Red-eye happens when the light from the built in flash of your digital camera reflects off your subjects retina. Because your digital cameras flash is so close to the lens the line the light takes to and from the eye is almost a straight line. Because of this direct path and the reflectivity of the retina the light inherits the red color of the blood vessels in your subjects eyes. The results are the distinctive red glow we see in so my of our compact digital camera photos.
Because the flash is so close to the lens that when someone is looking into the flash they are also looking directly into the flash. In essence their eyes are picking up and reflecting all the flash from the camera. It’s for this reason that many people purchase external flash units so they can position the light further off center and all but eliminate any red-eye. Well that may be fine IF you want to go through all the trouble but what about the rest of us who are basically shooting from the hip and don’t want to bother with auxiliary flash units?
Here are several strategies that will reduce red-eye
Position people so they are not looking directly into the camera.
Why not shoot a profile? I know, it’s not always appropriate but profile can be really nice looking, even flattering. another trick is just before you take your photo extend one of your arms to the right or left and have let everyone know to look and smile are your hand. If people look too far off camera it can look odd, so an arms length seems to work great. Doing this means the light from the flash will not be moving in the straight line that it would if they were looking directly at the camera.
Set Your Camera to Red-Eye Reduction Mode
One of the problems we see with the red-eye reduction mode is that it tends to take people off guard resulting in some interesting photos. If you change your into this mode do your subjects a favor and warn them there will be TWO flashes and that the second flash is when the photo is taken.
Firing two flashes works because the first acts as “signal” to cause the eyes to slightly constrict. When the eyes contrict less light moves along the stright line path and reflected back at the cmara resulting in diminshed red-eye.
The Darker the Setting the Worse the Red-Eye
You can’t always move your subject to a better lighting situation. However, if you indoors and you can turn on more lights, do it. You’ll notice that when you take flash pictures outdoors there is seldom red-eye. This is because the eye has constricted and less light enters and is reflected by the retina. Just keep in mind if you can rasie the overall level of light in any situation you will reduce the probability of red-eye. One other benifit for raising the light level is that your camera will sense the increased light and will lower the amount of flash it uses to illuminate the scene.
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