Stopping Red Eye
Red-eye is caused when light from a flash bounces off the rear of the eye and back into the lens. Red-eye is at its most pronounced when the pupil is open wide and the flash is close to the camera lens. To reduce red-eye, move the flash away from the lens – ideally directly above – and try to make the pupils contract by increasing the ambient light or using a pre-flash or some other red-eye reduction method.
When you move back from your subject, the red-eye effect becomes more pronounced because the angle between the flash and the lens becomes smaller so that it is virtually the same, and this means the flash is firing directly into the eye.
The level of reflection can be quite high – like cats’ eyes. There is also a spreading of the light, making the white disc seem to take up the whole of the eye, which is a nightmare to correct through image enhancement.
On-camera flash is really only effective up to a distance of about ten feet. Try to avoid taking flash photos of people beyond that distance.
