XT+420EX+Tamron 17-35 odd results

[Rhys]

I'm getting some strange exposure errors with my XT, 17-35 and 420EX combination. My analysis thus far indicates that it's probably more of a camera issue than anything else. Have a look at these. The photo of the boat is when it all went right. The rest are rather strange.

The underexposed shot of the chap at the radar is strange because the flash had fully recharged after the shot before.

Similarly I have no idea why the last shot is utterly out of focus. I had many repetitions of these problems over the weekend. Enough to make me question whether the XT really can be called a camera.

pic 1 is correctly exposed
pic 2 is under exposed
pic 3 and 4 are the same area but one is correctly flashed and the other under despite the flash being fully recharged.
pic 5 is flash underexposed
pic 6 the focus point was the bridge - not the flag but it has focussed on the flag.

[Rhys]

There were several photos where the focus had just missed or was wildly out.

[cdifoto]

1. Is actually underexposed a bit. The under-boat area is excessively shaded.

2. Is overexposed if anything, not under.

3. Is ok but not "correct" - looks a shade dark. Half a stop at most.

4. Is under because that shiny bar on the left fooled the flash's E-TTL II. It needed a lot of +FEC.

5. Is under because that silver reflective panel fooled the flash's E-TTL II. It needed a lot of +FEC.

6. No idea why this mosfocused. Are you sure you used the bottom focus point? For something like that you should be stopped way way down anyway for DOF. Without having done that, IMHO it looks better with the flag in focus since it's a foreground element.

7. Clean your sensor.