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!
Jakob Jelling is the founder of http://www.snapjunky.com.
Visit his digital camera guide and learn how to
take better pictures with your digicam.
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