Red Eye and How to Avoid It All Your Portrait Shots

Author: Peter Marin Jones 

It helps to understand what causes red eye in the first place. This annoying effect is caused whenever you take a picture of a person or an animal using flash. The powerful burst of light hits the retina of the subject's eye and brilliantly illuminates all the blood cells too quickly to allow the iris of the eye to close down.

The built in flash on nearly all cameras through necessity, is close to the lens which is therefore, almost directly in line with the Reflection and consequently, difficult to avoid.

Ok. So what can we do to prevent this effect spoiling our shots? Well, these are a few guidelines that may help.

• Don't use flash! This may seem ridiculous but you can achieve excellent atmospheric results if you try it. Of course, you may get Camera shake as a result if the light is too low but why not make it a rule to take on one flash shot and one another without flash whenever you shoot a portrait. If your camera has the facility, increase the ISO setting on your camera. This has the effect of reducing the exposure time for the shot, thus reducing the possibility of camera shake for shots taken without flash.
• Move in closer. It sounds the wrong thing to do but it is an established fact that the red eye effect gets worse, the further away from the subject the shot is taken (within reason). Try getting closer than eight feet for a better result. Don't get too close however; otherwise your subject's features may become distorted. Experiment and find the best distance for your camera.
• Use the red eye reduction feature. Most modern cameras have this feature now, so try this. This feature makes the flash fire a pre- flash of much lower intensity that the main flash allowing the subject's iris to close down before the main flash fires.
• The red eye effect is most pronounced when your subject is looking directly at the camera so try getting you subject to look to one side or slightly up or down to reduce the effect. You can some interesting results with the subject looking less posed.
• Use an external flash. This eliminates the direct reflection problem altogether and is a technique frequently used by professionals. I know this sounds a Bit inconvenient but you can carry a small hand held flash unit that will easily slip onto your pocket. If you like taking a lot of portrait shots, it is well worth doing. Just hold the flash at arms length. Either point the flash directly at the subject or "bounce" the flash off a light coloured wall or ceiling. This also has the benefit of results in a softer, more diffuse effect that fives a more flattering result.

Always remember, if you want a good result without red eye, take the trouble to try some of these suggestions. Do a few experiments and you will soon get to know exactly what these techniques are best for you. This will stop the dreaded red eye effect and all the anguish associated with it.

If you have treasured pictures which already have the red eye problem, look out for another of my articles shortly which will show you how you can get rid of it and rescue your important pictures that you have relegated to an old shoe box in the attic.