Excessive red-eye

I seem to be getting an awful lot of red-eye in the photos I shoot with a
Canon A-95, whether I use the red-eye reduction or not. Anytime someone's
eyes are visible, there it is, the dreaded devil eye effect.

I suppose it's something I'm doing (or not doing), and I wondered if anyone
had any tips to reduce this.

--
dvus

"dvus" wrote:

I seem to be getting an awful lot of red-eye in the photos I shoot
with a Canon A-95, whether I use the red-eye reduction or not.
Anytime someone's eyes are visible, there it is, the dreaded devil
eye effect.

I suppose it's something I'm doing (or not doing), and I wondered if
anyone had any tips to reduce this.

It seems to be worse if the subject is not looking directly at the
camera. It's also worse when the pupil is dilated due to low light, so
brighter ambient light will help (and maybe you won't need the flash).

You can easily remove red-eye in post-processing; even IrfanView will do
it, in addition to basic cropping, resizing, gamma adjustment, etc.

--
Martin S.

"dvus" wrote in message
...
I seem to be getting an awful lot of red-eye in the photos I shoot with a
Canon A-95, whether I use the red-eye reduction or not.

I have never seen a red-eye reduction mode that works. Most of these modes
simply increase the time between you press the shutter and the picture is
taken, send out beams of lights that cause the subjects to squint, close
their eyes, or move, or have other undesirable affects. Red-eye reduction
modes are not worth bothering with at best and ruin your pictures at worst.
The Nikon Coolpix 5200 has an automatic red-eye removal tool built in to the
camera which works very well, which is great if you plan to do no other
post-session editing.

Then there is the on-camera flash. The flash units on all of these small
cameras are great if you like to burn out your subject to near white while
leaving the background nearly black, make your subjects look like they have
made a pact with the devil, cause dogs' and cats' eyes to turn a glowing
green, and give everything that is left a sickly blue cast. People are so
conditioned by these monstrosities that it is nearly impossible to take a
picture without people squinting, flinching, or looking away from the
camera.

On-camera flash has its uses, such as startling muggers. Those that have
fill flash modes generally serve that purpose quite well. It also works
surprisingly well for macro. And, believe it or note, there are a few
occasions where the flash is actually useful as a flash. But it is really
stupid to leave the thing on all the time where it drains your battery for
every shot and ruins most of your pictures.

On the whole it is better to shoot available light 90% of the time and rid
yourself of the problems caused by the cursed flash.

On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 20:00:32 -0500, Bill wrote:
C J Campbell wrote:

On-camera flash has its uses, such as startling muggers.

Dang, never thought of that. I'll tell my girlfriend to get a digicam
and keep it in her purse.


And the two of you should watch Hitchcock's REAR WINDOW together.
(I'd say more but I don't want to spoil the movie.)

--
Ben Rosengart (212) 741-4400 x215
Sometimes it only makes sense to focus our attention on those
questions that are equal parts trivial and intriguing.
--Josh Micah Marshall

"Ben Rosengart" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 20:00:32 -0500, Bill wrote:
C J Campbell wrote:

On-camera flash has its uses, such as startling muggers.

Dang, never thought of that. I'll tell my girlfriend to get a digicam
and keep it in her purse.


And the two of you should watch Hitchcock's REAR WINDOW together.
(I'd say more but I don't want to spoil the movie.)

I've already seen it several times, plus the remake with Christopher Reeves.

On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 07:22:33 -0800, C J Campbell
wrote:

"Ben Rosengart" wrote:
On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 20:00:32 -0500, Bill wrote:
C J Campbell wrote:

On-camera flash has its uses, such as startling muggers.

Dang, never thought of that. I'll tell my girlfriend to get a digicam
and keep it in her purse.

And the two of you should watch Hitchcock's REAR WINDOW together.

I've already seen it several times, plus the remake with Christopher Reeves.

I meant Bill and his girlfriend.

--
Ben Rosengart (212) 741-4400 x215
Sometimes it only makes sense to focus our attention on those
questions that are equal parts trivial and intriguing.
--Josh Micah Marshall

"Ben Rosengart" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 07:22:33 -0800, C J Campbell
wrote:

"Ben Rosengart" wrote:
On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 20:00:32 -0500, Bill wrote:
C J Campbell wrote:

On-camera flash has its uses, such as startling muggers.

Dang, never thought of that. I'll tell my girlfriend to get a digicam
and keep it in her purse.

And the two of you should watch Hitchcock's REAR WINDOW together.

I've already seen it several times, plus the remake with Christopher
Reeves.

I meant Bill and his girlfriend.

Oh. Well, I guess I will let them watch it, too. :-)

I have a Kodak DX7440 that produces almost no red-eye.. only a little
when you are farther away from the subject.

On 13 Jan 2005 13:07:45 -0800, "
wrote:

I have a Kodak DX7440 that produces almost no red-eye.. only a little
when you are farther away from the subject.

What is your question or is there one.

I seem to be getting an awful lot of red-eye in the photos I shoot with a
Canon A-95, whether I use the red-eye reduction or not. Anytime someone's
eyes are visible, there it is, the dreaded devil eye effect.

I suppose it's something I'm doing (or not doing), and I wondered if anyone
had any tips to reduce this.

If you can, shoot without the flash, that is, with just ambient
light.

My experience has been that shooting at the highest (fastest) ISO
without the on-camera flash gives better pictures in the end that
anything with the flash. Of course, at a given point, it's too dark
even for that.

-Joel

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