Red Eye Problems

Debbie

I have the Canon T2i and a new EF 85mm f/1.8 lens. I shot an indoor birthday party and was very disappointed that the bulk of my photos had red eye problems even though red eye enable was set on the camera. What can I do different?

memoram20

Picasa 3 is a very easy to use and free editing software. Trust me, if I can use it anybody can. I was told red eye is caused when someone is looking directly at the flash.

Moose

Howdy @Debbie - The built-in flash is the culprit of your red-eye problems.

The only way to eliminate it completely is to use a flash speedlite, like the 430EX (see here on Amazon) or shoot with the built-in flash disabled.

A speedlite will allow you to bounce the light off the ceiling rather than directly at your subject like the built-in flash. This "bounce" effect will produce much more natural looking portraits indoors.

Hope that all makes sense and happy shooting! :)

beowulf

Another thought that's not as nice looking but works is to get one of those cheap LED panels. I paid $40 for mine and it puts out plenty of light to light up an area within 10 feet or so, if not further. Also, I typically don't use my flash. With normal lighting and a tripod, I go wide open (f/1.8 50mm or 28mm in my case) and bring the shutter speed down a little bit. I try to keep my ISO low to avoid grainy shots. As long as you're on a tripod and the shutter speed isn't like 1 second long where slight movement will cause some blurring you should be ok without a flash. That said, if you can use a speedlite, that's the way to go. The onboard flash is horrible as it is best only within a couple feet.