Is it red eye or redeye?

[Chris-N-Louisiana]

Either way, I have a problem. My digital Canon semi-SLR doesn't have a red eye reduction mode with the typical double flash. It's more of a beam that's supposed to work, but doesn't.

Ideas on how to reduce red eye in candid shots?

BTW, I did a forum search for "red eye" and redeye with no success. If there is another forum topic related to my question, please point the way.

[googlit]

you want the best way to cut out red-eye? don't use flash. :)

does your semi-SLR have a hotshoe? If so, you could use an external flash and bounce it for a more ambient flash, which would cut out red-eye

sorry that I'm not more helpful... I don't do much people-photography.

[smc1377]

This beam that you speak of, are you sure it's not the focus assist beam? If it's throwing a spot of light (most likely amber in color) then it's the focus assist beam and not some kind of red eye reduction. Though I guess technically, if you shine directly into someone's eye, that would do the trick.

Red eyes happen when your flash basically reflects off the backside of a person's eye (retina). The pre-flash that most cameras use to reduce red eye basically causes your subject's eye pupils to contract thus allowing less light into the eye and in return, less light gets returned back to the camera from the retina. If the lighting condition is low, there's no way to avoid this when using your camera's flash.

But knowing that the red eye is from light reflecting back to your camera, you can eliminate this by somehow distancing your camera lens from the flash light source. Meaning, the further away the flash is from your lens, the less likely you'll get a reflection from the person's eye that causes red eye.

So using an external flash, like the kind Googlit mentioned, will reduce red eye tremendously in that it more or less fires down at your subject and any light that will reflect off the subject's retinas that results in red eye will be reflecting downward and not into the lens.

This is just a basic explanation, but hopefully that helps you some. Good luck.

[Benji]

If possible turn the lights on in the room, or if it is daytime open the drapes. That way the pupils will constrict and you will not get red eye.

Benji

[Seltzer]

if you have some pictures that you like and want to fix most photo editors have a quick red-eye tool that you just pick a color and drag it over the size of the eyes. Paint Shop Pro 7 even had such a thing and worked fairly well. One of my favorite photos of red-eye is here (http://johnwright.homeip.net/pix/beth.jpg). That was the uncropped orig from a few years ago.

[Chris-N-Louisiana]

Thanks to everyone who offered their feedback.

This beam that you speak of, are you sure it's not the focus assist beam? If it's throwing a spot of light (most likely amber in color) then it's the focus assist beam and not some kind of red eye reduction.

I'm using a Canon PowerShot S3 IS with the typical popup flash. There is a green beam serving as the focus assist. For red-eye reduction, this particular camera utilizes some sort of beam that isn't detectable (at least to me). It works very poorly as most of my shots come out with redeye.

if you have some pictures that you like and want to fix most photo editors have a quick red-eye tool that you just pick a color and drag it over the size of the eyes. Paint Shop Pro 7 even had such a thing and worked fairly well.

Sure, I can remove redeye using any number of software (free and paid) as well as online services like Snapfish. However, it gets a bit tedious if one has a number of pictures to work with.

Canon recommends having the person look above and to the right of the lens. This is a bit much to ask, especially when photographing children. Also, the camera does not offer the pre-flash flash for redeye reduction.

Ideas?

[AZ4Runner]

If you need the flash, the best way to get around the redeye without post processing is going to move the flash away from the lens. The further the distance between the two, the better off your shots will be. I am not familiar with your camera but if it has the capability to fire a remote flash, you can get a flash bracket that will allow you to move the flash away from the lens.

[Seltzer]

Not having so much experience with this I'll ask as something for the more experienced people to verify but would a diffuser help with this? Possibly into the home-made variety for this camera. My thoughts are that it wouldn't shoot the light directly at the subject so there is less to reflect, but I'm not sure how much would still reflect back red.

[Chris-N-Louisiana]

... would a diffuser help with this? Possibly into the home-made variety for this camera.

Good idea. I've experimented with placing tissue over the flash. As you can imagine, that gets a bit awkward.

[kristin]

you can always tape the tissue in place.

I never really use popup flash unless i'm in desperate need of some fill light out doors in the daylight. You should try to light up the room as much as possible and use no flash. It's easier to get candid shots when you don't use flash anyways ;)

[Chris-N-Louisiana]

I never really use popup flash unless i'm in desperate need of some fill light out doors in the daylight. You should try to light up the room as much as possible and use no flash. It's easier to get candid shots when you don't use flash anyways

I'm slowly figuring out the camera and how to take better pictures with it. This weekend I took every opportunity to learn the camera's non-flash possibilities when adjusting the ISO, f-stop, exposure settings, etc.

It doesn't take a lot of light to get a great picture.

Thank you to all who provided their input.

[T-Will]

I try not to use a flash if at all possible in order to get natural lighting, but I recently discovered using an external flash without a diffuser aimed at the ceiling at an angle (not straight up) adds some very natural looking light. I had previously been using a diffuser with the flash aimed straight forward but tended to get washed-out faces.

Here's a pic I took this weekend of my grandpa. I used a Speedlight 420EX external flash. There was actually a decent amount of light in the room, but the flash added an almost sky light type lighting to the picture:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/t-will/351443520/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/153/351443520_cc1d0346ce.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="Grandpa" /></a>