It always happened during the night, or other dim-lighted places that required you to turn on your camera’s flash. After the shooting, all is well, and everyone went home. You popped your memory card in your PC, and transfer the picture. And suddenly, you screamed so loud, that you could wake up the dead.

Why?

Because your buddies have turned into some sort of demons with red-eye. And you start to wonder…are they really your friends all this time along, or manifestations of evil in its worst form?

Hey, don’t worry, they are still your friends. Only they were victims of a photography flaw called red-eye effect. You see, human eyeballs are full of tiny blood vessels, which carry blood, obviously. When under poor lighting conditions, a part of the eyes called iris will open wider to allow more light into the retina (think iris as an aperture, and retina as a piece of film or digital sensor), to enable us to see more clearly in the dark.

When you burst the flash, the retina, that is filled with tiny blood capillaries, reflected the light back to the camera. And because our blood is red, and the eyes are opening wide, that is why you see your friends transformed into some sort red-eyed monsters.

How do we combat this?

Get an exorcist.
Okay, don’t get an exorcist. Rather, tweak around your camera a bit, and find a flash setting called ‘Red-Eye Reduction’ with an icon of a big eye. This setting will make your camera burst the flash twice in one press of shutter button; one before taking the picture, to make your eyes squint, therefore reducing the size of the eye opening, and the second one that is actually used to provide additional illumination.

If you don’t somehow don’t like the option of being burst by flash twice, you can also use bounce-flash technique. However, this method will only easily works if you have an SLR with a separate flashgun attached. It’s really a hassle trying to find something that can point your puny Cybershot flash upward so the light could be bounced back from the ceiling. Don’t sweat it.

Note: This post was supposed to be up on 27th, but instead of publishing it, I accidentally hit the Save button