set it to manual mode. This option allows you to manually adjust the ISO, aperture, shutter speed, and white balance, giving you greater control over the final result.
In automatic mode, on the other hand, the camera analyzes the environment and automatically selects the optimal settings. While this option is convenient for people without advanced photography knowledge, it does not always produce the best results in environments with challenging lighting conditions. It is important to note that using manual mode requires some prior photography knowledge.
There are several other techniques we can cover, but I believe this is enough to give you a great photograph of the stars.
