Soft pictures when shooting distant subjects

Well I don't have any other telephoto lens to use. But I do have my old 18-55 that exhibits exactly the same problem. That makes me think that there's a problem with the camera's AF at long distances.

sandpiper, I used the center focus point.

It seems with your shot the focus was on the building in the forground therefor with a setting of F4 the back ground building will be blurred with bokeh

The center focus point was on the building from where the crop was taken. I can send you the RAW file which should have the focus points used (you can see them with ZoomBrowser). I repeated the shot many times and the results were the same. I changed focus and took the shot again...same results.

If the rooftop in the foreground is sharper than that would mean the camera just misses focus, right? But why does this happen only at long distances?

I did the battery tests indoors and the focus seemed perfect.

What happens if you manually focus the way you want, then press the shutter button half way down? Does the auto focus change from where you manually focused?

Sorry for my delayed reply, Toeslider. I haven't tried that and it's a little too late now (it's night back here in Romania) and I wouldn't be able to check focus through the viewfinder. Anyway, I'm not that good in manual focusing, but I'll give it a try tomorrow.

not_this_punk wrote in post #7182324
OK here are some pictures. Never mind the subjects, the pictures are purely for demonstrative purposes. All pictures were shot RAW and processed with ACR 4.4 with exactly the same settings.
This is the main image from where the crops are taken:

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/png'

I admit that not every indoor shot is as sharp as this one, but 7/10 are, compared to 0/10 when dealing with distant subjects.

Now...Today was very cloudy. Yesterday, when the sun was shining, the differences between the pictures were even bigger. Anyway you can judge for yourselves. Just look at the indoor crop at f4 and the outdoor crop at f4. Oh and I used a tripod for the outdoor shot with self timer (10 s). I just used the flash indoors.

How about a crop of the bottom right building in the foreground. That looks to be the sharpest part of the image.

DDCSD wrote in post #7183203
How about a crop of the bottom right building in the foreground. That looks to be the sharpest part of the image.

I don't think there is any dispute that the foreground building is in focus. I think his issue is that he focused on the building in the center of the image, but it is out of focus in the final image.

Toeslider wrote in post #7183233
I don't thing there is any dispute that the foreground building is in focus. I think his issue is that he focused on the building in the center of the image, but it is out of focus in the final image.

I'm just curious if it is as in focus as it appears.

I'd also like to see the whole D40 image. I don't think the crop looks all that great either. Better than the 30D, but still not great.

What focus point mode are you using?

If you are using multipoint mode (9-point), then I know what is wrong!

Use one center point.

I wonder if the lens has an issue???

The OP is (he says) getting good sharp of indoor shots using various FL but when he tries outdoors at or near infinty focus the lens seems to be Front Focusing?

I wonder if it is posible to determine critically at what distance this change occurs ~ I wonder if he could find a building with a regular pattern to its structure and take picturs at an oblique 45degree angle (a little like the standard focus test?) but pick the point of interest further & further away along the building [I hope that makes sense] and noting the distance off the scale (hmm! does that lens have a scale).

Just some thoughts to eliminate user error and determine a method of critical test?

Oh and for this purpose RAW should not be required shoot in highest size JPEG and when saving to show use "save as" to retain all the EXIF including the 'focus points'.

5D_USER wrote in post #7183499
What focus point mode are you using?

If you are using multipoint mode (9-point), then I know what is wrong!

Use one center point.

Center point. It's been covered.

Have you checked for the latest filmware for the 30D? This may solve the issue, I know my 30D definatly took better pictures after the upgrade of filmware. the latest version is 1.0.6
here is the link to the page
http://www.usa.canon.c​om …d=12929#Downloa​dDetailAct
If that doesn't help I would send it to canon because that is some serious front focusing in the long distance ex: .
HTH's,
Joe

can you take a screen shot of zoombrowser showing the focus points ? I still leaning like others that you focused on the foreground bldg not the background bldg. Also some lenses will focus shift to infinity. Can you try manual focus like others suggested ?

Here's another approach.

Let's try to elimate a few things.

First, retake the picture that you are using but put the lens in manual focus. That will tell us if the lens is able to take a good picture off in the distance.

The next thing is to put it back in AF and take a picture of the building to the right. That building runs away from you so if you were to focus on the center (middle) of the building we should be able to find where the focus is sharpest.

Do you have a friend that has another Canon body to try your lens (same test) with?????

Let me ask the blindingly obvious??? During the test(s) did you focus and then change the zoom setting? If so then that would be a major reason for the issue because I would bet that (budget) lens is not par-focal i.e. maintains focus across the zoom range.