red eye

[AngelaH]

I love my S45, but I take most of my photos of kids and they frequently have red eyes. I shoot in auto mode with the red-eye reduction, Auto enabled. Anyone with tips on how to reduce red eye, I would appreciate it.

[PhotoAZ]

Red eye is caused by the both the flash being too close to the lens and the iris of the eye being wide open. The red is caused by light bouncing off the back of the eye were all the blood vessels are.

How to avoid this? Well for most pros we use flash brackets that raises the flash up so as not to be as much of a direct angle. For normal people you could try bouncing the light if your flash head can be moved around. Aim it up so it bounces off the ceiling or if you are near an wall aim it at the wall next to you. This will increase the light source and act like a giant soft box.

If this is not possible then try increasing the lights in the room. More light means smaller irises in the subjects eyes. This is the same thing as those cameras that gives off two flashes. The first is close the iris and the second is the exposure.

[stopbath]

Try these too: Use higher ISO to cut down on flash output, don't have kids look at the camera, get closer and use wider angle.

Note: The younger the person the more likely red eye (smaller eyes). Blue eyes are more likely than brown to exhibit red eye. Being exited or concentration can open up the eyes. Booze opens up the eyes. Other light sources can trigger red eye too. The eye opens slower than it closes (that's why shining a bright light at the subject sometimes helps with red eyes.)

[stoneylonesome]

are you sure your red eye reduction is working? What it does is send a pre flash to close the iris than the regular flash fires. If all else fails get a photo retouch program that lets you eliminate red eye.

[msvirick]

With all you do, you will almost end up sometime with red eye from time to time.
I am a PS user, but use ACDSEE for removing red eye.
ACDSEE is very good for this purpose.

[KO_300D]

stopbath wrote:
Booze opens up the eyes....


Yeah the above is a good point - keep those kids off that alcohol! hehe
But on a more serious note, I'd echo the above. If you can't avoid getting red eye in the picture by altering the available light/flash etc, then any image editing app worth it's salt should have a red eye removal function built in. If it doesn't get one that does!