# photographing rabbits with red eyes



## luvthempigs

Does anyone else have problems taking pictues of white rabbits with pink eyes? Everytime I take pictures of any of my white buns I get a bunch of photos with red eyed rabbits. I have tried two different photo editing programs to fix the photos and it doesn't seem to work withanimal eyes:rollseyes

I have even tried to turn the flash off and then I get blurry pictures :X Any tips would be appreciated


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## MikeScone

It's not really the rabbits' red eyes that you're seeing. All rabbits will display "red eye" if you take pictures with on-camera flash. Actually, all mammals will do that, including humans, although with some animals it's really "green eye". The red is a reflection of the flash off the retina (the back part of the eye). 

The real cure is not to use flash, but as you've said, there may not be enough light for sharp pictures. Next best is to use a flash which isn't right next to the lens - an external flash will usually be far enough off the axis of the eyes that the reflection doesn't wind up back in the lens. Or, try putting a handkerchief over the flash, or a reflector to bounce the flash off the ceiling instead of straight into the bunny's eye. 

Once you've got the red eye, though, it is easily fixed. The red-eye tool in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements works just fine to correct red eye in rabbits. I've used it for Scone many times. You just select the tool and click somewhere in the eye. You can do the same thing manually by selecting the "blown out" part of the eye with a circular selection tool, and paint in dark grey or darken (dodge or brightness adjustment) the area until it's no longer so bright. 

One thing I do notice about those pictures is that the red eye isn't really very red. I'm not sure why that would be - when Scone's pictures have red eye, they're really really red. Perhaps the photo program you're using isn't capable of detecting the very light image as being red. If you're doing something to the picture first which might be lightening the eye color, try using the red eye tool first. Or, maybe try darkening the eye area with the program before you use the red eye tool.


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## Flashy

I struggle with mine, but both my REWs deserve the 'demon' look, so its fine with me


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## luvthempigs

Thanks for the tips, Hopefully I will get it figured out :blushan:I would love to share more pictures of them but I hate to do it with the eye color messed up. 

LOL! None of my REWs deserve the title of "demon" though :biggrin2:


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## BSAR

I find that if you take the photos in natural light it works. I have a pic from today of a REW in natural light. I will get it uploaded later post it here.


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## luvthempigs

Okay, Maybe the room where I take most of the photos is just too dark. I will have to try a lighter room or maybe even outside.

I look forward to your pic's


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## missyscove

I find that pictures of all my animals look better in natural light, so I like to take pictures of them outdoors.


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## Amy27

I am glad you posted this because I have the same problem. I will have to try out some of these tips.


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## Pet_Bunny

*MikeScone wrote: *


> The real cure is not to use flash, but as you've said, there may not be enough light for sharp pictures. Next best is to use a flash which isn't right next to the lens - an external flash will usually be far enough off the axis of the eyes that the reflection doesn't wind up back in the lens. Or, try putting a handkerchief over the flash, or a reflector to bounce the flash off the ceiling instead of straight into the bunny's eye.


Mike has been giving some very good tips in several of his posts on picture taking.

I just got back from the shelter and I took some of these pictures today. This bunny was a stray and turned into the shelter on Tuesday. She will be up for adoption on Saturday.







I never have problems with animal eyes. The picture is a direct flash, butthe flashis high enough on the camera that the reflection doesn't go back into the lens. My secret is to shoot at the largest aperture opening that your camera allows (eg. f 2.8) and I am able to turn down my flash power (eg. 1/8 of the flash) and still beable to get a bright picture. What I'm actually doing is shooting with available light and using the flash to fill in light.Their eyes are natural with no adjustments. When it comes to Photoshop, I have no idea how to use it.


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## luvthempigs

*Amy27 wrote: *


> I am glad you posted this because I have the same problem. I will have to try out some of these tips.



I didn't think I was the only one! 



Great picture of the the shelter bunny. What kind of camera are you using?


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## kirbyultra

*Pet_Bunny wrote: *


> My secret is to shoot at the largest aperture opening that your camera allows (eg. f 2.8) and I am able to turn down my flash power (eg. 1/8 of the flash) and still beable to get a bright picture. What I'm actually doing is shooting with available light and using the flash to fill in light.Their eyes are natural with no adjustments. When it comes to Photoshop, I have no idea how to use it.


:?easy for you to say, Stan, our RO resident buntographer! I don't know what an aperture is... But that little cutie is sweet looking. Hope she goes to a good home.


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## Pet_Bunny

*luvthempigs wrote: *


> Great picture of the the shelter bunny. What kind of camera are you using?



Thanks Maria. It's the same camera as Mikes, a Nikon D300.







Nikon D300,14-24 zoom, ISO200,manual setting,1/250 of a second, F3.5,SB800 flash.

This bunny was turned in yesterday by animal services as it was found in the park. 
She will be available for adoption on Sunday.

No Red Eye at all.


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## Pet_Bunny

*kirbyultra wrote: *


> easy for you to say, Stan, our RO resident buntographer! I don't know what an aperture is...



Anaperture is the diameter of the lens opening. (The hole in the lens that lets light in). 
Aperture is expressed as *F-stop*, (e.g. F2.8 or f/2.8). The smaller the F-stop number, the larger the lens opening (aperture).








Nikon D300,14-24 zoom, ISO200,manual setting,1/80 of a second, F2.8,SB800 flash.

This is Grape. He was at the shelter since June 5.


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## NorthernAutumn

Do you have a comparison to the human eyeball? I'm thinking it's similar to the black part of our eye... maybe not?


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## MikeScone

*NorthernAutumn wrote: *


> Do you have a comparison to the human eyeball? I'm thinking it's similar to the black part of our eye... maybe not?


Exactly the same. The "black" part of both our eye and a rabbit's eye is just an adjustable-size hole - the iris - behind the lens, which allows light into the eyeball. (By the way, that's also exactly the same as the "aperture" in the camera lens)

The light passes through the inside of the eyeball and falls on the retina (the back part of the ball). Some of the cells back there are reflective, so if the angles work out right, a very bright light may bounce right back out the iris and through the lens and... redeye! (or green, or some other color, depending on the animal - the reflection in humans and bunnies are red). 

The angle of the light is the key - to get redeye you need light to go from the flash to the retina and be reflected back into the camera lens. If the light enters the eyeball at an angle, any light which reflects out won't come back into the camera lens. That's why an off-camera flash, like Stan used for the shelter pictures, gets less red-eye, when an on-camera flash near the lens would . The angle from the off-camera flash to the eye is different from the angle from the eye to the lens, so you get less reflection (look at the shadow of the white shelter bunny's chin on her chest - you can see that the light is coming from above her head, not directly at her). 

The angle is why there's no redeye in the picture of the shelter bunny with her nose right at the camera - her eyes are pointing sideways, so no light can bounce back into the camera. Luvthempigs bunnies in the examples are looking right at the camera, so the flash bounces right back again and you see redeye. That also explains why sometimes two pictures taken of the same rabbit at nearly the same time may show redeye or not - if the rabbit looks away, so that there's no direct path for the flash through the iris and back out again, you don't get redeye. 

Some cameras have a "redeye reduction" mode, which is designed to minimize human redeye, but I'm not sure it would work very well with rabbits. That mode fires the flash a few times before it takes the picture, so that the iris closes down before the actual flash fires. The idea is that by reducing the size of the opening, it's less likely there will be a path for the reflection. Rabbits' eyes do not have the same degree of "adjustability" that ours do. Besides that, the repetitive pre-flash might bother them, and you can't get a good picture when the rabbit's run away.


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## Pet_Bunny

*MikeScone wrote: *


> That's why an off-camera flash, like Stan used for the shelter pictures, gets less red-eye, when an on-camera flash near the lens would . The angle from the off-camera flash to the eye is different from the angle from the eye to the lens, so you get less reflection (look at the shadow of the white shelter bunny's chin on her chest - you can see that the light is coming from above her head, not directly at her).



Mike doesn't miss a thing, about the light and shadows. That's why direct flash can be so harsh.
Here is a picture taken on Aug. 1 where I used a diffuser on my flash to soften and spread out the light more evenly.This would be similar to bounced lighting.







Nikon D300,24-70 zoom, ISO200,manual setting,1/250 of a second, F2.8,Gary Fong Diffuser on flash.


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## slavetoabunny

I have a feeling Mike and Stan would get along well, lol!! Mike is a fantastic photographer and I have so many awesome pictures that he has taken of Sparky and Scooter.


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## Pet_Bunny

I could learn alot from Mike. Most of my pictures are from trial and error. So everyone should just get out and shoot.

Here is a picture with the diffused flash held lower (almost level) with the camera lens.Thismakes the shadows less visible and behind the subject. 
This 2 year oldfemale Lion Head called Baby, was adopted from the shelter on Monday. :bunnydance:







Nikon D300,24-70 zoom, ISO200,manual setting,1/250 of a second, F2.8,Gary Fong Diffuser on flash.

Thewhite speck of lighton allthe bunnieseyes is caused bythe flash reflecting off the cornea of their eyes, but not from inside the retina.


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## NorthernAutumn

Wow! Thank you very much for the explanation Mike! I remember being pretty interested in photography when I was younger, but stopped due to lack of instruction & poor equipment.

Reading the posts from Mike and Stan make me want to take up photography again


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## slavetoabunny

These are some of my favorite pictures of Sparky and Scooter taken by Mike. Isn't he awesome!


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## NorthernAutumn

Oh WOW! How did you manage to swing that, Patti?


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## slavetoabunny

*NorthernAutumn wrote: *


> Oh WOW! How did you manage to swing that, Patti?



Haha.....connections. Actually, Mike is has been an online friend of mine for about 5 years. I have had the pleasure to meet him in person 3x at various rabbit events. The pictures I posted were taken at in Columbia, SC in 2006 (I think that's right?) at a rabbit forum gathering (not RO).


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## Pet_Bunny

*slavetoabunny wrote: *


> The pictures I posted were taken at in Columbia, SC in 2006 (I think that's right?) at a rabbit forum gathering (not RO).



Mike used his Fujifilm S3Pro cameraat that time (similar to the Nikon D200 that I also have). He shot with a very fast lens (F 1.4) so he didn't need a flash. Then with Photoshop, he could adjust for lighting.

Here is a Mini Rex at our shelter. Again this is with a direct flash on the subject. You can see myshooting style isusing flashes, because I like tohighlight the details with light. 







Nikon D300,14-24 zoom, ISO200,manual setting,1/80 of a second, F2.8,SB800 flash.


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## MikeScone

*Pet_Bunny wrote: *


> Mike used his Fujifilm S3Pro cameraat that time (similar to the Nikon D200 that I also have). He shot with a very fast lens (F 1.4) so he didn't need a flash.


There are no secrets with digital photography, it's all somewhere in the file...

You can tell I used a wide aperture because of the limited depth of field in the pictures - that's how much is in focus from front-to-back on the pictures. That throws the background out of focus, so that Sparky and Scooter stand out more. 

I'm not a big fan of flash, if there's enough light not to need it. The f1.4 lens gathers enough light to let me use available light where otherwise I'd need flash. The downside is that if the lighting is really dull, the pictures can be "flat" and uninteresting. 

The flash diffuser does a good job of eliminating the harshness of the flash. Putting a layer of handkerchief over the flash will accomplish much the same thing (at lower cost), at least in cameras that meter the flash exposure. 

Keeping the "catch lights" in the eyes is a Very Good Thing in taking pictures of bunnies, whether you're using flash or available light. It makes their eyes look much more lively. You can cheat a bit in Photoshop and put them back in if they're washed out by the redeye.


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## luvthempigs

Awesome pictures of some very cute bunnies! thanks so much for all the tips


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## Pet_Bunny

*MikeScone wrote: *


> You can tell I used a wide aperture because of the limited depth of field in the pictures - that's how much is in focus from front-to-back on the pictures. That throws the background out of focus, so that Sparky and Scooter stand out more.



Yes, you can tell what is in focus and what is out of focus when you use a wide aperture. It is good to use a wide aperture with flash too, because the background is always too dark when shooting with a flash. I use to have a Konica f/1.2 57mm lens when I was in high school. So sad when I sold it, andgot intoNikons.






Nikon D300,14-24 zoom, ISO200,manual setting,1/80 of a second, F2.8,SB800 flash.


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## MikeScone

Here's how the red-eye tool in Photoshop works. 

Start with a picture of Scone:





Then, select the red-eye tool, move the cross-hairs into the reddest part of the eye, and click:





And, presto!


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## luvthempigs

The camera I'm using is just a point and shoot Kodak EasyShare Z760. It doesn't look like I can change the f-stop myself.

I'm going to have to try a few different things and see what happens.


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## MikeScone

*luvthempigs wrote: *


> The camera I'm using is just a point and shoot Kodak EasyShare Z760. It doesn't look like I can change the f-stop myself.


Yes, you can change the f-stop. From the Z760 manual:

Changing picture-taking settings You can change settings to get the best results from your camera:

 Press the Menu button. (Some settings are unavailable in some modes.)
 Press



to highlight a setting, then press the OK button.
 Choose an option, then press the OK button.
 [align=left]Choose *Custom Exposure Mode* [/align]You can then choose a preferred capture mode. 
[align=left] *Program (default)* [/align] *Aperture Priority * 
*Shutter Priority* 
*Manual* 

If you put the camera in Aperture Priority mode, you set the f-stop and the camera sets the shutter speed as needed. You can set the f-stop at any value between f/2.8 and f/8 on your camera. As Stan said, the lower the number the wider the aperture. That's because it's really a fraction - f/4 means that the aperture is 1/4 the focal length of the lens, f/8 means it's 1/8. 
The larger the aperture (smaller f/number), the more light you get in so the less power the flash needs to use, which helps minimize redeye. You also get less depth of field at larger apertures, and can use a faster shutter speed if you're not using flash. 

You can also set the f-stop in full manual mode, but then you'd have to also set the shutter speed - without a light meter, that would be difficult.


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## MikeScone

I was taking some pictures of Scone for his blog, and also playing with the camera settings. Here's an example of how f-stop (aperture) effects flash pictures:

This version was taken at f/16 - a small aperture, hence large depth of field, and the least influence of existing light. That's pretty close to the default setting on the camera:






Now, the same picture at f/1.4 - a large aperture, small depth of field, and the existing light can illuminate the scene to some extent. 






The following picture shows an interesting effect of using a large aperture, where there is enough ambient illumination so that the flash only supplies part of the light captured by the camera, as Stan said he does in taking the shelter pictures. 

The effect has to do with "white balance" or "color temperature". That is, what we see as "white light" is seldom really true white - your eyes are really good at knowing what's white and making you think that's what you're seeing. Cameras are simply honest - they show what's there. Incandescent light (light from ordinary light bulbs) is warm, sort of reddish or amber. Fluorescent light varies depending on the kind of bulb, but it's generally sort of unpleasant greenish light (lacking in red). Flash is neutral, neither warm (amber) nor cold (blue). 

My living room is lit by incandescent flood lights in ceiling fixtures(ordinary light bulbs, not compact fluorescent). In this picture, Scone was lying in a fairly bright spot under a light. You can see how the color of the rug is warm, where it's mostly incandescent light - except in Scone's shadow, where the flash renders it as the actual tan color it appears to the eye. You can see it in Scone's fur, a bit, as well - his ears and back are rendered warmer than his nose.


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## Djakarta

I take pictures of shelter bunnies for the shelter website. I find the combination of natural light, no flash and the macro setting gives fairly good results. Posing them next to a window ( so the light is coming from the side) also makes the most of the limited light in the shelter setting.

Polly - This is her website "glamour shot"








The next two are just candid shots taken for daily reports.

Finnegan- look at those dreamy eyes !







Chill


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## luvthempigs

Wow, I am going to have to take a better look at my camera (that is once I have had my morning coffee) lol It would be great if I could get this figured out! Here I have always blamed the camera when indeed it's operator error :blushan:

Mike, I'm amazed at the difference in your photos from just a small adjustment to the camera. Scone is indeed a hadsome bunny :inlove:



Great pictures of the REWs Finnegan's photo really shows his beautiful eyes.


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## hartleybun

apologies for slightly hi-jacking this thread but it's helped me with my blue-eyed rexes! thank you everybun


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## BSAR

Okay here is the pic I was talking about. Sorry it took me so long to get it up!

Again as I said previously I try to take all of the bunnies photos in natural light, so not only are the REW's eyes the right color, but so is all the color in the picture!






Amanda


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## MikeScone

*BSAR wrote: *


> Again as I said previously I try to take all of the bunnies photos in natural light, so not only are the REW's eyes the right color, but so is all the color in the picture!


Natural daylight is the best, if you can get it. Unfortunately, I can seldom get daylight for pictures of Scone, since I'm not often home during the day and he's very much an indoor bun. 

Available light is next best, but it may not be sufficient for a constantly-moving subject, especially if your maximum aperture is fairly small (many zooms are only f/3.5 to f/5.6). You need to deal with color balance problems, too - pure incandescent light's not bad, but if you have a mix of light, like some florescent bulbs and incandescent bulbs lighting the same scene, it can be nearly impossible to correct. You get multiple shadows in different colors, and so on. Most cameras have a way of metering a white piece of paper and adjusting the white balance if you're in that spot.

So, flash becomes a necessity...


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## delusional

This thread got me wanting to play, so I snapped some pics of the ever-photogenic Raspberry using flash with a quickly home-made diffuser (basically a paper pyrimid hastily sellotaped together).






As you can see Raspberry's eyes came out nice and pink, as they should, but the background is yellow, obviously due to the incandescent lighting.

So I have just made a quick attempt at post-processing in Photoshop to clean up the background...






I know it's not great but it was a spur of the moment type thing.


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## MikeScone

*delusional wrote: *


> So I have just made a quick attempt at post-processing in Photoshop to clean up the background...


Well done... now let's take the next step. The background color's OK, but Raspberry's fur is a bit "flat" and slightly off-color (at least, I think it should be whiter). 

Use the "levels" command - the shortcut is "ctrl (lower case L)" - and you get this display: 





Notice that the right-hand side of the "input levels" (histogram) graph is flat for a long way. This means that the whitest points in the picture aren't white, but are really the gray tone on the "output levels" graph below the point where the graph flattens out. We could just drag the white pointer under the graph to the left until it hits the curve, but because the fur's slightly off color, we'll get better results doing this for each channel individually. 

Start with red:





I've moved the white pointer just a bit into the flat area, because I didn't want Raspberry's head fur too washed out. If you hold down "alt" when you drag, you can see what's being changed. Drag until the whitest spots in the picture just start to appear in the black. 

Then change to green channel and do it again:





Finally, do the same for blue: 





Notice how far left you have to go on the blue channel - that means that the original lighting was lacking in blue. 

Here's the result:





There is a shortcut - if you select the right-most of the three eyedroppers in the levels window (the one filled with white) then click on something in the picture which should be white, it will make the same adjustment automatically. You can also use the middle eyedropper and select something which should be neutral gray, but usually white's easier. I tried that with this picture, but I thought the result was a bit too blue-shifted, so I did it the hard way.


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## delusional

Hehe, thanks Mike.

I actually had it something like that at first, but whenever I get to the levels bit I always wonder if I didn't like it just a bit softer.. then a bit softer.. then chicken out and put it right back how it was before I started with the levels.

Guess that's something I'm going to have to get over, because it does look better after you've had a go. :rollseyes


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## Pet_Bunny

*MikeScone wrote: *


> There is a shortcut - if you select the right-most of the three eyedroppers in the levels window (the one filled with white) then click on something in the picture which should be white, it will make the same adjustment automatically. You can also use the middle eyedropper and select something which should be neutral gray, but usually white's easier. I tried that with this picture, but I thought the result was a bit too blue-shifted, so I did it the hard way.



I have a simple editing program that came with my Nikon D300. It's called Capture NX used for Nikon raw pictures.

On the picture, I did two steps. I used the black eye dropper and selected a black spot. I couldn't determine a true white spot so I used the slider on the histogram curves to get the whites.


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## Pet_Bunny

Becca






Mike






Stan


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## Pet_Bunny

Looking at the comparisons, mine is quite warm (if you like the reddish colour), so I tried again using the black eye dropper and the white eye dropper. This is what I got.







So you can see with digital photography, three people can have different results.


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## TinysMom

Amazing.

I wish I could have you two at the end of my camera taking my pictures for me....


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## MikeScone

*Pet_Bunny wrote: *


> So you can see with digital photography, three people can have different results.


That is a big part of the fascination of photography - there's no "right" way. All of the pictures are "right", in their own way.

There really is a difference in seeing, which goes beyond just taste. Like 15-20% of the male population, my vision is color deficient ("red-green color blind"), so I have trouble determining just what a color shift is - but I can usually tell when it doesn't look right. My corrections do tend to be on the cooler side, since I can see the blue shift better than a redder one.


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## myheart

I wish I had my camera here to play with the settings now...

I was taking pics of my gp's this weekend. One pig has pink eyes and his brother has brown. I could fix the glare on the brown eyes with the red-eye fix, but the pink eyes came out 'dead' looking or didn't change at all. I was so disappointed with he amount of flash andcouldn't figure out how to turn it off. NowI know I need to 'turn the flash amount down.'

I do hope this works for blue-eyed bunnies as well like Donna says. I get so much flash glare off of their eyes also, that I don't really have any nice pics that are 'framing' quality.

I will most certainly play with mycamera settings in the next few days!! Thanks Stan and Mike for all of your help!


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## bunnychild

I don't use flash I usually have a bright light behind me.


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## piperknitsRN

I'm having the same red-eye glare problem with Simon, my REW New Zealand (or mix, as he doesn't seem to be getting that big). I was shooting in some pretty crappy lighting conditions (incandescent or fluorescent, not sure which--just your standard old lightbulb, in any case) at night, but I tried setting the aperture to the highest it would go (3.8 or 3.5 I think is the highest on my Nikon D3100) and that plus some other minor tweaks got rid of the glare, I ended up with some funky, off-kilter colors in the background. I don't have an external flash (yet) and it'll probably be some time before I can get one, though they're not particularly expensive (the one I'm looking at, any way) and that might help, but I'd still like some help with this issue. Simon's eyes are, after all, a pinkish red, and photoshopping them just makes them look dead and black or grey, depending on what program I was using (which I've done in several pictures where the flare was really bad).


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## MikeScone

*piperknitsRN wrote: *


> I was shooting in some pretty crappy lighting conditions (incandescent or fluorescent, not sure which--just your standard old lightbulb, in any case) at night, but I tried setting the aperture to the highest it would go (3.8 or 3.5 I think is the highest on my Nikon D3100) and that plus some other minor tweaks got rid of the glare, I ended up with some funky, off-kilter colors in the background. Simon's eyes are, after all, a pinkish red, and photoshopping them just makes them look dead and black or grey, depending on what program I was using (which I've done in several pictures where the flare was really bad).


The old-fashioned light bulb was tungsten (incandescent), so if that's what you've got the background colors would be orangy. If you have one of the newer compact flourescent bulbs the colors could be bluish or greenish. We have a thread on white balance which might be useful in understanding the effects. 

Actually, if you're concerned about blasted-out flash pictures, you're going in the wrong direction - you want the f-stop to be smaller (i.e. higher number), not larger (smaller number). If you're using flash at f3.5, that lets in the maximum amount of light The D3100's going to try to use the flash as much for fill as possible, which means that the ambient light will have the maximum effect. That's why you can get a weird mix of colors in the light. If you stop the lens down to f8 or f11 the background will be darker and less off-color as the flash does more of the work. 

As to Simon's eyes, if they are naturally pink you don't really want to make them dark brown or black - that would look OK for Natasha, whose eyes _are _dark brown, but not for Simon. So, the redeye tool might actually be counterproductive. 

What you can try is to use the circular lasso or quick select command to select his eye - use the Select|Refine edge... command to feather the edge to avoid harsh lines. Then use "Image|Adjust lighting|levels" (hit ctrl-L for a shortcut) or "Enhance|Adjust Color|adjust color curves" to darken the eye, but not to change the colors. 

If you want to post a picture, I can take a shot at it and tell you what I did.


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## piperknitsRN

Mike:

This is an absolutley lousy picture of Simon, but it does show you the issue with red eye. I think I'm going to bring the camera back, as it's not holding a charge properly. It seems to go down to one bar of battery life within an hour, and I can use it for about 300 or so pics from then on, but it's disconcerting to never know when the battery is going to run out.

But, any tips on getting the "glow" out of his eyes would be appreciated.

You have been so very helpful! I can't thank you enough!

Thanks!


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## piperknitsRN

*MikeScone wrote: *


> *piperknitsRN wrote: *
> 
> 
> 
> I was shooting in some pretty crappy lighting conditions (incandescent or fluorescent, not sure which--just your standard old lightbulb, in any case) at night, but I tried setting the aperture to the highest it would go (3.8 or 3.5 I think is the highest on my Nikon D3100) and that plus some other minor tweaks got rid of the glare, I ended up with some funky, off-kilter colors in the background. Simon's eyes are, after all, a pinkish red, and photoshopping them just makes them look dead and black or grey, depending on what program I was using (which I've done in several pictures where the flare was really bad).
> 
> 
> 
> The old-fashioned light bulb was tungsten (incandescent), so if that's what you've got the background colors would be orangy. If you have one of the newer compact flourescent bulbs the colors could be bluish or greenish. We have a thread on white balance which might be useful in understanding the effects.
> 
> Actually, if you're concerned about blasted-out flash pictures, you're going in the wrong direction - you want the f-stop to be smaller (i.e. higher number), not larger (smaller number). If you're using flash at f3.5, that lets in the maximum amount of light The D3100's going to try to use the flash as much for fill as possible, which means that the ambient light will have the maximum effect. That's why you can get a weird mix of colors in the light. If you stop the lens down to f8 or f11 the background will be darker and less off-color as the flash does more of the work.
> 
> As to Simon's eyes, if they are naturally pink you don't really want to make them dark brown or black - that would look OK for Natasha, whose eyes _are _dark brown, but not for Simon. So, the redeye tool might actually be counterproductive.
> 
> What you can try is to use the circular lasso or quick select command to select his eye - use the Select|Refine edge... command to feather the edge to avoid harsh lines. Then use "Image|Adjust lighting|levels" (hit ctrl-L for a shortcut) or "Enhance|Adjust Color|adjust color curves" to darken the eye, but not to change the colors.
> 
> If you want to post a picture, I can take a shot at it and tell you what I did.
Click to expand...

Mike:

This is a much better picture with Simon's eyes "glowing":


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## Pet_Bunny

Mike is right about Simon's eyes, that they are naturally pink/red for his breed. I would leave them as they are.
For the brightness of the flash, the higher models (the flash) allow you to dial down the strength of light on the subject. 
You could also do that on the Nikon D3100. The active flash button on the front left, is a good design for this type of camera. Hold the button and spin the control dial and you can switch flash modes, hold it and the exposure compensation button as well and you can apply flash exposure compensation.

I like to use a wider aperture (f3.5) for my flash to keep my backgrounds bright. If I use f8.0, my pictures would have a bright subject but the background would be very dark or black.


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## MikeScone

*Pet_Bunny wrote: *


> I like to use a wider aperture (f3.5) for my flash to keep my backgrounds bright. If I use f8.0, my pictures would have a bright subject but the background would be very dark or black.


That's something to experiment with - sometimes the darker background looks good, especially with a light-colored bunny for contrast. If the color balance of the background is weird, it's better to have a darker background than one with an unusual color cast. 

I've thought of something else to check - try turning the Auto ISO feature off if you're using flash. With my D300, the camera used the set ISO if I used flash, so the flash/background balance was controlled well by the f-stop. The D7000, for some reason, was programmed so that if you had Auto ISO on, it would run the ISO all the way up as if the flash weren't there. As a result, the flash pictures tended to look washed out, because they were all shot under low light (why else would I use flash?) and the camera set the ISO way too high. I now turn off Auto ISO when I'm using flash. 

I think your D3100 is doing the same - the EXIF information says the ISO was set at 3200. Try setting it to a manual 200 and see if you like the results better. Also, make sure the exposure mode is either A (if you want to set the aperture value) or P - I think you were in manual exposure mode. 

I did play around a bit with the picture in Photoshop Elements 8, and I think it looks more natural this way. What I did was use the "burn" tool (looks like a little hand giving the "OK" sign), set to "highlights", 60% exposure, and a blurry 13px tool size. I then burned in the pupil of the eye, holding the tool a bit more in the center than the edges.


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## piperknitsRN

*MikeScone wrote: *


> *Pet_Bunny wrote: *
> 
> 
> 
> I like to use a wider aperture (f3.5) for my flash to keep my backgrounds bright. If I use f8.0, my pictures would have a bright subject but the background would be very dark or black.
> 
> 
> 
> That's something to experiment with - sometimes the darker background looks good, especially with a light-colored bunny for contrast. If the color balance of the background is weird, it's better to have a darker background than one with an unusual color cast.
> 
> I've thought of something else to check - try turning the Auto ISO feature off if you're using flash. With my D300, the camera used the set ISO if I used flash, so the flash/background balance was controlled well by the f-stop. The D7000, for some reason, was programmed so that if you had Auto ISO on, it would run the ISO all the way up as if the flash weren't there. As a result, the flash pictures tended to look washed out, because they were all shot under low light (why else would I use flash?) and the camera set the ISO way too high. I now turn off Auto ISO when I'm using flash.
> 
> I think your D3100 is doing the same - the EXIF information says the ISO was set at 3200. Try setting it to a manual 200 and see if you like the results better. Also, make sure the exposure mode is either A (if you want to set the aperture value) or P - I think you were in manual exposure mode.
> 
> I did play around a bit with the picture in Photoshop Elements 8, and I think it looks more natural this way. What I did was use the "burn" tool (looks like a little hand giving the "OK" sign), set to "highlights", 60% exposure, and a blurry 13px tool size. I then burned in the pupil of the eye, holding the tool a bit more in the center than the edges.
Click to expand...

Thanks again for the tips and tricks, Mike. I will try them out when my camera's batteries recharge (I took my camera back and got a new one; think there was something goofy about the first set of batteries I had).


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## Pet_Bunny

This is what I came up with using Capture NX2. The red eye reduction program looked terrible (the eyes were all black).
So I darken the whole image alittle from the histogram. Then I simply used the my color control point (a feature on Capture NX2) to reduce brightness, contrast, saturation, and some of the red values.


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## piperknitsRN

*Pet_Bunny wrote: *


> This is what I came up with using Capture NX2. The red eye reduction program looked terrible (the eyes were all black).
> So I darken the whole image alittle from the histogram. Then I simply used the my color control point (a feature on Capture NX2) to reduce brightness, contrast, saturation, and some of the red values.


I tried the red eye reduction on Simon, too... doesn't work well for REW's! Thank you for this nice rendering!


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## bunnychild

i can't ever find a good FREE picture editting cite


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## OneTwoThree

Piper, your off camera flash will help a ton with the red eye issue


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## piperknitsRN

*OneTwoThree wrote: *


> Piper, your off camera flash will help a ton with the red eye issue



That's great! I can't wait to get that and my other lenses. I'm having fun, even though I barely know what I'm doing .


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## OneTwoThree

*piperknitsRN wrote: *


> *OneTwoThree wrote: *
> 
> 
> 
> Piper, your off camera flash will help a ton with the red eye issue
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That's great! I can't wait to get that and my other lenses. I'm having fun, even though I barely know what I'm doing .
Click to expand...

I'm excited for you  I live and breath photography haha, so I'll be lurking to help you out if you need it


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## piperknitsRN

*OneTwoThree wrote: *


> *piperknitsRN wrote: *
> 
> 
> 
> *OneTwoThree wrote: *
> 
> 
> 
> Piper, your off camera flash will help a ton with the red eye issue
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That's great! I can't wait to get that and my other lenses. I'm having fun, even though I barely know what I'm doing .
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I'm excited for you  I live and breath photography haha, so I'll be lurking to help you out if you need it
Click to expand...

My lens shipped today. Dummy me, I forgot to order it as "free one day shipping" as they had it on special, but I didn't notice until after I placed the order. Detail, details... :baghead.


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