Focusing help

I am noticing that I am having a problem with focus. My images are not as sharp as they should. I am using a 550D with either a 85mm 1.8 or 50mm 1.4. On the 85 I generally do better but nevertheless. Any advice for the new guy? By the way I have tried to switch to a single AF point (and perhaps recompose if nesessery, that rarely helps). I do not want to use the "green box" shame on me for even bringing it up

Post some shots that we can look at.
It may be more than a focus issue.

Consigliere wrote in post #13001987
and perhaps recompose if nesessery, that rarely helps

Indeed it does rarely help - particularly when shooting wide open with those fast primes you listed.

Can you post a pic? We can help much, much more if we see what you're seeing...

As Phil says: lack of sharpness might have (and often does) have nothing to do with focus....

SOK wrote in post #13002294
Indeed it does rarely help - particularly when shooting wide open with those fast primes you listed.

Can you post a pic? We can help much, much more if we see what you're seeing...

As Phil says: lack of sharpness might have (and often does) have nothing to do with focus....

OTOH, leaving the point selection up to the camera is often a source of missed focus. The camera is not a mind reader, it doesn't know where the focus should be so it takes the easy way out - it chooses the most contrasty target and if it has to decide between two contrasty spots it takes the closest. If you shooting wide and close, activate the spot that will need the least recomposing. For stopped down and at distances greater than, "Hold your breath - you are fogging my lens", center point will do fine.

Thanks! You guys as always are friendly and helpful thats why I love this place In any case, check this one out...

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Or this one...

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Firstly, your shutter speed at 1/60 sec isn't helping you.
Secondly, I don't think ISO 800 has done you any favours either
Thirdly, is the full image or has it been cropped - my guess is that it's been cropped rather heavily.
In that case, stop pixel peeping.
If it's been cropped, can you post the original, uncropped image.

Edit...
the second image looks alright to me.
Again, there could be movement in the piano player's head/torso, but that's because of the shutter speed being too slow - 1/60sec
Are you doing any pp at all?

Some post in lighroom, but not heavy.. I'll try to post originals as soon as I find them but perhaps you are correct about shutter speed. I'll play with that a bit to see where it will take me. It was quite dim in both cases of taking the pic, so naturally i stepped down as much as I could handhold (so I thought) to keep iso down... but the primes I had figured were fast enough to help. Apparently not

Here is the first shot. I had to convert to jpg to post here, but it was shot in raw as I usually do. Size is also decreased but its not cropped.

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Can you post your EXIF data?

Here is the exif from the image on the bike

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Pic 1 the focus is sharp on his shirt so the focus plane is slightly off the face, at f1.8 thats enough to make the face unsharp and 1/60th is a tad on the slow side at 85mm

Using the rule, I should be around 1/80 (at best) or so on the 85mm right?

Consigliere wrote in post #13002853
Using the rule, I should be around 1/80 (at best) or so on the 85mm right?

Take into account that you are using a crop camera. Multiply 85 * 1.6 to get your true focal length. This comes out to 136mm so you would really want to stay above 1/320 preferably more.

mrbubbles wrote in post #13002869
Take into account that you are using a crop camera. Multiply 85 * 1.6 to get your true focal length. This comes out to 136mm so you would really want to stay above 1/320 preferably more.

Yikes... never even occurred me Man I got ways to go before I learn ANYthing!