Eliminating red-eye photographs

Dear Doctor:

I love taking photographs. However, seven times out of 10, when I use a flash, the people tend to have red eyes. This happens especially when I am doing flash photography at night. Why is this so and how can I resolve it?{{more}}

Help me!

Red-eye Man

Dear Red-Eye Man,

We have all seen pictures where the people in the photographs have scary red-eyes, especially when we take pictures at night. This type of red-eye has nothing to do with the red-eye infection called conjunctivitis. So where do these red eyes come from?

You have heard the saying “Our eyes are the windows to our soul.” Because light reflects off the retina, located at the back of our eyes, we see a red shimmer through our pupils. The flash on the camera is very bright and causes the reflection off the retina. What we see is the bright red color of the retina and the blood vessels at the back of the eye. This is even more pronounced in animals.

To resolve this you have to make sure you have a camera that has a red eye reduction feature. Here is how it works:

In these special cameras, the flash is set to go off twice. The first time just before the picture is taken, and the second time to actually take the picture. During the first flash, the person’s pupils constrict (that means gets smaller), thereby reducing the “red-eye” considerably. The second flash allows one to take a reasonably normal picture.

Another way to reduce red-eye is by turning on all the lights in the room. This causes the pupils to constrict.

One other way to eliminate or reduce “red-eye” is to remove the flash from the camera and hold it several feet away from the lens.

You can always try to bounce the flash off walls or the ceiling. This also works in a lot of cases.

Hope this helps.

Happy flash photography.

Have a great week.

Dr Kenneth Onu is a resident Consultant Ophthalmologist at the Beachmont Eye Institute/Eyes R Us Send questions to: Beachmont@gmail.com

Tel: 784 456-1210