Menu Position MENU --> 
3 -->Red Eye Reduction
What it Does Tries to reduce the natural occurrence of red eye in flash pictures taken using the pop-up flash
Recommended Setting I hate this feature
Menu Position MENU --> 3 -->Red Eye Reduction
What it Does Tries to reduce the natural occurrence of red eye in flash pictures taken using the pop-up flash
Recommended Setting I hate this feature
Red eye can occur in flash pictures if the flash is too close to the lens. What happens is the light from the flash bounces off the subject’s retina (which shows up red for humans, and yellow-green-blueish for most animals) and then bounces right back to the camera. The traditional solution to this problem is to attach an accessory flash to the camera, increasing the distance between flash and lens and eliminating problem entirely.
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Figure 6-20: The Dreaded red-eye! This image was taken with an earlier camera with the red-eye reduction feature turned off. (Ahhh… I simply must return to Mars someday!) |
However, when you’re designing a point-and-shoot, you don’t have the luxury of increasing the distance between the flash and the lens. Another way is needed, and a long time ago some engineers found that way by exploiting a biological trick that actually works: Fire some low-intensity flash bursts half a second before the real flash takes place. The human eye reacts very fast to these; thinking “OMG, there’s so much light here!” and closes down the eye’s iris almost immediately. A smaller window to the eye means a lesser opportunity for the red-eye phenomenon to occur. So when this feature is enabled, the camera will output several quick flashes, wait a half-second, then put out a quick pre-flash and then take the final exposure - about ¾ of a second in latency.
While this trick is certainly effective, it also promotes very stale, non-genuine smiles when people are posing for you (plus it increases the shutter lag tremendously). Not at all the kind of spirited expression I’ve been trained since birth to capture. And so I always keep this feature off. If I must shoot using the pop-up flash as the main source of light in a darkened room (the worst kind of light imaginable), then I’d rather turn this feature off and eliminate the red-eye on my computer. (Or by using a sharpie on the physical print, like we used to do in the old days. :-) )
TIP: Although the red eye reduction feature operates with an accessory flash attached, you shouldn’t ever need to use it that way, since the accessory flash increases the distance between the flash and the lens, eliminating the source of red eye in the first place! |
Menu Position MENU --> 
3 -->Focus Mode
What it Does Chooses between 5 focusing modes
Recommended Setting DMF, unless you’re shooting sports or kids, in which case use AF-C
Your camera gives you five choices for Focus Mode. I'll talk about these a little out of order so the explanations will be more meaningful:
AF-S
The factory default for focusing modes is “Focus on a subject, and then lock focus until I take the picture.” This is called “Single Shot AF” (AutoFocus) mode, and is denoted by “AF-S”. This your standard point-and-shoot mode.
