Comments on: Are the Canon 5D Focus Problems Real?

By: Jolene

Jolene — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 04:21:20 +0000

thanks for the info by the way!

By: Jolene

Jolene — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 04:20:56 +0000

I am so glad i found this blog. I have been fighting this problem with my portraits for a couple months now. i know i had the focus dead on the kids eyes, and the lips are in focus? I kept thinking i was doing something wrong, but i keep testing it and it sucks!! I have the 5D, i do this for my business, i always take 5 shots of one image in case this happens, but man it makes me mad.
Does the Mark Models (besides the 5d mark) have this problem? I need to upgrade and after reading all this i am torn

By: Raymond

Raymond — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 07:23:02 +0000

Phew, I’m glad I’m not the only one who has experienced this issue. I started having autofocus problems a little while back with my 5D and it’s a real pain in the ass. At first I thought it was some other issue like shutter speed or the lens but no matter what I do to compensate the problems kept on reoccurring. Sucks to hear that the issue is the camera itself and that getting a 5D Mark II won’t solve it. Yet another reason to switch over to Nikon…

I suppose the only good news is that this issue isn’t due to us being incompetent, not that our clients would give a crap.

By: Alex

Alex — Wed, 19 May 2010 15:27:34 +0000

I am using a 1DmkIII currently and I have experienced AF issues on all the models and most L lenses for last 9 years (of using digital). Exceptions were my 28-80f2.8-4.0 and 80-200f2.8 (1st generation L lenses that are more than 12 years old). My conclusion is that it is mostly quality control and tolerance is too low for big aperture shooting.

My only consistent solution is to send in ALL the equipment for calibrating regularly : P
Works well for me in general as I shoot the 135mm at f2.0 very often. But not perfect . Use the Ec-S or Ec-B focusing screens for manual focussing.

Nikon is quite a bit better but I find their AF mechanisms less robust than Canon AF. Decentering occurs fairly frequently. Decentering fortunately is not obvious for a lot of subjects (corners unsharp).

A recent shoot needed critical depth of sharpness, it was live view all the way….. it worked great but sigh! I feel more like a mechanic than a photographer.

When I need to shoot fast and at large apertures I use Leica’s M8 rangefinder but it has a broad range of limitations. Within those limits its a joy to use.

By: Deborah

Deborah — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 08:27:23 +0000

This problem has been a nightmare for me. I took what was a big leap for me, investing in the 5D to start a business with the expectation that it would be a great camera and do all I needed it to do. For awhile it was spectacular… and then the auto focus problems started. I had it in the Canon Service Center in October ’09, again in January, and it needs to go again already. Completely undependable at this point. Almost in focus doesn’t begin to cut it.

By: Steph

Steph — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 09:44:52 +0000

Seriously tempting! I’ll be watch your blog for any updates! Cheers for the chat and advise… thank you for making me realise I’m not going crazy!

By: Thomas

Thomas — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 09:38:42 +0000

I don’t really have an answer right now. I still use the 5D II occasionally, but I mostly use it for video. I fond that my D90 ironically gives me much more reliable results. My biggest issue with the 5DII though isn’t focus though, it’s the banding and noise in blacks, especially at low iso. As I do a lot of landscapes and urban stuff I often shoot high contrast situations and bring the extremes back into range by processing the RAW file. IUt’s not a particularly uncommon thing to do. However, you can’t recover anything from the blacks on the 5DII because it’s just noise and banding. It’s even visible without any pushing some times. As I don’t shoot people much I can get away with manually focussing, but the blacks issue is a show stopper for me. I’m working on a post that goes into this in more detail.

As for the future, I’m torn. On the one hand I don’t want to sell all my canon gear because it’s a hefty investment. I’m kind of hoping they’ll come out with something better sooner rather than later although I’m not that optimistic. I have been following the rumors that Nikon are slated to replace the D700 this year so depending on how that turns out I might consider a whole sale switch.

By: Steph

Steph — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 09:25:50 +0000

God that’s a terrible shame!

So what can I do now… do I have to invest in Nikon gear and sell some poor bastard my gear?! I have to make some sort of decision this year as this cannot go on! I’ll go insane and also doubting my ability for so long isn’t healthy. Are you still using your 5DII? Do you have plans of ditching it?

By: Thomas

Thomas — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 11:30:17 +0000

I completely agree. It’s a pain in the Ass. The scary thing is that some people (mostly amateurs) are such fans of this camera that they will set upon anyone who dares point out that it’s not perfect. And people are coming up with some crazy reasoning to justify things too. I rad the craziest thing the other day though that I nearly fell off my seat. It was on a well known 5D fan site. A person was arguing against those complaining about lack of sharpness from the 5D2 and stated that your Images are supposed to look a little fuzzy at 100%. It’s shocking, because there are people coming into photography now who are reading things like that and they’re being thought to accept soft Images as the norm, all just because some vocal fans can’t accept that the 5D is not perfect in every way.

By: Steph

Steph — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:33:28 +0000

I too have been pulling my hair out with this problem! Thank God I have found your blog because sometimes I think I am going crazy!

I own 2 5d’s and all the L series lenses and both bodies have this problem. Post production of my jobs end up taking me hours as I zoom into each image making sure it is in focus as I’d hate to hand over a bunch of out of focus shots… hours and hours of wasted time! I even had my eyes tested and all my lenses calibrated with bodies and still no joy! I now photograph with a tripod most of the time on F8 which is not my style….I just can’t stand the hit and miss photography I am producing… everything else is perfect – models, lighting and composition…and all I want are the eyes in focus or what ever I’m actually focussing on… is that really too much to ask?!