Let's rethink how we commonly take pictures with our smartphones. How often do you take pictures at night or in bad lighting? Do you use panorama mode that often? Google seems to have realized that not a lot of people are keen on using panoramas, so now their changing their set of camera modes - it has moved the Night Sight feature to the main camera mode taking the place of the Panorama.
9to5Google reports that the search engine giant is already starting to do this in a leaked Android Q beta build that's now circulating the web since yesterday. On the left-most mode, Night Sight has taken the place of Panorama.
Let's say this already has happened -- this should be the order of the modes you'll be able to swipe between from the main viewfinder: Night Sight, Portrait, Camera, Video, and More. The last contains Panorama, Photo Sphere, Photo Booth, Slow Motion, Time Lapse, Playground, Lens, Settings, etc.)
The update makes a lot more sense, considering the promotion Google has done for the Night Sight. It even squared it up against iPhone XS, which is lacking a low-light mode.
It's a huge improvement for the Pixel camera for sure. After all, going to the 'More' section to activate Night Sight takes some effort, not to mention the blue Night Sight pill can be sort of annoying and disruptive when you're trying to take a photo. That being said, you can still see the suggestion when you're in the main camera mode.
Now, Google's Panorama is useful in its own right, but it's not exactly a standout compared to other smartphones. Another change is in the Portrait mode, wherein the Flash feature has been given a new name: Illumination.
Again, this makes more sense since you don't actually see a flash when using the front cam. Notice when you take a selfie, the lightning bolt icon disappears on the screen.
These are all good changes, but a bit of a downer is that Google decided to lose the white balance found in the camera app. You will no longer see the temperature icon that allows you to choose from different white balance settings.
To be fair, Google's white balance control is nowhere near when compared to, let's say Samsung, but it would be nice to have control over your camera's white balance still. The default setting just won't do for every photographer out there.
We're not sure if this is all temporary or the feature is indeed removed for eternity, but we're hoping it's a bug. It's still unreleases, so let's see what Google does next.
