This feels a bit like a stupid question, so forgive me, but I am thinking of shooting the family holiday pictures (e.g., kids opening presents) in B&W for the first time. I do not want to use the red eye reduction setting on the flash because of the time delay and the resulting difficulty in timing the shot for facial expressions etc.. Is there any distracting result comparable to red eye in color pictures that I may get (like an intense reflection off the cornea)?

-- Chris Werner (cbwerner@att.net), December 09, 1999

Answers

As I understand that mode, the camera either fires a couple of flashes or operates a small lamp before it sets off the main flash. I believe this is supposed to make the eyes close down (usually you are using flash in a dark area) so that not so much of the retina is visible to reflect back into the lens. You will get reflections of any shiny object -- eyes, glasses, hair pins, etc if they are able to reflect light directly back to the camera lens. Holding the flash above and to the side of the camera gives a lot more pleasing result. A small highlight in the eyes is usually a good thing because it adds some life to the face. For a given flash to subject distance, the bigger the reflector surface, the softer the light.

-- Tony Brent (ajbrent@mich.com), December 09, 1999.

Yes, red-eye can occur in B&W. Well, call it light-grey-eye. Off- camera flash is my favoured solution.

-- Alan Gibson (Alan.Gibson@technologist.com), December 10, 1999.

Off-camera flash also has the advantage that you get more pronounced shadows that help define and bring out the dimensionality of your subject better -- a detail that's even more important in B/W than in color.

By the way you can burn-in glowing eyes in the darkroom if you feel the need...

-- Mark Wilkins (mark_wilkins@yahoo.com), December 12, 1999.

red-eye is more of a reflection than a refraction it seems in B/W, if you want to try the famous "evil-eye", try InfraRed, but in B/W, the "red-eye" can acutally be pleasing if used right (like on most four- legged wildlife critters). But it is still (less, to me) annoying than in colour.

-- Jason Tuck (jtuck80@csi.com), January 26, 2000.