We asked, you told us: Camera flashes are basically now just flashlights

Night mode on our smartphone cameras has gotten so good over the years.

How good?!

Night mode on our smartphone cameras has gotten so good over the years, that people are very rarely using their camera flash for taking photos. We asked you last week on the website, Twitter, and YouTube to tell us what you use your camera flash for. Nearly 20,000 Android Authority fans voted, and the results are very clear.

What do you use your phone’s camera flash for?

Results

The majority of voters (61.27%) said they only use their camera flash as a flashlight, completely foregoing its use for nighttime shots. 31.45% of voters said they use their camera flash for taking photos and for the flashlight feature, while just 2.37% of people(470 votes) only use it as a camera flash.

Maybe we should stop referring to these as camera flashes and start calling them flashlights.

The results shouldn’t be too surprising here. Jokes aside, night mode really is the biggest boon to low-light photography we’ve ever seen in the smartphone landscape. Using night mode in lieu of a physical camera flash does make a huge difference.

Here’s what you had to say

Here are some of the best comments from last week’s poll explaining why they voted the way that they did:

• Andrew Zuo: The last time I used it is when I upgraded my computer. Made it easier to see those tiny tabs on the sides of the DIMM slots.
• Scott Hunter: The first thing I turn off in any camera app is the Automatic Flash. If the picture needs a flash, then I don’t need the picture.
• Alan Burnstine: Very very rarely I need a flash for the camera. Usually only when taking very unusual pictures like trying to figure out the orientation of a part for my car that I have to place by feel because I can’t see the space. Much more often I use it as a flashlight. Often enough that I have used toggling it as one of the uses of the Bixby button using BXActions.
• Paul Russell: 90% of the time I use the flash, it’s as a torch. However, I do occasionally use it to take photos
• shollen: Phones are still bad for flash photos. I use DSLR nikon D750 for that it has build in flash and way better sensor
• roaduardo: Needing to see in the dark in a pinch is the sole reason my smartphone camera flash is used.
• Steven Weston: I also use the flashlight mode to deposit checks. With BoA, it’s very automatic.

That’s it for this week. As always, thanks for voting, thanks for the comments, and don’t forget to let us know what you thought of the results below.