topic Black spot on subject faces in EOS DSLR & Mirrorless Cameras

Black spot on subject faces

Douglas — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 06:17:45 GMT

I have had several instances of a dark spot as if the person had a black eye show up on both my Canon 40D and 60D when using flash, indoors. Could that be caused by the sunshield being left on the lens?

Re: Black spot on subject faces

ScottyP — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 06:45:34 GMT

Do you mean "lens hood"?

An improperly narrow lens hood would cause a dark ring around the edges of the photo. If the hood has "leaves" or "petals" it could have dim spots in irregular places.

Is this a Canon lens? If so, are these the correct Canon lens hoods for the particular lens? If you have a mis-matched lens and lens hood, that might be an issue?

But another issue could be unflattering shadows from on-camera direct flash? One's oen nose or forehead will cast ugly shadows on a subject's face. You probably already know this, but if you bounce your flash off the ceiling or a neutral wall, then it decreases these shadows a lot.

Also helpful is the use of a reflector. You can pay $60.00 for a collapsible reflector, or you can get the same one on Ebay (Chinese) for like $10.00) Position the reflector to cast bounced flashor reflected sunlight up onto the subject and you are good to go.

Re: Black spot on subject faces

7D5D — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 12:06:28 GMT

In addition to wrong or improperly installed lens hoods as ScottyP mentioned, your lens may be blocking some of the light from your built-in flash. For example, if your lens is fully zoomed out and/or your subject is fairly close, you might be casting shadows on the lower part of your subject. Also keep in mind the coverage of your built-in flash, both cameras cover up to 17mm so if you are shooting wider than that, you will have some light fall-off.

Could you post some samples of the black spots?