Pictures with "red-eye"

Factual Questions
1

What causes your eyes to turn out as red dots whenever your picture is taken with a camera???

2

Red-eye is caused by light reflecting from the internal parts of the eye. Many cameras include an anti-redeye flash which flickers the flash before the main flash/shutter operation. This causes the iris to contract and limits reflection from inside the eye.

3

It’s because they’re demons. Duh.

4

Or Replicants.

It is caused because the flash is too close to the lens. The light from the flash goes directly into the eye, bounces off the retina and straight into the lens.

There are several fixes:

  1. Use the anti-redeye disco flash on the camera. This causes the pupil to constrict and lessens the amount of flash that gets into, and out of, the eye.

  2. Use a flash that is farther from the lens. This will keep any reflections from going directly into the camera lens. I do not have any figures about how far the distance should be, though more is better.

  3. Don’t look directly into the camera, Opal!

  4. Use a black sharpie pen after the fact. 8^)

5

More fixes for red-eye:

– Don’t use a flash. Go outside to take your pictures. Natural light is nicer than harsh flash, anyway.

– Rotate the head of your fancy-schmancy flash so that the light bounces off the ceiling or a wall. You get nicer light quality that way, too.

– Attach a tiny light diffuser accessory to your flash head. You can get them at better photo stores and online at shops like B&H

6

They’re not demons or replicants…

they’re terminators.

7

Most people aim the camera, using the view finder, right at the person’s face they are photographing. This increases the chance for red eye.

The head of most subjects should be near the top of the photo frame, so the chest and shoulders should be more centered.

Keeping the head at the top of the frame and reminding people not to look at the flash will help.

8

… so the next I take a woman’s picture, if she gets peeved that I’m pointing the camera at her chest, I can just say “but Philster said to!” Cool.

I avoid red eye in pictures two ways:

  1. Nobody ever takes pictures of me.
  2. When they do, I close my eyes.

See? Simple.