Is it me or is it my 7D?

I'm not sure if I'm pixel peeping, but it seems to me that pretty much all of my photos lack some punch and although they seem to be in focus, they look to me a bit soft and not as sharp as I was getting out of my old XSi.
I'm still using the same 17-55 f/2.8 lens, so the only factor changed is the camera.
Here is one of the better pictures, but it still looks a bit flat to me.
EXIF: 1/125 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200, 580EX II (off-camera on the left, bouncing off white ceiling at 1/2 power), 430EX II on the right side at 1/8 power bouncing off the ceiling). Due to the room constraints I couldn't put up a softbox.

No PP was done, except converting from RAW to JPG and resizing for the web.

Whaddaya say? (Here's the link to the larger sizes)

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Redirected to error image by FLICKR

It looks fine to me.

binlerne wrote in post #10448499
It looks fine to me.

+1^

exif data would help

your lighting is way off. should of hit one under her or something because of that brim on the hat. but i'd say everything else looks fine to me..except for the lighting.

Yyour shooting the lens up her nose and her eyes are disappearing into the side of her head. Lighting is way off. Other than that sharpness seems fine.

I'm going to disagree with the other posters and say that on the 'original' size, her eyes do look a little soft - especially for that lens and at that aperture (maybe everyone else is only looking at the smaller, embedded pic in this thread?!). Which AF mode did you use? If you used single-point AF on her eye (as opposed to letting the camera pick a point and it choosing the wrong thing to focus on) then it looks to me like there's a little front-focusing going on. Looking at her hat, the plane of focus seems to be sharpest in front of her face, more about level with her right arm - the hat detail and clothes on her arm seem sharper to me.

Yusef wrote in post #10448516
exif data would help

For some reason Flickr stripped exif in transit. I've put most of info right above the picture.

Yeah, it was my first shoot of bunch of people and first time with the strobes off camera. She was the only one with the hat and I just didn't have time to readjust.
Thank you for the feedback.

NellyNero wrote in post #10448580
Which AF mode did you use? If you used single-point AF on her eye (as opposed to letting the camera pick a point and it choosing the wrong thing to focus on) then it looks to me like there's a little front-focusing going on. Looking at her hat, the plane of focus seems to be sharpest in front of her face, more about level with her right arm - the hat detail and clothes on her arm seem sharper to me.

I usually use single-point AF, but this time I've decided to use AF point expansion to quickly accommodate various situation. I also kept it at f5.6 to make sure to have a sufficient DoF to cover slight AF misfires. Her eyes do look a bit soft to me. That was my original concern.

That looks fine; keep in mind that the 7d needs to have shots sharpened in post (or up the defautls in-camaera). It is futile to look at 100% crop on screen at 15 inches away at that pixel density....

Did you focus and recompose?

Timbop - I agree that extreme pixel peeping can drive you mad, but the OP's 'original' size isn't the full 100% file size - he's already resized it for Flickr so his original size is about an A4 - about 25% instead of 100% which in itself masks slight focus misses. I print A4 size very often, so for me it's very important to pixel peep at least up to that size.

For me, there is softness on the eyes in this image (not the small, embedded one)- not much, I grant you, but if this is the way it is at f5.6, how soft will it be at f2.8?

Aleness, Tim is spot-on that you need to sharpen 7D files up in post, more perhaps than with other cameras. I think expansion may not have been your friend here, because it's possible it's picked up on the hat - I tend to use single-point without expansion, and mostly with spot AF, on the nearest eye for portraits. Have you noticed any front-focussed issues on other shots?

JoYork wrote in post #10449520
Did you focus and recompose?

I try not to, but in any case, f5.6 should have covered for that.

It kinda looks like the camera locked focus on the brim of her hat. If they all have this look, maybe the lens is front-focusing and needs MAF.

NellyNero wrote in post #10449617
For me, there is softness on the eyes in this image (not the small, embedded one)- not much, I grant you, but if this is the way it is at f5.6, how soft will it be at f2.8?

Actually, from my previous shoot, I had quite a few out of focus photos, that's why I stopped down to f5.6, which improved it slightly.

NellyNero wrote in post #10449617
Aleness, Tim is spot-on that you need to sharpen 7D files up in post, more perhaps than with other cameras. I think expansion may not have been your friend here, because it's possible it's picked up on the hat - I tend to use single-point without expansion, and mostly with spot AF, on the nearest eye for portraits. Have you noticed any front-focussed issues on other shots?

The reason I've chosen to use expansion was that if the spot where I'm trying to focus doesn't have enough information, the expansion should pick up a near point, but looks like in this case it didn't work as well as expected.
I've actually seen in some photos in DPP (which actually displays the factual focus point) that the area in focus was other than the area indicated by the focus point. I've tried some MA, going back and forth photographing a ruler. Set it tethered on a tripod, with IS off, mirror locked-up and remote shutter release, so the camera wasn't even touched and the results were inconsistent.
Took the camera the next day to Samy's camera and one of the repair guys looked at it, snapped a couple of photos and he was pretty satisfied with the results.
I was planning to to another test - shoot the same thing, with the same lens, but using 7D and then my XSi and compare the results.