I am not able to take satisfactory pictures with my Canon 7D and Canon EF 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6 USM .

[ashutoshverma08]

I am not able to take satisfactory pictures with my Canon 7D and Canon EF 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6 USM. Pictures are either under exposed, over exposed or not the right skin tone. This is mainly happening with flash photography. It is very disappointing. Any help in this regard is much appreciated

Thanks

[ebiggs1]

Yes, your 430 EX isn't powerful enough. Everything has limitations and you have reached the 430's limit.

Nix CA and put the camera on P, for Professional!   Either choose the P setting or go manual.

You probably need multiple flashes if your venue is so large. For larger church's, I generally use three flashes if I can't set the ISO high enough for good pictures with out adding light. We are rapidly approaching the time where flash will be unnecessary. And I can't wait.

[ashutoshverma08]

Any comments about the issue with the Lens?

[ebiggs1]

It would not be my first choice and I would not recommend it. One thing for sure a 200mm at f5.6 is nothing to brag about.

If it is all you have, you will just need to figure out how to best use it. That means, shoot a lot!

[ashutoshverma08]

recomendations on any all purpose lens....

[ashutoshverma08]

Moreover I am anot able to understand the issue with the camera,lens combo in Indoor/flash photos that
When the subject covers the most of the frame ,pictures are crisp, however when the subject is not covering the significant portion (and the zoom is on wide angle) though the metering points indicate the subject in focus but in the resulting image the subject is not in focus and some other areas are in focus.

Is it the lack of comatibility of the lens with the camera as the lens is some 11 yrs old and camera I bought some 1 year back...

[cicopo]

There are a number of reasons for that, and a worn lens could be one plus it's still possible it isn't sharp enough (& may never have been) for use on a high megapixel camera where you view your images at or near pixel level (100% on screen). Maybe it needs to go through the microfocus adjustment process, or maybe you think the AF point is on target but when you take the shot it switches to something else. Have you tried using single point AF & placing it exactly where you want it? Have you tried any of this from a tripod to eliminate camera shake? Are you using too low an ISO for the situation? Have you set the camera to sync (when using flash) to 1/200 or 1/250 if it goes that high? .

[ebiggs1]

cicopo is on the right path. You need to know whether you and your lens and your camera are all seeing the same thing.

Get your self to a place where you will have good light and good color and take some photos. Do use a single AF point. Make sure you an the camera are focused on exactly the same thing. Do use P. Set all the 7D's controls to factory defaults, except a single AF point (the center one).

Until you find out which one of you, the lens, the camera or you, is not understanding what the wanted conclusion is, you are chasing your tail.

[TCampbell]

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@ashutoshverma08 wrote:
Mr. cicopo, Thanks for your previous advise which did significantly improve the picture quality but I have an issue with the flash pictures, maybe you can guide

With an External flash - 430 EX set at ETTL, the pictures in the room when bounced from the ceilings are good, however when I am taking in closed areas but the ceiling is very high or open areas in the night the picture is unexpectedly dark. The camera mode I am using is CA.

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When using the flash to "bounce" off a ceiling, the ceiling needs to be neutral (e.g. preferably white) -- otherwise the color of the ceiling (or anything you use as a bounce surface) will "tint" the color of the light.

If the ceiling is low, you can do a normal bounce.

If the ceiling is a bit high, you can "feather" the light or use a bounce card.  There are numerous gadgets that help in this area but even a simple 3x5 card strapped to the head of the flash with a rubber band is a big help.  The idea is that the white surface of the card will kick light that *would* have gone backward to instead get kicked foward directly toward the subject -- providing some direct light, but you'll also get the bounce from the ceiling giving soft overall light.  Tilting the head of the flash forward a click may help as well.  

I don't like the full "diffuser" heads -- they don't work as well for high ceilings because the milky plastic eats about 1 full stop worth of light (cutting your flash to half power).  The diffuser *does* kick some light forward -- so it helps to feather -- but at the expense of a light of light.  The full diffuser caps work if the ceiling is low-ish and the flash is more than adequate on power.

The Gary Fong "Lightsphere" is completely open on top -- so it works to feather light forward *without* cutting the light that you're bouncing off the ceiling.  

If the ceiling is too high for a bounce -- or if it's black or has a non-neutral color, then you don't want to bounce anyway.  For this the best bet is to just point the flash forward *but* "drag the shutter".  

Dragging the shutter simply means using shutter speed priority (Tv mode), setting the shutter to a slow-ish speed (around 1/60th is good) and then metering for the AMBIENT light (not the flash) but using the flash anyway.  This results in a nicely illuminated main subject, but instead of the background being really dark (due to light fall-off) the slower shutter speed actually captures a lot of the room ambient light and the whole shot actually look spretty good. 

[hsbn]

Doesn't mean to offense but flash photography is hard. People may take a life time to master it. It takes skill, knowledge and experience to get good and consistent result. There is not setting on a camera to make the photo looks good. I don't think there is anything wrong with your camera. If you use on camera flash there is a lot of limitation that you should be aware of.  I recommend you use manual mode first when learning about flash.

Also, I love this book: On-Camera Flash Techniques for Digital Wedding and Portrait Photography

http://www.amazon.com/On-Camera-Techniques-Digital-Portrait-Photography/dp/1584282584/ref=sr_1_1?ie=...