Digital Photography Hacks

Capture the Nighttime Mood and Leave the Red Eye at Home

Shooting with flash indoors against a dark, boring background often produces overexposed subjects with red eye. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Built-in camera flashes are very convenient. But they can produce deadly results when used to take pictures of people in low-light situations, such as evening parties. Aside from the plague of red eye that turns your loved ones into otherworldly demons, there’s also the nuclear look—where the subject appears to be standing next to ground zero, glowing beyond recognition.

It doesn’t have to be that way. The easiest way to increase your success rate is to get an external flash; it’s just easier to control the lighting that way. But for many people, that’s not practical. So, in this hack we’ll look at the options for the portable digicam, then talk about more advanced techniques with external flash. Let’s start with taming the pocketable point and shoot.

Pocketable Party Shots

The people who design compact digicams realize that these cameras don’t always produce great flash results at night. So, many of today’s models have features designed to help you get better shots in these challenging situations. Some of these features work better than others. Here’s a quick overview of what to look for and what to avoid:

Red Eye Reduction mode

Avoid using this setting. In theory, using Red Eye Reduction mode makes sense: shine a bright light in the subject’s eyes before exposure to constrict the ...