Got my 70-200 2.8 today.. need seasoned eyes

I got my 30D, 70-200 2.8 non IS, and a Tamron 17-50.

I took a couple hundred pictures today, mostly of my crazy dog playing with his ball.. I've had a 300D in the past, so I'm pretty familiar with the camera already, but have never used a "real" lens before. To be honest, I was hoping for more from this 70-200 2.8. I played with just about every setting with all of the shots I took and, for the most part, the majority of the shots i took don't quite look in focus enough. I've tried playing between 2.8 and 5.6 to see if it would help, took some between 1/1000-2000 also. Today was sunny as well.

Here are a couple of the sharper shots. They're straight out of the camera @ high quality jpeg. Thoughts?

http://thefabhouse.com​/tmp/70-200_2.8

the dog shots are well sharp

looks fine to me

You have to remember that the DOF of f/2.8 at 200mm is extremely thin. I think they are just slightly out of focus which can make a big difference. The pictures of the shop lights have slow shutter speeds, even if you had them on a tripod mirror slap could somewhat affect images at those speeds and focal length.

Congrats, keep on shooting to get it all right, practice, practice, practice

Looks about right to me, taking into account errors in technique.

Looks good to me...........I think I saw a fly or other small bug on IMG_0032, just to the left of the ball (about halfway between the edge of the frame and the ball).
If it can pick up bugs at that distance, I think it's ok.

What started me thinking that there may be an issue is, when looking at any of the dog shots at full size, I can't seem to find that one area where it seems to be in focus ( for my eyes anyway). I know a lot of you post processed images that look amazing from this lens and I just don't get that "wow" from any of the images I took.

The work light was on a tripod. I figured taking a couple shots on the tripod @ 2.8, 4, and 5.6 would let me know if the dog shots didn't look that great because of being wide open.

The bird looks like balls to me tbh. I read in one of these thread a guy saying he had completely bad luck when purchasing just about anything... well, I'm one of them too..

f2.8 @ 200mm has a very shallow DOF

They look great to me... for the dog shots try stopping down to f4 and you will get a little more DOF Also, not sure what ISO you were using but try ISO 200 when you are outside hand holding to get those shutter speeds just a tad higher.

it looks good to me. The first shot 100% you can look at the grass for sharpness. Maybe when you hit the focus on the dog he was already running towards.

I agree with the others, you are dealing with a very narrow DOF especially being close to the subject. What is in that area looks very sharp to me. This is a great lens.

Congrats on the great lens man. It looks good to me. Keep on shooting.

There has to be a technical name for this phenomenon. I have been through it several times: dropping a lot of money on glass, then doubting its worth and questioning its quality.

Your pictures look great. They are sharp and the color is good.

Also, good pictures don't just come out of the camera very often. Post processing is half the battle as far as I am concerned to get the most out of your images!

Those look great, especially when you consider they're straight out of the camera. Great lens.

Thanks for taking a look everyone

I guess then I need to get a little more used to this camera and lens... get back in the groove of shooting really. It's been a couple of years since my last DSLR. I gotta say, after an hour or so that sucker gets heavy!