Fw: Red Eye

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From: PAUL CALKINS <bella.art@sbcglobal.net>

Date: Sun, 9 Jun 2013 18:21:31 -0700 (PDT)

To: Ken McCoy<xipnek@aol.com>

Subject: Red Eye

Copyright 2013 Paul Calkins Tres in Sepia F stop 4.9 Exposure 1/30 second ISO 800 focal length 16 mm Flash disabled Ken, Hope all is well.  I am continuing to work on the class presentation.  Marilyn has been my best critic!   We hosted Daizsa and Kawanii  Saturday night.  Kawanii was a babe in arms when I did the Cybersub Cafe show.  He is now a very confident 4th grader, and Daizsa is now Junior in High School.  The time has gone by to fast!  Photographic Thoughts Volume II   June 10, 2013   Red Eye   By Paul Calkins © 2013 Bellaartandphoto.com   Red Eye is one of those things that you ponder when you are at the family gathering, and take a photograph.  You are startled to find that your family members have become beings from the planet Zombie.  Their eyes glow like flashlights peering in a startled fashion.  Delete, is your next act in this case.  The cause of this startling effect, involves the speed of light, and the fact that our eyes are full of blood vessels. Also our reaction time is a whole lot slower than light speed. The flash enters the eye, bounces back, reddened, and the camera sensor dutifully records the image. Luckily for us, those very smart and enterprising electrical, optical, design, and software engineers have thought this one out.  Some cameras have been designed to pre-flash the subject, just before the main flash does its work.  It gives those family members eyes a split second to adjust, and close their iris just a bit to give a more human look.  Now let's go one step further, if you want to photograph your favorite pet, let's say a house cat.  This animal has a super inner eye reflective system.  I mean Felis catus has built in reflectors, they can see just fine in almost total darkness.  You go and try to catch kitty, by now looking very wild, because of your attempts to get its attention, and then you snap the photograph.  After several tries, you lure the light shocked cat from under the coffee table and attempt to capture the essence of its spirit.  In this case you decide to turn the offending flash off completely. Oh!  I forgot in this case that I left the camera in Sepia mode from a previous project. I should have checked my camera, and made sure all the default settings were in place. Happy accidents sometimes produce wonderful results.      Thanks for listening.