goldeye?

[LuvMyAbby&Kaela]

Calling all photography experts. How do I fix "goldeye" . I cant seem to get a good indoor picture without the demon glow on the dogs. The fix redeye feature on my camera doesnt change it. I cant even fix it on my Windows Photo program ..because it doesnt recognize it as red. It doesn't change when I put the little red eye corrector box around it. Any ideas?

[Adina P]

I dunno...but look at those cute dimples!

[LuvMyAbby&Kaela]

LOL! The ones on the face I dont mind......;o)~

[Adina P]

And they better be the ONLY ones of your dimples I see on Doodle Kisses =)

[Libby & Bentley]

Try taking the picture in an area where you don't need flash if all else fails..and turn your flash off..sometimes I resort to that :)

[Laura & Chewie]

You've gotten lots of good solutions...I just wanted to say, two beautiful puppies, no matter what color their eyes are!

[Richard Crowe]

As Kevin mentioned, if your camera has a hot-shoe and can use an external flash, getting a unit which will bounce off the ceiling will save your picture from the dog eye glow.

This is an inexpensive flash which would allow you to bounce. However, you would need a hotshoe on your camera to use it. http://cgi.ebay.com/Flash-Speedlite-YN-460-Canon-1Ds-Mark-III-1D-Ma...

I have attached a picture of what a hotshoe looks like. It is on the top of all DSLR cameras and some point and shoot models also have hotshoes.

Bounce flash provides all over better quality lighting than does the camera's built-in flash.

[LuvMyAbby&Kaela]

Thanks Richard, I dont see anything like that on mine. (Nikon Coolpix) I wanted a small camera for carrying around with me. I might look around and see which point & shoots have this feature. I had such a hard time deciding which one to buy as it is, because I wanted one with a date stamp feature and one that would let me shoot pic after pic without waiting so long between pics. This one is OK but not great. (I hate that by the time it actually shoots the child/dog whatever is already looking away)

[F, Calla & Luca]

Dogs have red blood just as humans do. We have red eye from light reflecting off capillaries filled with blood in the retina. Dogs and many other mammals have different retinal structures as explained here (probably more than you ever wanted to know but interesting):
Reflex Colors

The consistently red color of the human reflex derives from the red blood pigment hemoglobin. Light from the flash picks up the red from blood vessels encountered during its bounce off the retina, just as reflected sunlight picks up the color of a red sweater.

Why, then, do animal reflexes come in so many other colors and seldom in red? The answer lies in the tapetum lucidum, a highly reflective, variably pigmented membrane backing the retina in animals with good night vision (including dogs, cats and most domestic animals) but entirely absent in humans. The tapetum lies directly behind the retinal photoreceptors. Nova's The Nocturnal Eye nicely illustrates the anatomy.

The tapetum enhances low-light vision by giving retinal photoreceptors a 2nd crack at any incoming light that manages to escape absorption (detection) on the first pass. In dogs, at least, an additional boost may come from tapetal fluorescence, which shifts incoming wavelengths into better alignment with the peak spectral sensitivities of the photoreceptors. Tapetal pigments surely come into play here.

When tapetal pigment is present, its color dominates the color of a given animal's reflex. Tapetal color loosely follows coat color. For example, black coats and green reflexes tend to go together, as seen in our border collie above. Most dogs and cats show a blue reflex as their eyes mature in the first 6-8 months of life. Pigment-poor animals like blue point Siamese cats with no tapetal pigmentation show a red reflex for the same reason humans do. reference

[LuvMyAbby&Kaela]

Interesting! You know I have noticed that Abby's goldeye is always larger than Kaelas, in almost every pic. So I am guessing she has a larger tapetum than Kaela and therefore better nightvision? Or just a bigger shutter?

[F, Calla & Luca]

I would think just a "bigger shutter". Probably Abby's pupil is larger than Kaela"s.

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

Thanks for this great clarification. The "green eye" tutorial I read had simplified it to the point where I was missing the detail regarding animal reflexes and confusing it with pigments in the actual blood composition. This is helpful.

[Richard Crowe]

Gold eye plus blurry pictures...

Point and shoot cameras are very handy. They are light weight, small and thus easy to transport. However, they do not really do the greatest job shooting dogs.

Some (very few these days it appears) have a capability to use an external flash. The built-in flash is very close to the lens, so when the light is emitted from the flash, it bounces right back into the lens. This is sort of like throwing a rubber ball directly against the wall. The ball will bounce back directly at you.

This reflection causes problems with both humans and with dogs - especially when shooting in dim light because the pupils are dilated due to the low light. Humans have the horrible redeye and dogs have the equally awful glowing eye,

Most cameras of today have a redeye prevention which emits a short burst of light just prior to the shutter opening. This allows the human pupil to contract so that there is not as big a hole through which light is reflected back from the retina. Apparently, it doesn't work well (or work at all) with dogs. I don't know because I usually never shoot with direct flash either with human or canine subjects. I always bounce my flash which provides the best even light for any subjects and is just about essential when shooting dogs.

Very possibly, increasing the ambient lighting in the room considerably may just reduce or prevent the dog's eyes from glowing. The brighter ambient light might cause the dog's pupils to contract.

Another way to prevent glowing eyes in dogs is not to have the dog looking directly at you. I did a test for you to illustrate this solution, I used the built-in flash on my DSLR to light a picture I shot of Holly tonight. Take my word for it, all the shots in which she was looking directly at the camera had her eyes glowing. The one that I posted on my page as "Holly 171" had her looking away from the camera and thus avoided the notorious glowing eye.

There is a possible way to bounce your camera's built-in flash (see; http://cgi.ebay.com/Horusbennu-Best-Flash-Light-tipper-Flash-Diffus... ) however, I have not used this accessory and since the built-in flash isn't very powerful, you might have a hard time with this bouncer. Also read the directions to ensure that you can operate your camera in the way required for using this bounce accessory. However, it might solve the glow eye problems for about twenty bucks.

Another problem with point and shoot cameras is the lag between the time you press the shutter button and the camera acquiring the image. I gave up using a P&S camera for shooting dogs, especially puppies about six or seven years ago. I got darned tired of shooting a puppy or a group of puppies and waiting so long for the shutter to trip that all I had in the frame were the puppies tails. Some P&S cameras are faster in acquiring images than others but, generally all of them have a shutter lag that seems like eternity before the shutter trips. You can somewhat speed up the process by prefocusing. Most cameras allow you to press the shutter button half way to acquire focus. Although that does cut the time somewhat, the delay is still just too long to enable you to shoot moving kids and puppy dogs.

The only real solution to the shutter lag is to use a DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) camera. However, these cameras, if purchased new, can be quite expensive. On the plus side is the fact that if purchased used, today's digital cameras cost only a fraction of what they cost new. Digital photography forums have multiple posts regarding persons who are bemoaning that their cameras are worth so little. However, the older DSLR models are still able to take great pictures, have virtually no shutter lag and can accept hotshoe flashes which can be bounced.

The Canon 350D (also called the XT) can often be had with a lens for around $200-250 used. This camera is only about six or seven years old and cost over a thousand dollars when new. It is a fully capable camera which can do about anything you want a camera to do.

There are probably equally good buys on used Nikon equipment.

The older Pentax DSLR cameras are even less expensive (see: http://cgi.ebay.com/Pentax-istD-camera-with-16-45-f-4-0-Pentax-Lens... )

By the way, a DSLR camera is not at all complicated to use. You can set it up so it functions as automatically as a point and shoot camera. However, the DSLR will generally take better pictures than the P&S.