EOS 7D What am I doing wrong here?

Stamp wrote in post #11177126
I wanted to shoot some back lit window shots of my daughter, getting used to the new 7d, and found that my lens would hunt while trying to focus on her eye (Sigma EX 17-50 2.8 OS HSM). Also, there appears to be quite a bit of noise on her face for ISO 400, and it doesn't appear to be sharp at all. What am I doing wrong here? I tried to spot meter on her face, then recompose to get the far right focus on her eye, then took the shot. I shot RAW, converted to Tiff in DPP, and converted to JPEG in Photoshop 7.0.1.

Camera: Canon
Model: Canon EOS 7D
ISO: 400
Exposure: 1/50 sec
Aperture: 3.5
Focal Length: 17mm
Flash Used: No

Strong back lights will cause this. If I had to guess, you probably need to adjust your metering and/or use a Fill Flash.

egordon99 wrote in post #11180993
L

A simple hot-shoe mounted speedlight could have easily fixed the lighting.

That's what I was thinking ... and I have been playing with a camera mounted speedlight, bright backgrounds and high speed sync.

You could also lightroom to dodge the little girls face and arms to lighten them a bit.

Stamp wrote in post #11180855
I didn't adjust the exposure at all when I spot metered on her face.. I didn't think I needed to, since the spot was covered by her entire face. Is the 7D prone to underexposure like this? I was trying to use spot focus, and I'd have to play with the focal length to get the focus lock, then I just said screw it and put it on one point AF.

If you're in any exposure mode other than manual, the "meter" (in quotes because it's not really acting as a meter, but instead as just an exposure compensation indicator) shows how far above or below neutral gray the camera will set the exposure of the metered area for. In this case, the metered area is the spot meter and it just does a straight average of the area for figuring how much light is there (and, thus, what exposure parameters to use to get it to have the intensity the "meter" shows it should have). Since the girl's face is a lighter tone than neutral gray, you should set the exposure compensation so that the "meter" reads a lighter tone than neutral gray. Probably about a stop above neutral gray would be about right.

If you're in manual exposure mode, the meter (which really does act as a meter in this case) will show how much above or below neutral gray the metered area will come out in the resulting shot based on the exposure parameters you have set. In that case, you'd want to meter off her face and, while doing so, set your exposure so that it reads about a stop above neutral gray, since you want her face to be lighter than neutral gray at that point.


The spot metering mode, especially when combined with manual mode, is in my opinion the most useful metering mode the camera has to offer, by far. It makes it possible for you to very precisely set your exposure the way you want, and to explicitly do so for specific parts of the scene (like the girl's face) that are important to you.

Thanks for that write up, KC. Makes quite a bit more sense how it works now.

Also, while I'm sitting here at work, figured I throw this out there to see if there's a quick fix, or if not, I'll just dig into the manual when I get home. I find that while looking through the viewfinder, and taking in all the settings, it only stays up for a couple seconds, then I have to "wake it up" by pushing a button. Is there a way to keep the info up for a time frame longer than 3 seconds or so?

Stamp wrote in post #11181905
Thanks for that write up, KC. Makes quite a bit more sense how it works now.

Also, while I'm sitting here at work, figured I throw this out there to see if there's a quick fix, or if not, I'll just dig into the manual when I get home. I find that while looking through the viewfinder, and taking in all the settings, it only stays up for a couple seconds, then I have to "wake it up" by pushing a button. Is there a way to keep the info up for a time frame longer than 3 seconds or so?

If you keep the shutter button half-pressed you should be able to see the settings.

As far as posting a larger shot, you'll need to check with your site for specific instructions -- if you're on Flickr I believe that you can right-click to get different sizes but I'm not a Flickr user so can only go on hearsay.

But don't try to somehow get a "full size" pic posted because they are just too large for Web use. POTN has a size limit -- if you link from a Web host like Flickr you are limited to 1024 pixels at the widest dimension. If you wan to upload from your computer (using the Attach tool at the top of the toolbar in the Advanced window) you can, you are still limited to the 1024 pixel size but also to a max of 150Kb, so set your Quality slider low enough to fit that size.

But, for the specific issues you are referring to in that photo, noise and focus/sharpness, I'd suggest you crop just her face closely so we can see a larger shot of it and analyze the noise and sharpness.

7D shines with using flash, the bonus about the 7D is you can use the 580EXII and use it wireless.
I am using the flash with my camera 99.99999999% (can i throw some more 999999's in yea) of the time now if If I do not use the flash or more than one at once, i am sure to have way way too much light. And even then nd filter added use the flash you just cannot beat the final image look with a flash

I had some fast glass, thought having fast glass would = low light & no issues.. Well think again still need that flash...

This guy has some good info http://stepheneastwood​.com/blog/?p=71


That picture calls out for a flash or more than one IMO // get the shot right or close to it the first time and don't rely on correction programs to fix the issues IE: LR, PS, Raw whatever... If you have a perfect shot once you bring it into these programs you would be amazed at what can be done or how far you can push them afterwards if its correct from the get go. If its a picture that is a little off you have minimal corrections that can be done before you run into ; noise, banding, so many other issues trust me i have a 7D and its taken me some time to get things proper over 524 posts and still learning the little beast!

jaycky that sites looks very interesting, and exactly what I'm trying to do, to some extent. I''m going to have a closer look at it tomorrow more in depth when I get some time at work.

I was able to try again, but it wasn't a sunny day, it was overcast, so I had to bump up the ISO to 3200 to get the window the way I was wanting it, and used my speedlite boucing off the back wall and ceiling behind me. I used partial metering, metered her face, adjusted for proper exposure, and focused on her eye. Now I think we're beginning to cook with fire. I also used DPP to do the PP'ing while I was downloading the Adobe Lightroom 3 trial, then I used LR3, and I don't think I'll be using DPP anymore. Here are a couple of the new shots. They are cropped a little bit to remove clothes hampers, air vents, and that jazz.

EXIF: Photo information
Oct 28, 2010
2994×3169 pixels – 4359KB
Filename: IMG_1259 LR.jpg
Camera: Canon
Model: Canon EOS 7D
ISO: 3200
Exposure: 1/50 sec
Aperture: 2.8
Focal Length: 17mm

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'image/png' | Byte size: ZERO

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'image/png' | Byte size: ZERO

Looking pretty good!

Now you're cookin'.

Good job! Those looks pretty good for ISO3200...

Much, much better! Congrats!