Imaging NLCs on your smartphone

Coax your phone's camera into low-light mode and catch ethereal noctilucent clouds

- Pete Lawrence

Over recent years, the low-light imaging capabilities of smartphones have improved greatly. It's also encouraging to see manufacturers actively promoting phones based on their performance under low-light conditions. Not all smartphones are created equal of course, and older models may still struggle to grab anything out of the darkness. This is also true of current models, not all of which put a priority on low-light capability.

For those brands which offer good night-time sensitivity, the cameras found on their phones are quite capable of imaging atmospheric phenomena such as the aurora or our 'Capture' subject for this month, noctilucent clouds (NLCs). If present, NLCs can vary in brightness from just about visible to making you wonder how anyone can ever miss them. Bright displays may register using the automatic functions in your phone's camera, while dimmer ones may need a bit of fiddling to get something recorded.

Many smartphones have advanced photographic modes, offered under a 'Pro' setting. These allow you to tweak the camera's settings, adjusting core values such as ISO, exposure time, and white balance. In addition, there are apps available which may offer a better low-light settings interface.

The technology in some phones is truly remarkable, offering processes such as dynamic image-stacking as standard. Here, you can take a multi-second exposure of a low-light scene while the camera is handheld, and the final result is free of hand-shake.

Traditional approach