My buddy at the observatory finally made me see the light about smartphone astrophotography

I used to roll my eyes at people taking pictures of the moon with their phones, but last week a guy at Griffith showed me a stacked image of Andromeda he got with just an iPhone 14 and a cheap tripod... the detail was way better than my old DSLR setup from 5 years ago. Has anyone else switched from a camera to just using their phone for wide-field shots?

2 comments

2 Comments

martin.felix1mo ago

My buddy Mike who works at a camera shop swore by his fancy mirrorless setup for years, then he tried a Google Pixel 8 for a night shoot of the Milky Way and he was legitimately upset at how good it came out. He said the phone's software stacked the frames automatically and pulled out way more detail than he ever got manually with his old gear. Now he jokes that his camera is basically a paperweight unless he needs a super long lens.

fiona_young1mo ago

That thing about him being "legitimately upset" really hits. I used to roll my eyes pretty hard at phone camera hype, thought it was just marketing fluff for people who didn't want to learn exposure basics. But then I tried taking night shots of the city skyline with my old Canon and a friend's Pixel side by side. The phone just pulled out all these stars and details I couldn't get without doing a ton of work in post. It seriously made me rethink what "good enough" even means for most situations.