Taking night photos on an iPhone that look like night photo?

[Chew Toy McCoy]

I’ve found on the default settings night photos taken on the iPhone look less like a balanced night photo and more like a photo taken with night vision attempting to get as much overall definition as possible despite low light.

What setting(s) should I be messing with?

 

[Eric]

I’ve found on the default settings night photos taken on the iPhone look less like a balanced night photo and more like a photo taken with night vision attempting to get as much overall definition as possible despite low light.

What setting(s) should I be messing with?

I use it occasionally for night shots and have two rules that make it as flexible as possible, first is to put the camera into RAW mode (far easier on iOS26) and the other is to put the iPhone on tripod or set it down if possible. Like any other camera long exposures need to be perfectly still and even with the software built in to stabilize it's still prone to motion, which even if it doesn't add blur can still take from the quality of the image.

Then edit in post and get exactly what you want out of it, RAW contains plenty of data for you ro play with.