Having trouble getting used to the 50mm 1.8...

[Lamplight]

I don't know if it's the lens or just me (probably me), but for some reason 75% of the pictures I take with this lens appear to be out of focus. Now at 1.8, I understand that the DOF could be so great that perhaps most of the shot would be blurry except for right around the focus point. Example: I took a few flower pictures and figured that maybe I had focused on the edge of a petal, so everything but that was blurry. However, I often get the same results when I change the aperture value to 10 or greater as well. Shouldn't more of the shot be in focus then?

And it's not just close up shots, either. Tonight I took a picture of the courthouse here in my town. I set the aperture to 1.8 just to see what would happen, and manually chose the point of focus so that it would be right on the top of the building, which was sticking out above the trees. I was probably 300 feet away and using my tripod and cable release. The shot was so blurry that I just put it in the recycle bin. I then changed the aperture to 13. This time it was slightly better, but I still had to do a great deal of sharpening in Photoshop to make the shot worth keeping. Here is the final version I kept:

http://img70.photobucket.com/albums/v214/lamplightsg/Courthouse17.jpg


When the lens is sharp, it's fantastic and puts my kit lens to shame, so I assume it must be something I am doing wrong. But I've never had this sort of trouble with the kit lens at any aperture. ???

(I'll try to post some more examples later, because I realize this wasn't the best to go by)

[leony]

Check the lens for fingerprints - both front and back. Does the image look OK through the view finder? What are your shutter speeds? Maybe it's camera shake? Is your focusing mode single shot or AI servo?

[Lamplight]

I cannot see any fingerprints, and the image looks fine through the viewfinder. With this one it could have been camera shake, although I was using a tripod. But I've others do this in bright sunlight. For this shot my shutter speed was around 2-3 seconds, but I've taken others at 1000-2000 that were also blurry. For most of my shots I've been selecting my focus point instead of letting the camera do it. Thanks for your time. :)

[leony]

If your focusing mode is set to AI focus or AI servo, the camera will let you take a picture BEFORE the focus is locked on - hence blurry images. Check your mode.

If you're still having trouble, call canon: (USA) 1-800-828-4040

[Lamplight]

Thanks for your advice. :) I'm off from work today so I'll go try out the lens in different situations and pay closer attention to what all of my settings are. Last night I did a few shots to try to replicate the problems I've experienced so I would have an example to post, but all of the pictures turned out prefectly sharp! It's kind of like trying to show a mechanic what's wrong with your car. :lol: Thanks again!