My dogs

[Etienne]

I took this photo with canon 500d,18-55mm iso 400 55mm f5.6 1/60s.

[rpcrowe]

You have a pair of darling dogs...

The glowing dog eyes are from the reflection of the flash back from the retina of the dogs. This most often happens when using the built-in flash of the camera. That flash is very close to the center of the lens and the light reflects right back into the lens. This is the same phenomena as "red-eye" in humans.

There are a couple of ways to somewhat reduce the effect and ways to totally prevent it.

Reducing the effect:

1. Shoot when the dog or dogs are not looking directly at you...
2. Increase the ambient light in the shooting area which will contract the dog's pupils...
3. Use red-eye reduction - this often does not work with dog's eyes but is worth trying...
4. Using an editing program to fix the eyes - sometimes easy - sometimes not so easy

Preventing the effect:

1. Increase the distance from the flash to the center of the lens. Often a hotshoe flash will provide enough distance and a flash bracket will always provide enough distance. However, when shooting with direct flash, the lighting can be bad.

OR BETTER

2. Bounce the flash. This will totally prevent the glowing eyes but, sometimes causes another problem. When you are shooting a long coated dog, especially one with deep set eyes; the flash reflected from the ceiling will cause the eyes to be in shadow and look lifeless.

You can liven up the eyes by reflecting some of the light from the flash into the eyes - this will also provide catch-lights making the eyes look alive. Directing light into the eyes can be done as simply as taping a 3"x5" index card behind the flash or by using either a home fabricated diffuser/reflector ( DIY Reflector-Diffuser ) or a commercial model like the Joe Demb Flash Diffuser Pro ( www.dembflashproducts,com ) which is what I generally use.

As an example of lifeless eyes, see image of my goldendoodle, Holly, shot with a 30D camera, 17-55mm f/2.8 IS lens and 550EX flash bounced off the ceiling. I saw the dog laying in this position and did not have the flash and camera set up or time to add a diffuser/reflector to my flash. I tried to reflect some of the light with my open hand behind the flash-head, which occasionally works but, it did not work too well in this extreme situation. The portrait looks like she has two lumps of coal in her face rather than living eyes.