Returning my 300D, WB and focus general problem?

[Chris]

Very disappointing, I'll have to return the 300D, it just doesn't work! I HOPE that I've gotten a monday-morning model and this isn't systematic.

The two issues are White Balance and Auto Focus. The automatic white balance is extremely poor in anything but daylight, I've never seen any digital camera that bad. I've tonight compared my Sony F707, a Coolpix 3100 and a Sony U20. Same position, same light, same tripod etc. all models in fully automatic (with and without flash). The Sony F707 clearly the best but not one of them, not even the cheapo u20 and 3100 as off as the 300D. Extremely dissappointing. Only with flash the white balance of the 300D was ok.

Much worse is the focus issue, the autofocus simply doesn't work. Whether it's a problem with the (kit) lens or the camera, I can't tell. In short, the focus points are not in focus, the focus nearly always is somewhere a little further in the back. It consistently doesn't work. And no, I am not speaking of camera shake etc., I have mounted the camera on a tripod, have used the timer release etc. and double and quadruple checked the focus point in file viewer etc, set the lens to about 25mm. It simply doesn't work. and since the in-focus area could always be found a little further back in the photo, camera shake wasn't an option.

Did anyone else experience these problems?

 

[Daniella68313]

we exchanged it and was ok.

but can you post samples so that we can see? you,re comparing DSLR with non DSLR wich have very different DOF..could be that simple issue.

as for the white balance..we need to see the samples.

Very disappointing, I'll have to return the 300D, it just doesn't
work! I HOPE that I've gotten a monday-morning model and this isn't
systematic.

The two issues are White Balance and Auto Focus. The automatic
white balance is extremely poor in anything but daylight, I've
never seen any digital camera that bad. I've tonight compared my
Sony F707, a Coolpix 3100 and a Sony U20. Same position, same
light, same tripod etc. all models in fully automatic (with and
without flash). The Sony F707 clearly the best but not one of them,
not even the cheapo u20 and 3100 as off as the 300D. Extremely
dissappointing. Only with flash the white balance of the 300D was
ok.
Much worse is the focus issue, the autofocus simply doesn't work.
Whether it's a problem with the (kit) lens or the camera, I can't
tell. In short, the focus points are not in focus, the focus nearly
always is somewhere a little further in the back. It consistently
doesn't work. And no, I am not speaking of camera shake etc., I
have mounted the camera on a tripod, have used the timer release
etc. and double and quadruple checked the focus point in file
viewer etc, set the lens to about 25mm. It simply doesn't work. and
since the in-focus area could always be found a little further back
in the photo, camera shake wasn't an option.

Did anyone else experience these problems?

--
Daniella
main gallery: http://www.infrareddream.com
http://www.photosig.com/go/users/userphotos?id=26918
http://www.pbase.com/zylen
C7OO FORUM: http://www.c700uz.com

c7OOuz, Dimage-7, Tcon14tele, C210tele, Cokin-173, Grad-ND, Hoya-red-Intensifier, Hoya_R_72.

 

[Felix65]

Many people seem to be getting a faulty 300D. This worries me...because I have no time to return the camera and wait for a new one.

but can you post samples so that we can see? you,re comparing DSLR
with non DSLR wich have very different DOF..could be that simple
issue.

as for the white balance..we need to see the samples.

Very disappointing, I'll have to return the 300D, it just doesn't
work! I HOPE that I've gotten a monday-morning model and this isn't
systematic.

The two issues are White Balance and Auto Focus. The automatic
white balance is extremely poor in anything but daylight, I've
never seen any digital camera that bad. I've tonight compared my
Sony F707, a Coolpix 3100 and a Sony U20. Same position, same
light, same tripod etc. all models in fully automatic (with and
without flash). The Sony F707 clearly the best but not one of them,
not even the cheapo u20 and 3100 as off as the 300D. Extremely
dissappointing. Only with flash the white balance of the 300D was
ok.
Much worse is the focus issue, the autofocus simply doesn't work.
Whether it's a problem with the (kit) lens or the camera, I can't
tell. In short, the focus points are not in focus, the focus nearly
always is somewhere a little further in the back. It consistently
doesn't work. And no, I am not speaking of camera shake etc., I
have mounted the camera on a tripod, have used the timer release
etc. and double and quadruple checked the focus point in file
viewer etc, set the lens to about 25mm. It simply doesn't work. and
since the in-focus area could always be found a little further back
in the photo, camera shake wasn't an option.

Did anyone else experience these problems?

--
Daniella
main gallery: http://www.infrareddream.com
http://www.photosig.com/go/users/userphotos?id=26918
http://www.pbase.com/zylen
C7OO FORUM: http://www.c700uz.com
c7OOuz, Dimage-7, Tcon14tele, C210tele, Cokin-173, Grad-ND,
Hoya-red-Intensifier, Hoya_R_72.

 

[Mattias Ekberg]

I get the feeling that people do this kind of test shooting before they know the camera. There are alot of options to set first and a lot of things to learn before this camera returns great results, but when you get past that first learnign period, it's worth it.

I also had some focusing troubles when I first got the camera, but that was simply bad habit from using my previous cameras in a faulty way. Now the focus problems are all gone.

I say people give up too easy on this camera. If everybody gave it at least one week I really think most people would keep the camera.

SLR - SOME LEARNING REQUIRED

----------------------------------------------------
My 300D photos:
http://www.pbase.com/matekb/300d
[email protected]
http://www.pbase.com/matekb

but can you post samples so that we can see? you,re comparing DSLR
with non DSLR wich have very different DOF..could be that simple
issue.

as for the white balance..we need to see the samples.

Very disappointing, I'll have to return the 300D, it just doesn't
work! I HOPE that I've gotten a monday-morning model and this isn't
systematic.

The two issues are White Balance and Auto Focus. The automatic
white balance is extremely poor in anything but daylight, I've
never seen any digital camera that bad. I've tonight compared my
Sony F707, a Coolpix 3100 and a Sony U20. Same position, same
light, same tripod etc. all models in fully automatic (with and
without flash). The Sony F707 clearly the best but not one of them,
not even the cheapo u20 and 3100 as off as the 300D. Extremely
dissappointing. Only with flash the white balance of the 300D was
ok.
Much worse is the focus issue, the autofocus simply doesn't work.
Whether it's a problem with the (kit) lens or the camera, I can't
tell. In short, the focus points are not in focus, the focus nearly
always is somewhere a little further in the back. It consistently
doesn't work. And no, I am not speaking of camera shake etc., I
have mounted the camera on a tripod, have used the timer release
etc. and double and quadruple checked the focus point in file
viewer etc, set the lens to about 25mm. It simply doesn't work. and
since the in-focus area could always be found a little further back
in the photo, camera shake wasn't an option.

Did anyone else experience these problems?

--
Daniella
main gallery: http://www.infrareddream.com
http://www.photosig.com/go/users/userphotos?id=26918
http://www.pbase.com/zylen
C7OO FORUM: http://www.c700uz.com
c7OOuz, Dimage-7, Tcon14tele, C210tele, Cokin-173, Grad-ND,
Hoya-red-Intensifier, Hoya_R_72.

--
----------------------------------------------------
My 300D photos:
http://www.pbase.com/matekb/300d
[email protected]
http://www.pbase.com/matekb

 

[Cubfan]

Very disappointing, I'll have to return the 300D, it just doesn't
work! I HOPE that I've gotten a monday-morning model and this isn't
systematic.

The two issues are White Balance and Auto Focus. The automatic
white balance is extremely poor in anything but daylight, I've
never seen any digital camera that bad. I've tonight compared my
Sony F707, a Coolpix 3100 and a Sony U20. Same position, same
light, same tripod etc. all models in fully automatic (with and
without flash). The Sony F707 clearly the best but not one of them,
not even the cheapo u20 and 3100 as off as the 300D. Extremely
dissappointing. Only with flash the white balance of the 300D was
ok.
Much worse is the focus issue, the autofocus simply doesn't work.
Whether it's a problem with the (kit) lens or the camera, I can't
tell. In short, the focus points are not in focus, the focus nearly
always is somewhere a little further in the back. It consistently
doesn't work. And no, I am not speaking of camera shake etc., I
have mounted the camera on a tripod, have used the timer release
etc. and double and quadruple checked the focus point in file
viewer etc, set the lens to about 25mm. It simply doesn't work. and
since the in-focus area could always be found a little further back
in the photo, camera shake wasn't an option.

Did anyone else experience these problems?

--
http://www.jayfleck.com

 

[Locust]

Many people seem to be getting a faulty 300D.

not so bad. There's QUITE a lot cameras out there and I've seen maybe 40 different people complaining here. Most of the complaints were at least suspicious, I mean, much more likely it was that the faulty part was the operator, not the camera...
Only a few problems were really bad.

Before I bought mine I have tried quite a few in different shops (not that I was looking for the perfect one, just couldn't make up my mind and tried it out wherever I could) and none had focusing problems nor any other obvious faults, I couldn't spot any differences in mechanical finish or resulting picture quality (which would be a clear sympthom of early production problems).
--
Marek

 

[Locust]

SLR - SOME LEARNING
REQUIRED

that's it!
btw: do You have anything against me putting it into my sig?

--
Marek

 

[Chris]

.. I'm evidently even worse with forums than with photography.

As soon as I have figured out how to do this, I'll post samples

Chris

Very disappointing, I'll have to return the 300D, it just doesn't
work! I HOPE that I've gotten a monday-morning model and this isn't
systematic.

The two issues are White Balance and Auto Focus. The automatic
white balance is extremely poor in anything but daylight, I've
never seen any digital camera that bad. I've tonight compared my
Sony F707, a Coolpix 3100 and a Sony U20. Same position, same
light, same tripod etc. all models in fully automatic (with and
without flash). The Sony F707 clearly the best but not one of them,
not even the cheapo u20 and 3100 as off as the 300D. Extremely
dissappointing. Only with flash the white balance of the 300D was
ok.
Much worse is the focus issue, the autofocus simply doesn't work.
Whether it's a problem with the (kit) lens or the camera, I can't
tell. In short, the focus points are not in focus, the focus nearly
always is somewhere a little further in the back. It consistently
doesn't work. And no, I am not speaking of camera shake etc., I
have mounted the camera on a tripod, have used the timer release
etc. and double and quadruple checked the focus point in file
viewer etc, set the lens to about 25mm. It simply doesn't work. and
since the in-focus area could always be found a little further back
in the photo, camera shake wasn't an option.

Did anyone else experience these problems?

 

[Chris]

I've done pressed the shutter about 800 times before deciding that it's probably the camera. The point is, that when e.g. using automatic white balance, I want to get an approximately right result. When it's important to get it exactly right, I can always get the grey cards out. But, for that money I expect the camera to do better than low end consumer models.

As for focus, it's not that the camera doesn't produce sharp photos. It does but not at the point is suppossed to focus on. I used a manual focus 50/1.8 lens quite a bit last week and the photos are very sharp.

I also had some focusing troubles when I first got the camera, but
that was simply bad habit from using my previous cameras in a
faulty way. Now the focus problems are all gone.

I say people give up too easy on this camera. If everybody gave it
at least one week I really think most people would keep the camera.

SLR - SOME LEARNING REQUIRED

----------------------------------------------------
My 300D photos:
http://www.pbase.com/matekb/300d
[email protected]
http://www.pbase.com/matekb

but can you post samples so that we can see? you,re comparing DSLR
with non DSLR wich have very different DOF..could be that simple
issue.

as for the white balance..we need to see the samples.

Very disappointing, I'll have to return the 300D, it just doesn't
work! I HOPE that I've gotten a monday-morning model and this isn't
systematic.

The two issues are White Balance and Auto Focus. The automatic
white balance is extremely poor in anything but daylight, I've
never seen any digital camera that bad. I've tonight compared my
Sony F707, a Coolpix 3100 and a Sony U20. Same position, same
light, same tripod etc. all models in fully automatic (with and
without flash). The Sony F707 clearly the best but not one of them,
not even the cheapo u20 and 3100 as off as the 300D. Extremely
dissappointing. Only with flash the white balance of the 300D was
ok.
Much worse is the focus issue, the autofocus simply doesn't work.
Whether it's a problem with the (kit) lens or the camera, I can't
tell. In short, the focus points are not in focus, the focus nearly
always is somewhere a little further in the back. It consistently
doesn't work. And no, I am not speaking of camera shake etc., I
have mounted the camera on a tripod, have used the timer release
etc. and double and quadruple checked the focus point in file
viewer etc, set the lens to about 25mm. It simply doesn't work. and
since the in-focus area could always be found a little further back
in the photo, camera shake wasn't an option.

Did anyone else experience these problems?

--
Daniella
main gallery: http://www.infrareddream.com
http://www.photosig.com/go/users/userphotos?id=26918
http://www.pbase.com/zylen
C7OO FORUM: http://www.c700uz.com
c7OOuz, Dimage-7, Tcon14tele, C210tele, Cokin-173, Grad-ND,
Hoya-red-Intensifier, Hoya_R_72.

--
----------------------------------------------------
My 300D photos:
http://www.pbase.com/matekb/300d
[email protected]
http://www.pbase.com/matekb

 

[AltaChinook]

I've done pressed the shutter about 800 times before deciding that
it's probably the camera. The point is, that when e.g. using
automatic white balance, I want to get an approximately right
result. When it's important to get it exactly right, I can always
get the grey cards out. But, for that money I expect the camera to
do better than low end consumer models.

Grey card is not going to help white balance. Set the white balance manually. If it's important that you get it absolutely right then use Custom White Balance it is explained in the manual.

As for focus, it's not that the camera doesn't produce sharp
photos. It does but not at the point is suppossed to focus on. I
used a manual focus 50/1.8 lens quite a bit last week and the
photos are very sharp.

Are you still using the multi-point focusing? If so change to one point only preferably center point. Don't use the fully auto modes, if you want auto exposure use the "P" mode.

It would be better if you could post some shots for the people here to look at. There is a wealth of knowledge here on this forum try to take advantage of it.

If you have tried those with no luck then by all means take it back and ask for a new one.

Cheers
Steve
--
A machine is only as good as its operator.
http://www.pbase.com/hangman/galleries

 

[Wild-Mike]

After serveral tests I found the custom white balance to be right on. I also found the cloud, sun, shadow and flash to be accurate. Flourecent was OK and haven't used tungsten. It would have been nice to have incandescent too, but that is not available.

As for focus, haven't had any issues with single point focus mode.

Hopefully you will sort it out since it is either the lens or user. Also possible to be the camera.

Very disappointing, I'll have to return the 300D, it just doesn't
work! I HOPE that I've gotten a monday-morning model and this isn't
systematic.

The two issues are White Balance and Auto Focus. The automatic
white balance is extremely poor in anything but daylight, I've
never seen any digital camera that bad. I've tonight compared my
Sony F707, a Coolpix 3100 and a Sony U20. Same position, same
light, same tripod etc. all models in fully automatic (with and
without flash). The Sony F707 clearly the best but not one of them,
not even the cheapo u20 and 3100 as off as the 300D. Extremely
dissappointing. Only with flash the white balance of the 300D was
ok.
Much worse is the focus issue, the autofocus simply doesn't work.
Whether it's a problem with the (kit) lens or the camera, I can't
tell. In short, the focus points are not in focus, the focus nearly
always is somewhere a little further in the back. It consistently
doesn't work. And no, I am not speaking of camera shake etc., I
have mounted the camera on a tripod, have used the timer release
etc. and double and quadruple checked the focus point in file
viewer etc, set the lens to about 25mm. It simply doesn't work. and
since the in-focus area could always be found a little further back
in the photo, camera shake wasn't an option.

Did anyone else experience these problems?

--
http://tkis.com/wild-mike/

It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer -- Albert Einstein

 

[Stevieboroboy]

Get another one Chris, it's just bad luck.
Steve

Very disappointing, I'll have to return the 300D, it just doesn't
work! I HOPE that I've gotten a monday-morning model and this isn't
systematic.

The two issues are White Balance and Auto Focus. The automatic
white balance is extremely poor in anything but daylight, I've
never seen any digital camera that bad. I've tonight compared my
Sony F707, a Coolpix 3100 and a Sony U20. Same position, same
light, same tripod etc. all models in fully automatic (with and
without flash). The Sony F707 clearly the best but not one of them,
not even the cheapo u20 and 3100 as off as the 300D. Extremely
dissappointing. Only with flash the white balance of the 300D was
ok.
Much worse is the focus issue, the autofocus simply doesn't work.
Whether it's a problem with the (kit) lens or the camera, I can't
tell. In short, the focus points are not in focus, the focus nearly
always is somewhere a little further in the back. It consistently
doesn't work. And no, I am not speaking of camera shake etc., I
have mounted the camera on a tripod, have used the timer release
etc. and double and quadruple checked the focus point in file
viewer etc, set the lens to about 25mm. It simply doesn't work. and
since the in-focus area could always be found a little further back
in the photo, camera shake wasn't an option.

Did anyone else experience these problems?

 

[Locust]

.. I'm evidently even worse with forums than with photography.

1. put the pics on some webpage

if your web site allows leching, put here the address of the photo you want to embed, eg:
"



"
will produce:



if You can't directly link to the picture, just type the address of Your site and it will get "clickable"
like:
http://www.stud.uni-karlsruhe.de/~uyh0/eos/

--
Marek
300D pics: http://www.stud.uni-karlsruhe.de/~uyh0/eos/

 

[RATPhoto]

Many people seem to be getting a faulty 300D.

not so bad. There's QUITE a lot cameras out there and I've seen
maybe 40 different people complaining here. Most of the complaints
were at least suspicious, I mean, much more likely it was that the
faulty part was the operator, not the camera...
Only a few problems were really bad.

Before I bought mine I have tried quite a few in different shops
(not that I was looking for the perfect one, just couldn't make up
my mind and tried it out wherever I could) and none had focusing
problems nor any other obvious faults, I couldn't spot any
differences in mechanical finish or resulting picture quality
(which would be a clear sympthom of early production problems).
--
Marek

First off the AWB does leave something to be desired. Other cameras do manage to do it better. This is mentioned in Phil's review so it shouldn't come as a shock.

Second many of the focus issues people are having are legitimate. I personally had this issue pop up for me when I got a 50mm 1.8 Mk II. I do know how to test it correctly.

What I find amusing is that I can think of at least two posts recently where people have posted pictures saying they don't have the problem. I looked at their pictures and they clearly did! They just didn't know what to look for.

This is not to say every camera or every lens has an issue. My camera works just fine and dandy with both my kit lens and the 70-200 F4L.

People can easily make either of the two following mistakes. You made one of them.

1) Because they don't have a problem they assume everyone who reports a problem doesn't know what they are talking about.

2) Because they do have a problem, they assume everyone else has the problem too.

--
For a gallery of 300d pictures, see:
http://ratphoto.home.comcast.net/

The photos in 'Old_Favorites' were taken with other cameras. See my profile for my equipment

 

[Juli Valley]

Aren't tungsten and incandescant the same thing? I agree that the AWB is not very good. I always try to set mine either custom or according to label. I also use Sunny WB for flash, not the flash which I think is really for studio lighting.

 

[Chris]

Here are some samples

http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ch_fischer

The one of the dog puzzle are about the WB. BTW, in that one, the rebel was focused (in automatic with flash off) on the puzzle box and even with the reduced size it's clearly out of focus.

The one with the map is an original, if you have a fast connection, try downloading it and opening it in fileviewer. Compare the focus point with where the photo is in focus and all will be clear.

My connection is too slow but I get consistently out of focus shot like the example.

Opinions?

Chris

Very disappointing, I'll have to return the 300D, it just doesn't
work! I HOPE that I've gotten a monday-morning model and this isn't
systematic.

The two issues are White Balance and Auto Focus. The automatic
white balance is extremely poor in anything but daylight, I've
never seen any digital camera that bad. I've tonight compared my
Sony F707, a Coolpix 3100 and a Sony U20. Same position, same
light, same tripod etc. all models in fully automatic (with and
without flash). The Sony F707 clearly the best but not one of them,
not even the cheapo u20 and 3100 as off as the 300D. Extremely
dissappointing. Only with flash the white balance of the 300D was
ok.
Much worse is the focus issue, the autofocus simply doesn't work.
Whether it's a problem with the (kit) lens or the camera, I can't
tell. In short, the focus points are not in focus, the focus nearly
always is somewhere a little further in the back. It consistently
doesn't work. And no, I am not speaking of camera shake etc., I
have mounted the camera on a tripod, have used the timer release
etc. and double and quadruple checked the focus point in file
viewer etc, set the lens to about 25mm. It simply doesn't work. and
since the in-focus area could always be found a little further back
in the photo, camera shake wasn't an option.

Did anyone else experience these problems?

 

[Grayhair]

http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ch_fischer

The one of the dog puzzle are about the WB. BTW, in that one, the
rebel was focused (in automatic with flash off) on the puzzle box
and even with the reduced size it's clearly out of focus.

The one with the map is an original, if you have a fast connection,
try downloading it and opening it in fileviewer. Compare the focus
point with where the photo is in focus and all will be clear.
My connection is too slow but I get consistently out of focus shot
like the example.

Opinions?

Chris

Very disappointing, I'll have to return the 300D, it just doesn't
work! I HOPE that I've gotten a monday-morning model and this isn't
systematic.

The two issues are White Balance and Auto Focus. The automatic
white balance is extremely poor in anything but daylight, I've
never seen any digital camera that bad. I've tonight compared my
Sony F707, a Coolpix 3100 and a Sony U20. Same position, same
light, same tripod etc. all models in fully automatic (with and
without flash). The Sony F707 clearly the best but not one of them,
not even the cheapo u20 and 3100 as off as the 300D. Extremely
dissappointing. Only with flash the white balance of the 300D was
ok.
Much worse is the focus issue, the autofocus simply doesn't work.
Whether it's a problem with the (kit) lens or the camera, I can't
tell. In short, the focus points are not in focus, the focus nearly
always is somewhere a little further in the back. It consistently
doesn't work. And no, I am not speaking of camera shake etc., I
have mounted the camera on a tripod, have used the timer release
etc. and double and quadruple checked the focus point in file
viewer etc, set the lens to about 25mm. It simply doesn't work. and
since the in-focus area could always be found a little further back
in the photo, camera shake wasn't an option.

Did anyone else experience these problems?

--
Jim
http://www.pbase.com/doylejj

 

[Chris]

I've done pressed the shutter about 800 times before deciding that
it's probably the camera. The point is, that when e.g. using
automatic white balance, I want to get an approximately right
result. When it's important to get it exactly right, I can always
get the grey cards out. But, for that money I expect the camera to
do better than low end consumer models.

Grey card is not going to help white balance. Set the white
balance manually. If it's important that you get it absolutely
right then use Custom White Balance it is explained in the manual.

The backside of the grey cards is white although I have found that in fact the whitebalance setting using the grey or the white side gives very similar results (not for metering though, obviously)

As for focus, it's not that the camera doesn't produce sharp
photos. It does but not at the point is suppossed to focus on. I
used a manual focus 50/1.8 lens quite a bit last week and the
photos are very sharp.

Are you still using the multi-point focusing? If so change to one
point only preferably center point. Don't use the fully auto
modes, if you want auto exposure use the "P" mode.

multi-point and single point, also have done for the tests, result is the same in that the focus is just not where indicated. Have used P,M etc.

It would be better if you could post some shots for the people here
to look at. There is a wealth of knowledge here on this forum try
to take advantage of it.

just posted, see further down the thread.

If you have tried those with no luck then by all means take it back
and ask for a new one.

Cheers
Steve
--
A machine is only as good as its operator.
http://www.pbase.com/hangman/galleries

 

[AltaChinook]

--

 

[Chris]

sorry 'bout that, I don't usually use that yahoo photo upload. Hopefully it works now.

Chris