The dreaded 'red-eye', what causes it and
how can you get rid of it I'll tell you
right after the intro.
Hey welcome back to ask David Bergman,
of course I'm here answering your
photography questions.
Today I've got one from Kellene T. and
she asks "how do you avoid your subjects
getting'red-eye' or 'evil eye'...
Oh 'evil eye' - I like the way that sounds.
Colleen yes,
I'm sure you've seen it right, you take a
picture your friends at a bar one night,
you're all out partying and you take a
picture, and everybody has that bright
'red-eye' that makes them look somewhat
devilish, well they're probably not
actually the devil, although I don't know
your friends, maybe, but most likely
that's not the case really, what's
happening there is, that red color comes
from when the flash, hits the back of
your retina, and then bounces back into
the lens.
What it is is though there's a
lot of blood vessels back there and it
picks up that red color and shows in the
picture, really the more dilated your
pupils are the wider your pupils are, the
better chance that you're gonna have that.
So in dark environments your, your
eyes, generally are gonna be more dilated,
and more open, so that you you it's gonna
be harder to avoid 'red-eye' with certain
things there, also when you... the flash you
would think would make your pupils
constrict right?
But the flash just happens too fast,
it's not enough time for your pupils to
constrict down, to close down,
to avoid that 'red-eye',
the other thing that might slow down that
reaction time is alcohol, right,
so if you're at a bar, maybe you're drinking,
you're in a dark environment, there is
alcohol involved, that slows down all of
your body's reaction times,
including your pupils.
So pictures of your friends
at a bar most likely you're gonna have'red-eye'.
Another thing is children
believe it or not, children have bigger
pupils than adults, so a drunk child at a
bar, they're definitely gonna have 'red-eye',
so all right I'm joking about drunk,
drunk children, please don't comment that
I talked about drunk children, just a
joke... doesn't, don't don't drink kids.
All right anyway so, how do you avoid getting
'red-eye', well now that you know what
causes it, there's a few things we can do
about it.
The first thing is the reason
it really happens is, because the angle
of the flash has to be... the flash has to
be almost in line with the lens, that's
why a lot of like point shoot cameras
where the flash is right there next to
the lens, you're going to see it more
than with an off-camera flash, like this,
because when it that angle needs to go
right into the person's eye, and then
right back into the lens, the further
away you are, the more that angle is
going to be on axis right?
So if you're right up close to somebody, the flash is
actually even at the same distance.
It's gonna appear a little higher, there's
less chance of it happening, but the
further away you are, there's an old rule
of thumb that basically says,
the flash head should be one inch away
from the lens for each foot you are back
from your subject.
So if you're six feet back
from your subject, the flash ideally
should be at least six inches above the
lens or more to avoid that 'red-eye'.
That's just you know kind of a rough rule of
thumb, but it gives you a good idea of
how that works.
So the further away you are,
you really want to get that flash
off camera.
So if you're shooting with a
DSLR, where you can take the flash off
camera that's a great way to avoid'red-eye'.
You will not have 'red-eye' if you
take this flash off camera either
wirelessly or with a cord, and you know
in the studio that never really happens,
because you usually have studio lights
off camera, so that's not really gonna
happen, it's usually more of a
point-and-shoot or phone type of problem.
Another obvious way to prevent 'red-eye' is
to shoot without a flash, if you're in a
place where you can, you have a camera
that you can push up the ISO and shoot
it has better low-light capabilities you
can photograph in lower light, maybe the
slower shutter speed or whatever that
you know, your settings allow you to.
If you can photograph without a flash then
you will definitely not get 'red-eye'
there's no possibility of it, when you
don't, aren't using the flash.
Another thing you can do is these
cameras now are pretty advanced and
redeye is a big problem so...
a lot of these flashes will
emit a 'red-eye' reduction mode pre flash.
Where basically what it'll do is fire a
little flash right before the actual
flash that's taking the photograph,
that's being used in the photograph, so
what that does, by that early flash,
actually will make your pupils constrict,
so they're smaller, so you have less
chance of 'red-eye', or if you do it's going
to be a lot smaller.
Not that big full, full eye 'red-eye'.
Another thing is you could photograph
people candidly,
where they're not looking right at the
lens, if, if you're often you know talking
to somebody or something like that and make
candids, you're not gonna have red in
those photographs either, you really
have to be looking directly into the
lens so that light bounces right back in.
Lastly if you've tried all these things,
or you really just have to photograph
somebody in a situation where there's
gonna be 'red-eye', look you can always fix
it in post right there, every, pretty much
every photo editing software has a
'red-eye' thing that you can go in and you
can click where the 'red-eye' is...
Photoshop has this, Lightroom has it,
you can click where the 'red-eye' is and it'll just color
the red into a different color so
basically it gets rid of that 'red-eye'.
Obviously it's the last resort, it's not ideal,
you're better off preventing it in the
first place, but it certainly is an
option if you've done all those things.
So Killene, thanks for asking that
question, that's how you deal with 'red-eye'.
That's what causes it, and things you can
do to prevent it, thanks for asking that,
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