Today i took some shots at night and i confirm. The result is a disaster now in Android 10

[doublem101]

I've been reading all the posts about the bad photo quality on Android 10 but honestly i didn't had the chance to test it in detail before.
However today, i had a spare time and it only took a couple minutes to see what everyone are talking about.
I already had taken some indoor photos and i noticed the high noise in darker areas but i went outside and i couldn't believe on what i was looking at. Slightly blured photos (like a shaken photo) and no detail at all, it looked like a watercolour painting. On some photos, darker areas were pinkish, something that i complained before in Pro mode on long exposures but never noticed it in any other mode.
However, i don't know if it's related or not but the few Gcam versions that works, aren't much better neither. Still a little better than stock app but really really worse than before. I'm not sure if they aren't already optimized or somehow related with the stock app bad quality. I don't know how Gcam works but what if the main issue isn't the stock APP itself but something behind it that makes Gcam works so bad also?
Sorry Asus, but i can't accept this quality from €500 device. One of the things that made me buy this phone was his night photo quality and now it takes worse photos than my old device?
I know you are looking at the problem already but i become frightened when i read that the differences you found aren't considerable. They are. If you didn't tested yet at night, outside, please do it. Theres were i found the major differences, not indoor.
I don't a have photo took in Android 9 under the same circunstances in this same places but please look at this photo. This isn't acceptable at all.

[CH_ASUS]

In Night Mode the phone will take multiple shots - and ZenFone 6 does not have OIS , making it more succeptible to hand-shake.
Even as simple as pressing the shutter button can unintentionally case tiny shakes. With that said, Night mode works best in a moderately to low lighted scene (not dark) with a higher dynamic range

[doublem101]

@CH_ASUS Thanks for the explanation about how Night Mode works.
About what @OPC mentioned i'm getting the same result, now it seems every single movement can make the image something blury. Sometimes i even use the timer but it doesn't seem to help so much. I'm not sure it was happening before on Pie but i think not. Too bad i don't have two phones or the time to downgrade to Pie to do some serious tests but the final result in handled mode is really different for worse, on Q.
Maybe it's due to some aggressive noise reduction like i think you already mentioned, maybe the algorithm doesn't stack all shoots so well, i don't know... but these handled images really lack any detail when zooming in.
@CH_ASUS if theres any beta testing of a new camera app or so, i don't mind to test it and give my honest feedback.

[CH_ASUS]

As every scene and every situation is rather unique - it is quite difficult for us to make specific comments on every photo and situation that appears.

However, we did not change any algorithms going to Android 10. As such, there should really not be any differences between photos taken in latest P or Q. Other than changes which can occur even within same version, like even if you take 10 separate shots of any given scene, they can still turn out slightly different.

We'll try to show some examples between a device on P and one on Q. Work in progress.

[_jis_]

I have a very good experience with this handy mini tripod, which I bought on sale. For both night photos and other uses. Look at product images.
https://www.czc.cz/vanguard-stolni-stativ-tripod-vesta-tt1-bila-perlet/257999/produkt

[doublem101]

Today i did some more tests and all the photos i took, the difference between handled and tripod mode, was huge again.
I'm not sure if it was so huge in P but i don't remember to be.
I know tripod mode shots should be better but the difference should be so big? We are talking about a massive difference. It seems something isn't right...
To make sure it wasn't taken in Auto Mode even it was in Night Mode, i shoot in Auto also and it's slightly worse than Night Mode, so i guess Night mode was used.
Auto / Night handled / Night tripod



Lets look at the details: