XTi - red eye question

Hi, I am new to this forum and new to Photography. I have a delemma/question for you all:

My new XTi seems to be taking a lot of pictures where the subjects have serious red-eye. I am shooting in the Basic Modes (Full Auto and Portrait) as I am relatively new to SLR photography.

This is extremely frustrating as I take a lot of Dog photos and the Red-Eye Correction in my PS Elements does not work on the green canine version of Red Eye. Also, I am spending a lot of time correcting photos of birthday parties and the like where Elements isn't picking up all of the red eyes.

Does anyone here have any suggestions.

Today is the last day I can return it, under the Costco 90 day guarentee, if I need to.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Mary

1000arms wrote in post #4256371
Use your manual to check that red-eye reduction is on.

Triple Checked - Most def. on!

Stop using the built in flash

Or clone it out in PP.

The only real way to eliminate redeye is to move the light source further from the lens. This is the achille's heel of the built-in flash.

Using a hotshoe-mounted flash unit will get you a little lattitude, though often it's still not enough to solve the problem. But with one of those flash units you can bounce the flash indoors which generally does the trick.

Obviously, flash units come at a cost, but I don't know of any other way to solve the problem other than taking your subjects outdoors.

Curtis N wrote in post #4256668
The only real way to eliminate redeye is to move the light source further from the lens. This is the achille's heel of the built-in flash.

Using a hotshoe-mounted flash unit will get you a little lattitude, though often it's still not enough to solve the problem. But with one of those flash units you can bounce the flash indoors which generally does the trick.

Obviously, flash units come at a cost, but I don't know of any other way to solve the problem other than taking your subjects outdoors.

Listen to Curtis. Red Eye has been the bane of beginning photographers for years. The on-camera fixes (pre-flash, strobing flash, etc.) are marginal solutions as best. The only way to effectively solve this problem is to get the flash off the camera or away from the lens axis, or to not use flash at all.

Mark

Mark_Cohran wrote in post #4256869
Listen to Curtis. Red Eye has been the bane of beginning photographers for years. The on-camera fixes (pre-flash, strobing flash, etc.) are marginal solutions as best. The only way to effectively solve this problem is to get the flash off the camera or away from the lens axis.

Mark

Dont bother shooting in Full Auto since you will never get the full potential of your camera. It turns out to be a very expensive point and shoot camera.

Red eye on pets is hard. Few ways to correct this.

1. Shoot in a custom mode such as Av which does not automatically activate flash
2. Increase the ISO which means you should not really need the flash
3. Buy a external flash which you can angle towards the ceiling which will give you some decent fill flash
4. Shoot as you do and use the software provided to remove redeye.

The 400D is not the best body out there but being a Canon entry level DSLR, it is simple enough to learn on and can provide some fantastic photos if you are willing to try a few things and not use the dreaded "Green Box" mode.