20D Poor focus issues - How much of a problem?

Last year I took the plunge and purchased a Minolta Dimage A2, despite reading of many users experiencing focusing problems. I've never been entirely satisfied with this camera and, when the Canon 20D was released, considered this as a possible replacement.

I've been abroad for a while and not thinking seriously about a new camera until recently. On my return to this forum, however, I was disappointed to say the least to read that 20D users also seem to be suffering from poor/soft focus. Is this a common fault with this camera or down to user error? I'd be interested to hear from sufferers.

Yes, the 20D is a focusung lemon - but very good in many other ways. Many posters disagree with this because they are some of the lucky ones who have properly working 20D's.

Don't buy into the many excuses citing user error...etc...etc.. for poor focusing results. I have owned many cameras over the past 35 years, including digital SLR's, and have had no focusing issues with any of them except the 20D.

The camera cannot consistently achieve focus on a variety of subjects, but when it does get it, the results are very good. You have to take your chances if you decide to buy one. I hope you get a good one.
--
Uncle Bob

I think its a minority who has focusing problems with the 20D, has any other camera for instance. Its normal to generalize when we see many post on the subject. The vast majority including me are silent about it, since we have no issue with the AF whatsoever.

UncleBob said:

Yes, the 20D is a focusung lemon - but very good in many other
ways. Many posters disagree with this because they are some of the
lucky ones who have properly working 20D's.

Don't buy into the many excuses citing user error...etc...etc.. for
poor focusing results. I have owned many cameras over the past 35
years, including digital SLR's, and have had no focusing issues
with any of them except the 20D.

The camera cannot consistently achieve focus on a variety of
subjects, but when it does get it, the results are very good. You
have to take your chances if you decide to buy one. I hope you get
a good one.
--
Uncle Bob

Click to expand...

--
Eric Cote

--

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don't worry, In all seriousness, there's no mass issue with 20D's like you're seeing or believing. It seems that there's a few that all of sudden in the past few weeks, litterally, who have popped up posting about issues. That's it.

keep in mind this is not the first time for Canon, nor any camera to go through this phase of such an issue. It's very common really. Jump on message boards for cars and you'll hear more about problems than fun, just based on the nature of boards and the internet.

I could go on, but I won't. Just relax, buy a 20D from a reputable dealer and enjoy it. SHould you have any issues, one there's warranty, and two, hopefully the dealer will have a good return/exchange policy.

The place I work with is good, reasonable on pricing (not the lowest) but they know their stuff and they offer 14 days no questions asked returns. That's priceless to me as I upgraded from a 10D and thus tried my 20D out very well during the first 1-2 weeks and decide it was perfect.

Good luck and just learn to read through the hype.

--
-tim
http://www.pbase.com/pdqgp

I,too, took the plunge and purchased a 20d. I read a lot about the camera before I purchased it and did notice the focus issue. After the purchase, I read more about the focus issue-it does seem to be, by far, the most frequently discussed topic in this forum. In fact, I did find a focus problem after I got the camera. I spent hours, days, weeks, doing tests and they all seemed to indicate that I had a focus problem with my camera and all my lenses.

Eventually, I took pictures of things other than focus charts, rulers at an angle, or cereal boxes close up. I noticed focus problems with those also-I do take a lot of low light, available light pictures.

One day, I printed some of those pictures in a normal size and was quite suprised by how sharp they were. I even printed them with greater magnification and the sharpness held up.

It turns out that I had been convinced by reading all the threads on this forum about the 20d focus issues that I had a focus issue. In looking for the sharpness issue, I looked very closesly-too closely-to the image files and, eventually, if I looked closely enough, they would fall apart. This is my first dslr-before this I had many years with film and darkrooms starting a long time ago. I never looked at negatives with as much magnification as I can (and apparently did) in Photoshop.

This is not to say that there are not numbers of photographers who do experience faulty auto focus with their cameras. I am sure there are qute a few of them. Howeve, in my case, and I would suspect a few more, the problem we found was defined by the search for it.

Try using your camera, not as a test instrument, but as a camera for awhile. See if you can avoid the the trap that I found.

Very well put, I also have just gotten my 20D in July and I am very happy with it in spite of an occasional OOF issue, that just might not be the camera's fault.

As others have said, there are some folk who may have a problem focusing but on the whole, most 20D owners are more than happy with their camera. If you buy one, I suggest you print out this post from Fred Miranda's forum

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/241524

In fact, I think everyone should print this out!

Cheers
Sheila

Sheila Smart
Sydney, Australia
http://www.pbase.com/sheila

All the technique in the world doesn't compensate for the inability to notice - Elliott Erwitt

I'm amazed once I got more used to the camera how well it focusses.

On Oct 18, I took 157 shots, all but 5 were with the 10-22. The 5 were with the 50mm 1.8. Not one was out of focus. It was split between morning and about 3:00 in the afternoon with bright sunlight.

On Oct 22, I took 176 shots with the 28-135. Of those I had 5 OOF shots and 1 front-focussed shot. Another sunny day but started about 4 in the afternoon until nearly dark. Of those, only 1 OOF was in good light, the rest were when the sun got very low. Two were horse shots, and they might have moved a little, but I probably didn't nail the focus.

I had a couple soft ones with the kit lens, and several when I didn't use the flash indoors. One was too shallow DOF rather than OOF. I've only had the 20D since late May 2005.

Over-Hyped by ( ^ ^users!!!

MarvC

I was initially not that impressed with what I thought were focus issues, and no doubt some early problems were MY errors but I got better lenses and also gained experience and I'm VERY satisfied with the sharpness now.

I've got a lemon. I read about focus issues on this forum and thought that maybe only those who got bad cameras are posting complains. Now I've got mine: front focus and occasional (1 in 5 shots) miss-focus with 50/1.8, same with 75-300 IS USM, today I tried sigma 50/2.8 with terrible resaults. 3-5 cm front focus and 1 in 3 shots is complety OOF.

Does anybody use sigma 50/2,8?

I went from nikon d70 to d20. Nikon had some other thing but never a focus issue.

Othervise, when it will work properly 20d will be great camera .

~~~~ http://butterflyscream.deviantart.com/ ~~~~

This is interesting as well. I shot an event recently with a new 20D. I shot all in raw. My original camer was in the shop at the time. I used the 24-70L and the 70-200 2.8 L IS. When I went to post process in Photoshop the pictures looked a little OOF.

I now have both 20D's so I will test them both. I never had any focus issues with the first 20D but the jury is out on the second one.

definitely a summer camera. summer good and summer bad. I had the pleasure of three baduns. I sent tertius to Canon ita goodun now.
those that claim this issue to be user error, are in error of their own.
Bad cameras can happen to good people.
--
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when it gets darker i do have focusing issues - but still trying to figure out what i might be doing wrong

I live in Europe I will send my camera back to store (I bought it on the internet shop).

What I am afraid is that they will mess with this one instead of giving me a new body. A new body should work properly, mine was bought defective.

What arguments do you use to persuade the shop to change it?

--

~~~~ http://butterflyscream.deviantart.com/ ~~~~

I've had my 20D for about 6 weeks now (having upgraded from a 300D), and have been saying to people that i find it harder to get as many good pictures from the 20D, but didn't know why. Am I experiencing this 'focus issue'? I think I'm getting the hang of it (not sure how), but my ratio of keepers is increasing, the more I use the camera.

I'd say about 40% of my shots were in focus. The rest were mostly slightly OOF with maybe 5%-10% being badly OOF.

Then this summer I tried something different. I switched the camera to AI servo mode, placed the selected focus point on the subject, and mashed down the * button continuously (I set CFn 4-1). Blammo - my in-focus % shot up to about 90%. Turns out all this time it was me leaning slightly back or forth between when the camera focused and when I actually took the picture. It's so good now I'm debating whether I really need to take one or two extra shots "just to be sure" I get one with good focus.

When you manufacture something in large volumes, some will have faults. There is simply no getting away from that.

And it is human nature to shout more loudly when it goes wrong.

If you are worried, buy from a Camera shop/store. Go home, take loads of pictures in all light conditions and see if you are happy with the results.

Use centre point to focus only (that way you focus on what YOU want and not what the camera selects) , and don't use AI focus. Use one shot for constant distancel objects and AI servo for objects moving away from you or towards you.

Use high shutter speeds to avoid camera shake (at least 2X focal length) and be aware that the image display on the camera back is not very hgh resolution. Zooming in on an in focus image will not look perfect on the camera.

Bear in mind when looking at your images on screen that the camera has a strong AA filter and images WILL NEED SHARPENING, especially those of soft subjects. If you need to, select parameter 1.

Bear also in mind that viewing your images on screen at at 100% is NOT a good way to judge focus. Your screen probably has a resolution much lower than is ideal for printing.

Print some of your shots at 10 by 8 inches and see if you are happy. or view them on screen at say 25 to 30 %.

If they look fine, the camera is fine. If the look out of focus (as opposed to soft), if you have done all of the above take the camera back and exchange it for another one, because you have ruled out user unfamiliarity.

Hope this helps

Scott

....about 7 months ago. The 20D is easier to focus, though with care, I never thought I had trouble with the A2. I just returned from a 2 week trip to Greece with hundreds of images taken with the 20D. Many of these were "at infinity". Some required the minimum in depth of focus. Others required maximum depth of focus. Very, very few shots were lost due to poor focus - and those which were lost were almost certainly due to my own sloppy technique.

I don't do any macro photography, so I can't comment on that.

Before you buy a 20D though, consider the extra bulk and weight of the equipment you'll carry. My 20D with just two lenses, in its case, weighs in at almost 6 lbs. My A2 with its 20-200 lens was less than half the size of the 20D and lenses.

Although I often wrote on the KM forum that "noise" wasn't a serious problem with the A2, since I've had the 20D I've come to appreciate the advantages of having relatively noise-free ISO 400, and usebale ISO 800. Yes, for large prints, you will still need Noise Ninja or another noise reduction program, but the differences in the final prints are very impressive.

The big advantages of the 20D, in my opinion, are in image quality and (potential) flexibilty of focal length. The big disadvantage, and it's something to consider very seriously, is weight and bulk.

Oh yes - there's a gigantic difference in cost!!!

Focusing is not** a serious problem.

Bill

Going slightly OT, but can I ask what difference there is between the AF in the 300D and the 20D (if any)?