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Black spot on subject faces

Douglas
Contributor

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? 

2 REPLIES 2

ScottyP
Authority

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. 

Scott

Canon 5d mk 4, Canon 6D, EF 70-200mm L f/2.8 IS mk2; EF 16-35 f/2.8 L mk. III; Sigma 35mm f/1.4 "Art" EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro; EF 85mm f/1.8; EF 1.4x extender mk. 3; EF 24-105 f/4 L; EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS; 3x Phottix Mitros+ speedlites

Why do so many people say "FER-tographer"? Do they take "fertographs"?

7D5D
Rising Star
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?
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