Glowing Cat Eyes

17 years ago

I've had an 8 year-old RCA digital camera and have taken lots of pictures of our cats, but the camera has seen better days.

Just yesterday, I found a great deal on a Canon PowerShot A580 camera. While playing with it, and figuring out all the neat features, almost every picture taken of our cats shows their "glowing eyes". If you have been around cats, you know what I'm talking about.

My wife says she hats the pictures, because it makes the cats look "satanic" and wants me to take the camera back. I'm trying to assure her that it's merely a setting of the camera, not the camera itself. But which setting should I look for?

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Comments (5)

tojohnso
17 years ago
criticalmass

You can't do much reading about flash photography without coming across the term, "red eye". When taking pictures of people with a camera mounted flash, sometimes the light from the flash goes right through the pupil of the eye, and reflects off the retina. This reflection is red because the human retina is red. A cat's retina is more this greenish color that you see in your photos, but the cause is the same.

Some modern cameras have technology to eliminate, or reduce red eye, such as a pre-flash that fires before the shutter opens, and the main flash fires, causing the pupils to close down a bit. I don't know if this works on cats, or not, but the sure thing is to get the flash above the plain of the eye, so the light is not going straight through to the back of the eye. If you can't take the flash off your camera, photograph your cat in lighting situations that do not require the use of a flash.

If you have a good photo editing software, and know how to use it, you will be able to select the the glowing area, and change the color to black, giving a more natural look.

Good luck with the cat photography.
kentuck_8b
17 years ago
Some cats, and even dog's eyes, remain where the pupils are more open and will almost always give the green eye effect.

The best way I deal with this, is to take a photo when they aren't looking directly at the camera. Bright light surroundings also helps, as this will make their pupils smaller, and you may not even need a flash.

A flash that is far away from the lens would be the best.

I will get a really nice shot that has the green reflections, and I usually wind up working on it with Photo Editor and eventually changing the green to black. It takes time, but it's worth it if you have a nice shot of the pet.

Kt
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criticalmass048
Original Author
17 years ago
Well thanks for the tips, but I'm still left wondering why I RARELY had this problem with my old camera. Is it a particular setting, or just that the flash is so close to the lens?
kentuck_8b
17 years ago
Did you take similar pics of the same cat under the same conditions...such as distance from the camera? Some cats(and dogs) will almost always give the reflection eyes whereas some do not. It has a lot to do with that particular animals eyes.

Stand back from the cat and zoom in before taking the picture and see if that helps. The green eyes can happen with an expensive camera as easily as it can with a cheaper model.

Kt
kentuck_8b
17 years ago