Should we use lights with our phone's cameras in night mode, sweater mode and all other modes?

Phone cameras are incredibly capable. They can shoot in near-darkness. They stitch panoramas together instantly, blur backgrounds in portraits, and have you ever wondered why you never get a photo of someone blinking, even in a group shot? And yet there’s one thing every camera needs to take a good photo, no matter how smart the computer: good lighting.

“While sweater and night modes are useful, nothing beats good lighting,” professional photographer Robert Lowdon told Lifewire via email.

There are two main reasons to use external lights for your photos: quantity and quality. You can add more light if you don’t have enough. Smartphone cameras do a great job in low light, either by layering multiple exposures or using algorithms to extract more information from the darkness, but more light is always better in this regard.