> 3 minute read

Tackling the Dreaded Red Eye

Many a good portrait photo has been spoiled by red eye – the flash photography effect that gives your subject glowing red eyes. But your X Series camera has an ace up its sleeve that banishes this annoyance for good.

© Nick Coury

© Alison Conklin

Have you ever seen pictures made at parties that show people with glowing pink-red eyes? It can often happen on pet images too, but they tend to glow green rather than red. It’s not due to a lack of sleep or a demonic possession, but rather a photographic phenomenon known as ‘red eye’, whereby light from the camera’s flash bounces off the back of the subject’s eyes, lighting them up.

The effect is more pronounced when:

• The flash is positioned near to the lens, which it always is if you’re using the built-in flash on any camera.
• The subject is looking directly at the camera.

This gives us a clue as to how to avoid or reduce red eye in the first place. Getting your subject to look somewhere other than directly in the lens and photographing them in an environment that’s not so dark (so their pupils aren’t wide open) will help greatly. As does moving the flash away from the lens – it’s something you often see press photographers doing when they use a separate flash that’s positioned on a bracket to one side of the camera.

However, X Series cameras also feature another, more effective way to tackle red eye, thanks to a feature called RED EYE REMOVAL. If your camera’s Face Detection is switched on, then the camera will look out for the presence of red eye and automatically ‘retouch’ it for you in-camera, so your subjects look altogether more normal.

You can switch on Face/Eye Detection from the camera’s Quick Menu or from its main menu by pressing MENU OK and navigating to the AF/MF SETTING menu, then choosing FACE/EYE DETECTION SETTING > FACE DETECTION ON and picking any option.

To activate the RED EYE REMOVAL, scroll to the FLASH SETTING menu, then choose RED EYE REMOVAL and make sure it is switched on.

If you have a more advanced X Series camera, it provides more red eye removal options than simply on or off. On these models, you can choose whether red eye is removed digitally by the camera, conventionally by firing a pre-flash before the main image is made, or a combination of the two. These options are also found in the FLASH SETTING menu.

Your Next Steps

• CHALLENGE The next time you’re out with friends and family and it’s dark, switch on your flash and try making images with and without Face/Eye Detection switched on. What differences do you see? Post your favourite images to social media with the hashtag #learnwithfujifilm and #flash. You can also submit your work here for a chance to be featured on our social media channels