Could this be focus issues with my 7D?

The more I use this thing the more I get frustrated with it. I really think I am having focusing issues with this camera. I am using a 100-400 lens. Shot in av mode. Here is a shot of a pintail that I took several times. He is around 40 yards away resting on a island. To me it looks like it is front focusing on every shot that I took of it. Look in front of it and the grass looks to be in focus. I think I took 10 shots of this duck and had one turn out so so. Shots like these using this lens on my 40d turned out great. I was using center point focus and did not recompose the shot. Now if you zoom in 100% on this shot you will notice that the duck is not in the center. Now if I put the center focus spot on the duck, shouldn't it be in the middle of the shot? I noticed this on every shot I took and the farther away the duck was the more off center it was. Maybe this is normal, I don't know. If it is normal, just about every shot that I took that was not up close was out of focus and full of noise when you looked at it at 100%. I did not have near this problem with my 40d. I tried to do the micro adjustment with this lens and to be honest I had different results each time but for the most part it seemed to be in focus if I left it set at 0

http://the-outdoorsman.net/temp/I​MG_3988031711.jpg

Here is another shot of a duck a little farther away
http://the-outdoorsman.net/temp/I​MG_3872031711.jpg

My bif shots were not good either. Most all full of noise and out of focus. One of the reasons I bought this camera was because people said how good it was on catching things in focus. Now if the subject is nice and close the pics are pretty good. I am just comparing this camera to my 40d as far as the pic I just posted and the over all performance of the 7d with bif shots. My 40d was a lot better. I set up my camera like it is on this blog. Thought I would give it a shot.
http://www.deepgreenph​otography.com …ing-up-your-new-canon-7d/
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Was this on a tripod, if it was, did you turn IS off.

Your third link doesn't work ?

For the first one load the raw into DPP, it will show you where the focus point was.
On an initial look though I agree the grass in front of of the duck is sharp, but since you say this was center point focussed and the duck isn't in the center of the image, I kind think its fair enough, look at the attachment, the center point would be right on the grass thats in focus.
If you can do a test that proves the center focus point isn't in the center of the focussed image then I'd say something is wrong with regards to alignment in the body and it needs to go to Canon.

The second one - hard to say, the shutter speed should be okay, that does look a little more like front focussing, but again the duck is not on the center point (again, assuming its not a crop).

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These shots were hand held and IS was on. When I took these shots I put the center focus point right on the duck. You see where you drew the X. Now I would think that is where the duck should have been. Just seems strange to me. These pnotos are not croped and no post work done. Just saved them to jpg. I have several images that all turned out that way. If the subject is even farther away then the subject would be even higher above the X spot. I fixed that third link. I don't have DPP installed. Is there a way to show the focus point in photoshop?

No, you wont shows the focus point in photoshop, you'll have to install DPP if you want to do that.

As I said I'd do a test with regards to where the focus point shows in the viewfinder to where is lands - if its wrong I'd send it in with shot examples and the lens too.

Actually thinking about it I think I've read on here of people contacting Canon for advice and sending example shots in prior to sending the camera - that might be worth a shot first to see what the experts think.

Let us know how it works out!

The focus points on the 7d can extend past what you actually see in the viewfinder. So what happened is you had the duck in the square but since the focus point can extend past the box it acquired focus on the grass instead resulting in a picture that looks front focused. In the 7d's custom function menu there is an option to not let the focus point extend out of the box you see in the viewfinder. If that does not work you could also try spot af to see if that helps.

Ok, I have solved some of my mystery here. First off I just checked my camera because I was thinking I was using center spot focus which I confirmed I was. That is also when I noticed that I had it set to use the spot focus one above center. That explaines why all my shots were off center. Mnaz, I tried to find the custom funtion setting you refer to, but I don't see it. I have a huge number of photos that are out of focus and maybe that would help. But spot focus should have made to box a lot smaller for which it focus on. Could it be that the distance is just to far to get a good focus on the subject?

Nascar Nut wrote in post #12055295
Ok, I have solved some of my mystery here. First off I just checked my camera because I was thinking I was using center spot focus which I confirmed I was. That is also when I noticed that I had it set to use the spot focus one above center. That explaines why all my shots were off center. Mnaz, I tried to find the custom funtion setting you refer to, but I don't see it. I have a huge number of photos that are out of focus and maybe that would help. But spot focus should have made to box a lot smaller for which it focus on. Could it be that the distance is just to far to get a good focus on the subject?

I believe there is a custom function, (can't remember which one and I don't have a manual right now, had to send my camera back) that will turn the box(s) red the instant it / they achieve focus. That way you will always know which boxes the camera used to focus. I would highly recommend you turn this feature on.

Sorry I thought it was a custom function but its not. When the focus is on normal the actual cross for the focus point extends out of the box you see in the viewfinder. When it is in spot af mode it does not extend past the edge of the box that is visible in the viewfinder.