New canon 85 mm 1.8

Let's start the critiqueing

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First one is out of focus. The second one the WB is off (looks like a lot of tungsten) and the focus is on her ear.
Are you spot focusing or are you letting the camera choose what to focus on?

Focus looks to be on the sweater in the first one and the ear in the second.

Using a 20D and letting camera focus. Looks like I need to read the manual some more

Lens may be front-focusing. Since your camera doesn't have micro-adjust, you may need to send it in to have Canon calibrate it to your body.

Shoot some focus charts to see whether it's front/back-focusing first.

Thanks - see you have the 7D - I am getting this next week. I'm guessing this will help alot

Will I need to calibrate

Focusing on the 7D is fantastic but please read the manual and theres some great videos out there that explain the focusing on it. It would be a waste of money if you didn't know the in's and out's of the 7D and it's focusing system.

If you're getting the 7D, then you can microadjust that lens. It doesn't look like it'd need a lot so it should be fine without needing to be sent back to Canon. Still do some test shots of a focus chart to see.

Before I went messing around with micro adjust I'd practice with that lens a bit. f1.8 is a tough shot. DOF is so thin that if you aren't dead on with focus you've messed it up. At 10 foot distance with f1.8 you have a total of 3.3 inches DOF split front and back of focus point. Focus and recompose can chew up a bunch of that.

It is a terrific lens capable of razor sharp images and razor thin DOF.

i'd practice more and throw in some light to get the focus right...........try shooting with high ISO to check if the focus needs micro adjustment, what i am assuming is that since there is not enough light, slow shutter speeds ? u are just getting soft out of focus shots, shooting kids a challenge in any case as they need atleast 1/100th of a sec. or more. since its a 85mm you need to be atleast at that speed. suggesst you share exif to examine the error, pls dont play with micro adjustment yet.......

Thx guys - great input

I agree with Titus...my first thought was focus/recompose. Anyway, before you do ANYTHING such as sending the lens into Canon for calibration, or microadjusting it for that matter, do everything you can first to ensure that it isn't a case of user error. Be aware of your focusing distance and aperture, as this will affect the DOF. Select your focus point, don't let the camera do it. With a crop camera, you really need to account for the crop factor in figuring a shutter speed...in this case, 85*1.6...so figure about 1/125 or faster for kids (not a hard and fast rule, just a guideline).