How to avoid or reduce red-eye
Photography with the aid of a digital camera is beyond doubt
very fascinating. However, it also has many a nooks that the
users of the digital camera must be aware of and also must be
well educated to deal with in order to produce good photographs
worth the most prized digital camera. Such a concept is that of
the red eye! In order to understand what this red eye actually
is, a little detailed introspection is necessary. Basically
speaking red-eye is a function of at least three things, they
are firstly, ambient level of light because stumpy light level
causes the retina of the person to be photographed to open wider
to admit more light thereby divulging open the iris, which is
the primary part that reflects the red light hence giving the
appearance of red eyes for the subjects. Also secondly the
younger the person being photographed the wider remains the
retina and hence the greater the effect of red eye in the
picture. Thirdly, the reflection angle of the flash plays a
vital role, as the light is recoiled back to the digital camera
and the closer the incident light beam is to this reflected
light beam, the greater becomes the red eye effect. To prevent
this instruments such as flash brackets are useful to make the
flash a bit removed from the propinquity of the lens. Thus the
red eye effect is somewhat revealed till this part of this
discussion. Now is the time to look into a greater detail in
order to analyze the various aspects of the red eye effect and
also find out ways of reducing the problem as far as possible.
It can be noted here that the only important thing is that the
users must ensure that the proper fixing of the angle between
the flash beam and the lens axis. The general rule here is that
the photographer must keep the angle wide enough that the light
beam from the flash does not reflect off the retina of the
person being photographed and comes right back into the digital
camera lens. A good idea is to make the red-eye reduction work
by making the flash shine a light into the eyes of the person
being photographed just before the flash is incident and the
shutter is pressed. This causes the irises in the eyes of the
person being photographed to narrow down or shrink. As a result
of this the eye develops a smaller opening for the eye view of
the digital camera and does not show off the blood filled
retina. This light is called pre light! And very importantly
this process works only if the person to be photographed is in
point of fact looking directly at the flash for the pre-light to
come.
Other factors influencing the red eye are the level of ambient
light during the time when the photograph is being taken and how
near the flash light is to the lens. The rule of thumb comes out
that the brighter the ambient light; the lesser is the effect of
red eyes, everything else being one and the same. As the
flashlight goes farther from the lens, the fewer becomes the
effect of red eyes, everything else being one and the same
again. Thus the key idea is that red eye is not caused if the
ambient light is comparatively high. And it does have a
significant effect if the shooting area is dark. Many digital
cameras have built in features for anti red eye that is used to
reduce red eye when taking a picture of a person looking
straight at the camera also. But manually, the best red eye
reduction can be obtained with the help of an external flash as
described.
The above discussion has dealt with the most important ideas
regarding the red eye effect. The discussion has analyzed the
inherent facts about the digital camera red eye effect, their
causes as well as remedies. The only thing that remains is that
the users must implement these ideas while shooting under
circumstances discussed here so that the red eye effect cannot
harm the beauties of art created with the aid of the fantastic
device, the digital camera!