T1i Focus Issues

After several years of using point and shoot camera's I decided to move into DSLR's last fall. I purchased a Canon T1i with kit lens and within a few weeks purchased the Canon 70-300 IS USM telephoto lens. Not professional level products, but a big investment for me as a hobbyist. Being a novice with DLSR's I attributed my lack of experience for the number of poorly focused pictures I was getting. I didn’t notice any problems while using the 18-55mm kit lens, but was apparent using the telephoto as one would expect. Even tweaking the settings on the custom menus it was very rare to get quality focused shots. After becoming very frustrated and searching forums reading everything I could about soft focus problems I suspected my 70-300 IS USM was the culprit. I sent it to the Canon Service Center to be evaluated for any issues. They made the repair free under warranty and stated that "the lens was misadjusted causing a problem with front focus and if the problem continued to return the lens with the camera.”

Voila.... Problem fixed.... NOT. The number of keeper shots using the lens was improved, but after testing I decided to send the T1i, the kit lens and the 70-300 IS USM in to be evaluated while still under warranty. I spoke with Canon yesterday and was told that there wasn't anything wrong with the kit lens, but the auto focus on the T1i had several electrical adjustments made to it (won't completely know what they meant until I get the final report) and still needed to be tested. The 70-300mm lens had not been checked at that point. I am looking forward to getting it back to see how it does after these repairs.

My thoughts are if 2 of the 3 products I had purchased were in need of repair has the QC of Canon products decreased? Can these types of problems be caused by handlers/shippers prior to my receiving them?

I do have to admit that Canon Service and Warranty Departments have been fantastic and I plan to continue using Canon products, but was curious if anyone else has had similar issues or experiences?

sorry about your troubles, sucks! the 70-300IS USM with t1i should be a pretty good combo as long as light is available! the pictures that weren't in satisfying focus, what were your shutter speeds like compared to your Focal Length? that could also be a culprit though the IS should help some with that

I maintained at least 1/focal lengthx crop for shutter speed. I took the below pics at the suggestion of another forum member trying to determine what was causing the problem. Most every picture I had taken was was similar. I was able to get somewhat better results after the repair was made to the 70-300 IS USM by turning the sharpness up to 6 or 7.

The branch is about 20-25 feet from the camera, camera was mounted on a tripod and timer used.

1. resized, AV mode, ISO-125, f8, 1/320 sec, 300mm
2. 100% crop from the original

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Thats not a problem with the T1i I am pretty sure. The 75-300 is a terrible lens. Thats prolly just lens softness. Sell it and buy a EF-S 55-250 IS if you want a telephoto zoom.

themadman wrote in post #9741809
Thats not a problem with the T1i I am pretty sure. The 75-300 is a terrible lens. Thats prolly just lens softness. Sell it and buy a EF-S 55-250 IS if you want a telephoto zoom.

So what is your point? The OP has a 70-300!

dedsen wrote in post #9742123
So what is your point? The OP has a 70-300!

Ok, I completely misread, lol. Not sure what the issue is then. Are you using single af point in the center? Since it was done on a tripod, did you turn of IS?

I received my T1i, 18-55mm kit lens and 70-300mm IS USM lens back from Cannon on Monday. They found nothing wrong with the kit lens, made several adjustments to the autofocus system on the T1i and was not able to repair the 70-300mm IS USM lens (the one recently repaired for front focus issues) and replaced it. With my schedule I finally got to shoot a few test shots today and feel much better about it. I know they are not perfect and my skill level is still amatuer, but I feel the results were greatly improved.
Here's a picture of an overhead line and insulators. Straight from the camera and the second on is 100% crop.

ISO-100, 300mm, f/8, 1/500 sec.

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Glad to hear your problem was resolved! Remember that when dealing with an APS-C sensor in your camera, aka anything other than 1d or 5d or 1ds, 1/320 for shutter speed will not be quick enough to not get some image shake at 300mm, because the sensor size is 1.6 you must multiply whatever focal length you are at by 1.6, so around 1/500 in order to get properly sharp photos! glad everythings working out!

...The lens has IS. The rule doesn't apply.

So there was both something wrong with the body and the lens?

Yes, 2 of the 3 items I sent in was in need of repair. Drove me nuts as a beginner with DSLR's trying to figure out if it was me or the equipment....

Ok, I had the same problem! The issue is that when you inbox the camera you need to tweak the settings of the Picture Style. The sharpening on all of the Picture Styles is set quite low! So you have to go into the settings and here's how...

1) Go to the menu, go to the second camera icon menu, select the Picture Style at the bottom.
2) Select a picture style and then press the DISP button. The detail set screen will appear.
3) Select sharpness and adjust it. 0 is less sharpness and 7 is the max. (I selected 6)

I went through each style and adjusted all of them. You can also change the other settings if would like.

Another thing I did was go to the menu and went to the last Settings menu and went through the Custom Functions menu and adjusted for noise reduction and other things I needed as well.

Another thing made a difference was not using the shutter for focus and using the AF focus function and Live View instead.

I can see a great difference once I changed everything to the proper settings. I hate reading instructions especially when it is so long... But that dreaded manual saved me. Hope this helps!

you also have to remember factory tolerances with the products. While it seems that the lens was faulty, lenses and bodies come out of the factory within a manufacturers tolerance level. Sometimes a lens and a body might be at the opposite extreme ends of this tolerance level, which will result in a very bad image.

glad you have everything all sorted though!