Redeye

fatsheep · Jan 4, 2008

I'm shooting some dogs I'm taking care of over the holidays. Whenever I get a shot of them looking dead at me, their eyes have bright circles in them. The red-eye reduction mode on my camera does reduce red eye but it is still there (pictures below). I am looking for tips and suggestions to deal with red-eye. Any help would be much appreciated.

WITHOUT red-eye reduction (manual mode). ISO 400, f/3.5, 1/20. Flash was fired.

WITH red-eye reduction (auto mode). ISO 400, f/3.5, 1/60. Flash was fired.

I should have took two identical photos, one with red-eye reduction and one without it. However, I think just about everyone here already knows about red-eye so the pictures were just extra.

photogincollege · Jan 4, 2008

My advice is get enough light in the room so you dont need flash, but not directly in the eyes, ambient light.

fatsheep · Jan 5, 2008

photogincollege said:
My advice is get enough light in the room so you dont need flash, but not directly in the eyes, ambient light.

I tried that but even with a really bright floor lamp shining directly on one of the dogs (sidelight from camera's point of view), the widest possible aperture (f/3.5), and the highest possible sensitivity (ISO 1600) the shots still turn out far too dark! I used 1/30 for my shutter speed since I was handholding the camera but even with a tripod, dogs move around too much for slow shutter speeds.

It just seems like I need a ridiculous amount of light or else my pictures turn out dark. Outdoors I've definitely had better luck, even on cloudy days. Indoors pictures are still really dark unless I use the flash or really slow shutter speeds. :thumbdown:

Happy Hour · Jan 5, 2008

I used to have the same problem till I started using the lightsphere. this pic was taken with a 400 iso,F4.0,1/80 shutter.I usually don't use such a high Iso, but I here 4 some reason. In a very poor lighted room. Without the sphere I would have defiantly had a reflection

fatsheep · Jan 5, 2008

Happy Hour said:
I used to have the same problem till I started using the lightsphere. this pic was taken with a 400 iso,F4.0,1/80 shutter.I usually don't use such a high Iso, but I here 4 some reason. In a very poor lighted room. Without the sphere I would have defiantly had a reflection

That's a great picture. Where did you get this lightsphere and for how much? I quick google search turned up all kinds of products from retailers I've never heard of which is why I ask.

Also can a lightsphere only be used with DSLR cameras?

Sideburns · Jan 5, 2008

fatsheep said:
That's a great picture. Where did you get this lightsphere and for how much? I quick google search turned up all kinds of products from retailers I've never heard of which is why I ask.

Also can a lightsphere only be used with DSLR cameras?

The lightsphere is from Gary Fong. Google him.

Also, it's for SPEEDLITE flashes. Canon or Nikon, etc accessory flashes. Not the stock flash.

fatsheep · Jan 5, 2008

Sideburns said:
The lightsphere is from Gary Fong. Google him.

Also, it's for SPEEDLITE flashes. Canon or Nikon, etc accessory flashes. Not the stock flash.

I did google it and it looks like a nice product. However, I doesn't look like there is a way to use it with P&S like mine unless I am missing something...

Mike_E · Jan 5, 2008

No, sorry, you can't use one of those.

You can however shoot through a piece of tissue paper (may work- depends on how close you are- but you will still have too bright an eye), or use two 3x5 white cards and redirect your flash from head on to be aimed towards the ceiling for a bounce effect.

I'll try to illustrate... where the = is your flash and the |_ is the front card to block the flash and direct it to the back card / to then bounce off the ceiling. (the dots and greater than sign are there because it won't show properly with out them

)

. ..>/
|_=/

Hope this helps.

mike

guitarlp · Jan 5, 2008

fatsheep said:
I'm shooting some dogs I'm taking care of over the holidays. Whenever I get a shot of them looking dead at me, their eyes have bright circles in them. The red-eye reduction mode on my camera does reduce red eye but it is still there (pictures below). I am looking for tips and suggestions to deal with red-eye. Any help would be much appreciated.

WITHOUT red-eye reduction (manual mode). ISO 400, f/3.5, 1/20. Flash was fired.

WITH red-eye reduction (auto mode). ISO 400, f/3.5, 1/60. Flash was fired.

I should have took two identical photos, one with red-eye reduction and one without it. However, I think just about everyone here already knows about red-eye so the pictures were just extra.

I had the same problem as I've recently been taking pictures of my new puppy. Do you have Photoshop? There's ways you can remove it if you're willing to spend about 5 minutes a photo doing some editing. I corrected your pet eyes in the picture below using the steps I mentioned in a previous thread of mine on here:

And here's my thread where I listed the steps I use to remove it:

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=105490

Happy Hour · Jan 5, 2008

i had no idea you were using a p&s he makes a great diffuser for those 2. look on his website. http://store.garyfonginc.com/delta.html

fatsheep · Jan 6, 2008

guitarlp said:
I had the same problem as I've recently been taking pictures of my new puppy. Do you have Photoshop? There's ways you can remove it if you're willing to spend about 5 minutes a photo doing some editing. I corrected your pet eyes in the picture below using the steps I mentioned in a previous thread of mine on here:

And here's my thread where I listed the steps I use to remove it:

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=105490

Very cool, thanks for the edit and link. That method seems to work pretty well. I didn't get quite what I wanted on my first few tries but I'll give it some more practice.

Happy Hour said:
i had no idea you were using a p&s he makes a great diffuser for those 2. look on his website. http://store.garyfonginc.com/delta.html

Thanks for the link. I'll consider getting it if it fits my camera...

JIP · Jan 6, 2008

The reason it is called red eye reduction is because it is exactly that reduction. It does not eliminate the red-eye all it does it put out a pre-flash to try and reduce the opening of the iris. The only way to eliminate the red-eye is by putting your flash high above the lens off of the direct axis with ihence the reasone you see alot of pro photographers using brackets to do just this. One other way to do this is with an editing program as others have said and with a P+S that is pretty much your only option. Be glad you can when we still used film P+S cameras (funny I never have used a P+S) there was not much you could do short of hand painting on the print or neg or getting it retouched professionally all of with were tim-consuming and prohibitively expensive for most if not all P+S users.