5D Mark II poor ETTL flash exposure

[anesh]

<p>Hi, my 5D MarkII almost always underexposes of overexposes with my 580EX flashes. I have two 7D's and flash exposures are not a problem. With the 5D Mark II, I have to use a flash meter and manually set flash exposure. ETTL is useless with it. My firmware version is 2.09. Is this just how it is or is there something I can do to correct it? Thanks.</p>

[PuppyDigs]

<p>Maybe your 5D2 needs a flash meter calibration. Mine--summer 2009 vintage--is spot on and about the same as my 7D. Of course flash brightness is partially a matter of taste. I prefer mine understated and blended with the background light while others like more of DIHL or main light look. If you disable E-TTL (in flash menu) and use the averaging option you can get a little more flash-like look without dialing in FEC. </p>

<p>If you don't want to send it to service, you could leave FEC permanently set at an appropriate + value. I had a Nikon that I left FEC permanently set to +1FEC and never thought about it again.</p>

[dan_south]

Are you shooting light or reflective subjects or backgrounds? What exposure mode are you using? What metering

pattern? What ISO and f stop? What is the distance from the flash head to the subject? Are you using a lens hood?

One head or many? Attached to or detached from the camera? Do you have any exposure compensation or flash

compensation dialed in?

[vbi]

<p>Depends on your metering mode.</p>

[paul_chilton2]

<p>Vincent,<br>

please share your knowledge on metering modes and flash exposure. Thank you.</p>

 

[hakhtar]

Good thing about 5Dll is that it has auto ISO and FEC facility which I set to +1FEC and get good results with my 580EX in 'average' mode!

[vbi]

<p>Syl Arena explains the use of speedlites quite well in his series of articles at:<br>

<a href="http://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/education/technical/getting_the_most_from_speedlites.do">http://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/education/technical/getting_the_most_from_speedlites.do</a></p>

 

[anesh]

<p>actually I realized that the exposure is much better without any modifiers, but as soon as I add a small softbox or shoot-through umbrella to the speedlight the exposure suffers badly, usually severely underexposed. Doesn't happy with either of my 7D's or G12.</p>

[PuppyDigs]

<p>I don't use softboxes but often bounce off white and foil reflectors with two 430EX, ST-E2 and 5D2, and exposure is normally fine. I get similar results with my 7D so sounds like you need to send your 5D2 in for service.</p>

[ejder]

<p>This sounds like inadequate flash power due to low ISO or stopped down aperture. </p>

[stanislav_traykov1]

<p>I just purchased a 5D mark II in Thailand and I have perhaps the same problem. I get a very consistent underexposure by almost two stops when shooting with flash (580EX II). Went back to the store and tried using a different flash (430EX II) and got the same (abysmal) flash metering performance.<br>

Then I put my flash and lens on a different body (60D) and got OK exposures. I asked to test with another 5D2 and they gave me an older body (which didn't look as if it could have been from the same batch). This 5D2 performed just as badly as my new 5D2, so I figured it's just the way it is with this model.<br>

Flash exposures turn out much better when I press the FE/AE lock button (*) before the shot but that's not very practical (extra keypress and pre-flash firing). If I set FEC +1 2/3, I get OK results but then FE lock doesn't work/overexposes.<br>

The comments here make me wonder... is my body defective after all; should I get it serviced? It certainly doesn't feel nice having such a drastic FEC and non-working FEL... but then again that old 5D2 in the store was the same. Any input from experienced 5D2 flash users would be greatly appreciated!</p>

<p>Additional info:</p>

<ul>

<li>I tried many shots, different subjects and distances, indoors and outdoors, P mode and M mode, all with same results.</li>

<li>You can select the (ETTL II) flash metering mode in the "Flash function settings" menu (the metering mode you see on the top LCD panel doesn't affect flash metering). In the menu, you have a choice of "evaluative" and "average" (most probably center-weighted average). Additionally, you always get spot metering when using FE lock. My problem is the same with evaluative and average metering and gets more or less fixed with spot/FE lock (see above).</li>

<li>I updated to the latest firmware (2.1.1) and it didn't make any difference.</li>

<li>For most test shots, I used ISO 400, f/4, 1/60 (which was what P mode automatically selected for flash photos). I also tried different settings in M mode. Results were essentially the same: drastic underexposure of foreground subject.</li>

<li>My body's serial number is 376170**** bought in Thailand on Dec 26, 2011 (not a gray import).</li>

<li>I didn't use lens hoods, diffusers, bounce flash or other things that could complicate the interpretation of my test results. I just shot with default settings, flash at zero angle, mounted on top of camera. </li>

</ul>