I mean, don't get me wrong...but should I do all these do-arounds or go about doing something about changing it? Has no one else really experienced this?
It was in my basement in an area where there were no lights on but all parts of the basement are attached via removed basement walls (and some were partially lit).
It had great difficulty hitting focus for almost minutes at a time and I was shooting single shots at a time so it wasn't a buffer issue either. I couldn't really explain it except for the continuously blinking AF indicator light and the follow-through with the last press didn't trigger the shutter. I even tried 'button mashing' a couple exposures to see if it helped and it didn't.
I'm hoping it is a user-to-UI error. I'd almost always confess that I was being a fool rather than pay the piper.
P.S.
The full shot where the cloud body is more than two thirds of the frame is awesome. Is that from your 17mm TS-E, eh?
The focusing system of this camera and virtually every other one as well, is looking for sharp contrast on the objects it attempts to lock onto. Contrast, by its very nature can not exist in a dark or very dim environment. Nor can it exist on a blank wall or cloudless sky.
The reason that you can read what I'm typing right now is because the letters are presented in black on an illuminated white background. That's the perfect light spectrum, contrast extreme. Can you read a book in the dark? Why would you expect your camera to do the same? So, you seem like a smart guy, Ravi. Connect the mental dots here and realize that you need to give your camera and its focusing engine more meat on the lighting bone. 
And thanks for the feedback on the shot! Yes, the TS-E17 was on duty for that one.
Cheers!
rooling::
