DxOMark announces new ‘Night’ and ‘Wide’ scores for phone cameras

DxOMark, the site that reviews phone and digital cameras, has added ‘Night’ and ‘Wide’ scores to its review rear cameras of phones.

While the Wide score is a new addition, Night is a revamped score to include low-light photography (similarly to its now-retired Flash score).

For the Night score, DxOMark will test photos that are taken when the light levels are between 0 lux and 20 lux. It’ll test scenarios with flash off, flash on, and flash auto; it’ll also perform a dedicated night mode test for phones that have that feature.

Speaking to TNW, the company explained that when phones capture pics in low-light conditions images could be affected by issues such as flare, noise, detail preservation, exposure, and color quantization. Plus, often due to the difference in light falling on objects in the focus, highlights get clipped in the picture. And since phones shoot at a low shutter speeds in low-light conditions, there’s an undesirable motion blur. A good camera on a phone should be able to handle all these issues.

For the Wide measure, DxOMark will take multiple samples with a phone in landscape, cityscape, group photos, interiors, wide-angle close-up, and architectures. The company will test wide photos in 50-1,000 lux range, and between the shortest focal length to its maximum focal length with samples taken at an increment of 2mm for every iteration.

DxOMark said wide-angle photos often suffer from imperfections in color, texture, and details; they also face issues like distortion of objects. Also, because wide-angle lenses zoom out there might be certain defects such as blurring and distortion in snaps.

The site has also released updated scores of top 13 forms including scores for the Wide and Night aspect. According to new rankings, the Huawei P30 Pro overtook the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G by a point, and the Lenovo Z6 Pro climbed two spots in the rankings.

The company said it has also renamed its score for the rear camera of phones from DxOMark Mobile to DxOMark Camera.

While DxOMark scores are not an absolute measure of how a phone’s camera performs, it gives an idea of how a phone’s camera measures up in different scenarios with an objective score. With more top-end devices donning a wide-angle camera and a have dedicated night mode, it’s a good addition in the review process.