This tip is design to help reduce red eye, over expose spots and unflatering shadows produce by Point and Shoot cameras. Let take a closer look into how cameras are design, I’ll compare a pro camera and a consumer’s camera. If you look at the pro camera the off camera flash is design 8 inches above the lens and the consumer’s camera is only 1 inch above lens.
You rarely see Red Eye produce by the pro camera, not saying that it never happens. The distance between the flash and the lens play a very big role in this phenomenon. The basic mechanism for preventing the effect is to ensure that the angle of reflection will be larger than 2.5 degrees. By moving closer to the subject, or by increasing the distance between flash and lens will reduce your chances of Red eye. Now keep in mind that it depends on the lighting of the room that you’re in. For example, at a wedding reception, the room is normaly dark which make the pupil of the eyes larger, which means greater chance of getting red eye. And Vice Visa of course.
Having said all that, I can’t really complain about how the consumer’s camera is design, it would be pretty hard for me to fit the pro camera in my pocket. Look at the very poor illustration below, it will hopefully explain the 2.5 degrees thing. Doesn’t Kris have beautiful eye?
Moving on to the tip, okay this is how you can produce a flash diffuser for about a penny. Take one sheet of paper, now you can use any kind of paper you want but make sure the paper is some what opaque, I just use normal every day paper. Cut the paper a tad smaller than the camera, this way it will fit in your camera bag. If you find this tip useful you may want to laminate the “diffuser”.
Place the “diffuser” approx 0.5 inch to 1 inch in front of the flash and click away.
Look at the examples below.
Till next time, Nghia.
