The Duovox Mate Pro is a tiny camera that truly sees in the dark

If you have a newer phone, you can use a dedicated night mode in your camera app. The features have changed the possibilities for night-time photography by creating a single bright exposure. It doesn't work with video because you have to stay still.

There is still a place for dedicated low-light hardware according to the makers of a new camera called the Duovox Mate Pro. Duovox claims that the Sony STARVIS 2 sensor in the Mate Pro is a thousand times more sensitive than the one in the iPhone 13 Pro and has a more dynamic range than the Sony A7S III.

Sony's STARVIS image sensors are designed for security cameras. They use backside illumination and have the ability to capture both visible and IR light, which allows them to produce a viewable image in the most extreme lighting conditions.

The design of the Mate Pro is cute in its own way. There is a tiny lens that looks huge on an even tinier body, which is only four inches wide. The top plate of the camera has a power button, a shutter button, and four-way buttons, but the back panel has a 3-inch screen that is 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110

The high light sensitivity is obvious when walking around with a device. I live in Tokyo, where it is difficult to find yourself in a truly pitch-black situation, but the dark alleyways in my neighborhood looked like daylight on the Mate Pro screen. It's an interesting alternative to a flashlight, you can see the whole scene in front of you instead of shining a light in a certain direction. There is a flashlight mounted on the front of the camera.

Don't expect the image quality to hold up for still photography. The odds are against the Mate Pro when you compare it to a night mode that uses a modern image signal processor, and the sensor is only 2K resolution. Duovox says it is using advanced noise reduction, but the results are still very noisy. I would rate the Oppo Find X5 Pro as having one of the best night modes available today.

Poor image quality isn't the only thing that makes the lens not ideal for general photography. The minimum focusing distance is long, meaning it is not useful for taking photos of close objects. It does the job for snapshots and video clips.

It is better to think of the Duovox Mate Pro as a portable security camera than an artistic tool. The device is small enough to mount almost anywhere, and it has a battery that will run for as long as the battery holds out. You can stream the camera's feed to Duovox's app with a built-in wi-fi hotspot.

I could see the Mate Pro as a useful accessory. I often stay in parts of Japan that have very little light, but it would be helpful if I stayed there during my time with the Mate Pro.

Duovox says the standard retail price will be $1,200, which feels like a stretch, even though the Mate Pro is available onKICKSTARTER from $599. Depending on your use case, $599 will either be a lot of money to pay for a bad photo camera or a pretty good deal for legitimate night vision in your pocket. It is expected to ship in October.

There is a note on crowd funding.

Companies looking for funding tend to make big promises. According to a study run by Kickstarter in 2015, 1 in 10 products that reach their funding goals fail to deliver rewards. There is disappointment in store for those products that do get done if they are delayed, missed deadlines, or overpromised.

The best defense is to use your judgement. Do the product look legit? Is the company making crazy claims? Is there a prototype? Does the company have plans to manufacture and ship finished products? Has it completed a campaign before? You are not necessarily buying a product when you back it on a site.