Not to be confused with pink eye, red eye can be just as bad for photographers. Okay, that might be a stretch. I have a two year old and she gave me pink eye a couple months back and that wasn’t fun at all. Truthfully, red eye is a complex problem with some very simple solutions. First, what exactly causes red eye in photography?

Red eye is caused by the light of the flash being too fast for the pupil to close the iris. The light passes first through the choroid, which is filled with blood vessels, then is bounced around in the pupil and reflected back out towards the camera. The light source has to be either right on axis or very close to the same axis as the camera lens in order for this light reflection to occur.

If you take away any of the above occurrences you eliminate red eye in photography. But beware that there are other variables that can increase the possibility of red eyes appearing in your photographs. People with lighter colored eyes are more prone to red eye as they have less melanin, the stuff that determines pigment. Using on camera flash in dark settings, like a bar or night club, will further promote red eye simply because one’s pupils are larger in darker situations.

The most common method for red eye elimination for most beginning photographers would be the “red eye reduction” feature on the camera. The built in flash on most point and shoot cameras now come with this feature. This feature aims at combating red eye by use of short bursts of flash before the image is captured with the final flash. Essentially this causes the iris to contract thereby reducing the reflection in the eye.

I am not a fan of this method. My biggest problem is that it takes away all spontaneity of the capture. Whomever you were photographing now knows that you were photographing them and they will have, most likely, reacted to the pre-flashes. Either they turned towards you, or they turned away, or they stuck their hand in front of your camera. This is why paparazzi don’t use this feature.* In truth, when I’m using my wife’s point and shoot I always have the red eye reduction feature turned off.

The easiest way to eliminate red eye in photographs is simply not to use a flash! Oh, but you knew that right? If there is enough ambient light just turn off your flash and the camera’s auto settings will do the rest. If your pictures are turning out blurry you can adjust the ISO to a higher setting manually, just don’t go above 1000. That rule isn’t hard and fast, it’s just what I go by to keep the noise down.

If you are using a DSLR and you need on camera flash then you should be using a camera mounted flash anyway. This moves the flash away from the axis of the lens and the light going into the pupil does not get reflected directly at the camera.

If you only have the point and shoot or no external flash is available to you then your next best option is to have your subject look a few inches either right or left of the camera’s lens. This should be determined by which side of the lens your flash is on.

Your last option is to use image editing software to “fix” the red eye. Most image editing software programs actually have a simple click feature for this!

Photography Frida closeup by Tarantin0 with more information at Valhall Gym

*In truth I don’t know anything about paparazzi photographers nor do I care to. I have seen those little paparazzi figurines and thought them quite hilarious.

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