24-70 YAY! Oh no, frontfocus! And zoom tightness :(

I just got a 24-70 for xmas, It is very nice, but I had to dial in +18 MFA to get it to focus okay...
And also it doesn't seem as sharp as the reviews show on the wide end (But looks plenty sharp at 70, I'm just talking centre sharpness here...)... And further when zooming between 24 and 50, either way there is a hell of a lot more tightness than between 50 and 70, is this normal?

Here are the crops after adjustment...

24mm

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hi i assume this lens is new? if so my 17-55 was tight at first also but it loosened up wiht time ill let some one qualified to look at focus though

tightness is very normal, focus isnt. sorry about that.

Okay, so the tightness is normal... good, now, is that sharpness/focus normal for a 24-70 wide open in the centre? (If so I think I will keep it)

It is new...

Those crops look to me like you're just expecting the sensor to resolve more detail than is possible. What's the full shot look like? I'm betting that the "FOCUS HERE" is like, 2% of the entire frame.

Take some real shots with proper exposure and good composition and see how it looks. And sharpen your images. They're soft by default.

plenty of 24-70 dogs out there. I would take a series of real shots. if not happy, return or recalibrate. Mine is very sharp wide open.

Ouch on the compensation, that right there would make me call Canon and tell them id like it adjusted a bit..

Of course on my 30D that would mean id be on the phone because my lens was completely soft and unusable..XD

It does not look great, but try live view and manual focus to see how it performs, if its better on manual focus then you know you have an issue.

My 24-70 (just happens to be a sigma) performs like this
http://www.flickr.com/​photos/karldenby/31135​79311/

As stated on that page they are shot in faithful from a tripod with sharpness set to 3 all at f/2.8. I'd expect your canon to at least equal that or come close.

Sweet!
I have now fixed it by dialing in +15 microfocus adjustment!

I just tested my 70-200 against it, and it is easily equal if not better...
Very happy!

I must have done something wrong with the setup for the initial testing...

At +15, I'd send it in for adjustment, or if its still an option a replacement from where it was purchased. I run with micro-adjustment off, and all my lenses AF excellent. If I wanted to make them all perfect, they'd be +/- 4 at most. +15 is too much IMO.

JC4 wrote in post #6942984
At +15, I'd send it in for adjustment, or if its still an option a replacement from where it was purchased. I run with micro-adjustment off, and all my lenses AF excellent. If I wanted to make them all perfect, they'd be +/- 4 at most. +15 is too much IMO.

I would, but I would probably be without my lens for a month or so, and then it will come back worse or stuffed in some other way.... Just my luck

And it is sharp as hell, and focussing well (*consistent* frontfocus), all my future bodies will have micro adjustment anyways....

What really threw me in the beginning was dialing in +20 still didn't make it, but I now reckon I had the focus chart off centre, as when I used a ruler and protractor and such to line it up I found +15 is perfect....