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You can read more about it and change your preferences here. What do you think? VickiGuzaliak 3 years ago Awe! AbiezerCelzo 3 years ago This comment is hidden. AmandaAcohido 3 years ago Do you know what a baby looks like in the whomb? There is nothing painful about this. GinaWildner 3 years ago Thats a pretty natural position for a newborn, actually.
EsteraBonda 3 years ago not for a baby. Subscribe to our top stories Subscribe. I doubt using a flash normally would be dangerous to infants, but using one so close to their face would be no more clever than giving them a torch to look into. Just use common sense and they will be fine. In article " Flash Photography and the Visual System of Birds and Animals ", Dennis Olivero, DVM, and Donald Cohen, ophthalmology MD, speak of studies performed on humans and animals where it has been found that to cause permanent damage, bright light has to be focused quite likely for an on-camera flash when subject is looking at camera for extended period of time which a photographic flash is luckily not capable of.
A fill flash should cause no effect and flash as main light might cause discomfort by temporary vision impairment, but no permanent damage. Tim Solley, portrait photographer, has researched the topic and also came to conclusion that flashes are safe for babies. Again, only hints to scientific studies.
However, eye damage is not the only possible effect. Bright light might activate symptoms of chronic diseases. Epilepsy is the classic example; a photosensitive epileptic has attested to triggering effect on the disease of even single flash, more so with red-eye reduction or repetitive flash. There are other diseases that come with photophobia, such as migraine a person close to me can attest to that. While these health conditions are rare, they do exist.
Watch your subject and stop using flash if you see signs of discomfort. Bouncing or some other way of softening the flash is a good idea from light quality standpoint, and reduces any effect on comfort and health when the subject is looking at you instead of the bright surface.
As your question covers in great detail, medically there is very little risk of any damage to an infant's vision. Whether it has any affect on the way you and your child bond, on the other hand From a photographic standpoint, why would you want to fire a bare flash at full power less than one meter away from your subject?
Baby Flash | Bored Panda
Maybe if you are doing macro work, but that is an entirely different kind of flash or one heavily modified to soften the light. They're all older now, but back in the dark ages of film I photographed most of my nieces and nephews when each were only a few days old. Without exception the ones that I still see framed when I visit my siblings are the ones I took from almost directly overhead them when they were sleeping and illuminated with nothing but diffused natural light from a window with a shear on it.
That's not to say you shouldn't try to use flash also, but bouncing it off a white ceiling or passing it through a modifier to soften it will likely give you more of the type of results you are looking for. If you are interested in learning how to get the most from your new flash, hop over to Strobist and work through his lighting series.
That is the best free on-line course on any photographic subject I've come across. If you look into the general field of safety and new borns, you will see that there have been zero scientifically rigorous studies of anything. No one will risk doing "actual harm" to an infant. Instead, we have a consensus of very conservative positions.
The good news is that parents and grandparents are more than happy to carry the infant around, and you can talk them into going to windows where you can get natural light. My daughter, who is an enthusiastic photographer herself, would not let me use flash on her child until the kid was about 6 weeks old. And then, it was all indirectly bounced off the ceiling. I have been photographing my children since birth including a few minutes after birth. I have done my best to do it with bounce or off camera flash.
Flashing infants can be dangerous. I never flash an infant.
Can a camera flash harm your baby’s eyes?
My reasoning behind this is simple. A baby may have an unknown condition like epilepsy or can exhibit intolerance to camera flashes like seizures. The camera doesn't cause the baby to have seizures but babies conditions can sometimes go unnoticed until an incident which reveals it.
If a baby has never been exposed to flash photography I don't want to be the first. If a child is two or three years old, I have no problem using flashes because by this time the parents already are aware of any existing conditions most of the time. This is just my preference. I use continuous lights on infants. Honestly i think that it doesnt hurt a newborn because i have alittle brother and he is 6 now and his eyes are perfectly fine he is has glasses but for far away and i have been taking camera flash photoes since he was a baby close up so honestly my opinion is that it doesnt harm newborns eyes.
In other words, the closer your flash fires to the baby's eyes, the stronger it is.
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So, replying to comments suggesting that a mobile phone's flash is simply too weak: Yes, it's like a joke when firing from one meter, but it can be AT LEAST glaring and temporarily blinding from 10 cm when you're trying to do a macro of the newborn's glossy iris I dare you to try it into your own eyes before doing that to the poor baby!
You don't want this randomness near your babies eyes, IMHO. Personal experience My son's 6 months now. I did at times bounce the flash off the ceiling or the wall, getting beautiful results and it didn't seem to bother the baby at all. By the way, realizing the limits, I finally ordered the 1. I am not saying permanent blindndess. And thoose negligent conditions can be precisly using a powerfull flash in close range. I am not an expert. And reading the answers on this posts, and the references quoted and linked, it seems that there is no real expert on the particular subject out there.
But on normal conditions do not worry
I'll explain the statement "no real expert". There is no real expert becouse no one will conduct a methodic experiment firing flashes to infants. Flash blindness is a well known effect in military aplications. This article says that some sources say it can be temporal or permanent the original link to the defense department is broken: To make a methodical study it should be one that includes specific waveleinght's, duration, intensity, specific damage burn on specific parts of the cell, or chemical unbalance of the receptors , duration of this effects, celular regeneration of the afected area, pupil's aperture on the moment of the exposure, etc.
I do not know such a study. Common mistake is that only UV light can hurt tissues. But a burn is not made only by UV light, but can be also becouse visible light and infrared light among others. A light of the sun focused by a magnifier. The cristalline is a focus lens. Much smaller aperture than a magnifier but is one. If it is not a Turn on some abmient light too to help the pulil reduce its aperture a bit.
If you are using a softbox on a studio flash turn the model light on. This does not only applies to babies but to portrait photography. You do not want your model or client to feel too unconfortable with this temporary flash blindness. Talk to them and do not make your studio dark. The flash easily overpowers the ambient light of a studio, so including the case of low key photography you do not need to be in darkness.
Gosh, the Daily Mail just posted an article blaming an infant's blindness on a camera flash. They quote unnamed "experts":.
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Damage to the macula can lead to the loss of central vision, which allows people to see straight ahead. The macula is not fully developed until children are four, meaning youngsters are very sensitive to strong light. Experts have said that while babies will shut their eyes when exposed to light on reflex, just milliseconds of strong light can cause permanent damage. I find it bizarre that one would be more obsessed with one's photography than with the health of one's children. Dismissing reasonable prudence doesn't make sense to me.
Like it or not, the developing eye is extraordinarily sensitive to light, to the extent that premature infants suffer a condition from it called ROP--retinopathy of prematurity. Exactly when and to what extent the over-sensitivity of the eye to light abates is a matter of debate, but simple logic would dictate that infant eyes are not miraculously developed with the same capabilities as those of an adult:.
Babies are still aphake, that is their lens does not block the incoming light even deep in the still more damaging wavelengths below nm where fluorescent lamps emit several additional concentrated energy spikes. Furthermore, the clinical literature documents abundantly that cells still in their development stages are many times more susceptible to damage from radiation than cells already grown into stable structures, and that preemies lack a number of other adult protections. Peter Aleff, Baby-blinding retinopathy of prematurity and intensive care nursery lighting, Iatrogenics, Volume 1, Issue 2, April-June If you blind your child, it won't matter how good your photography was, now would it, since your child will never be able to appreciate it.
Some would argue that Billybob down the street took pictures of his infant with a flash and that infant seems okay, therefore it is safe for everyone. Aside from the obvious fact that there is not actual measurement to determine whether any damage has occurred, only anecdotal "belief" that it hasn't, it might occur to some of us that individuals do vary physiologically, and that some are more likely than others to be sensitive.
Flash cards for babies: do they work?
By clicking "Post Your Answer", you acknowledge that you have read our updated terms of service , privacy policy and cookie policy , and that your continued use of the website is subject to these policies. Home Questions Tags Users Unanswered. Is camera flash actually harmful to infants or newborns? I just got a new off-camera flash, and the instruction manual says: Never fire the flash unit closer than 1 meter from infants.