Blurry photos

[Slashar57]

I own a ten year old 7D that always took super sharp photos and had perfect exposure shooting sports photography.

I now get blurry and over/under exposed photos. This seems to have started after the firmware upgrade I did a few years ago.

I’ve had it professionally cleaned and serviced but it’s still not what it used to be.

Anyone else have this issue and found a fix ???

[kvbarkley]

Did Canon perform the professional cleaning? If not (or, I suppose, even if) the AF might have been knocked out of whack. You should send the camera and lens to Canon for a check.

Use somethng like a lens align - even a yardstick at 45 degrees at 50x the focal length to check for front/back focus.

[Slashar57]

The cleaning was in hopes of finding the problem. They found nothing wrong inside the camera. The camera has never been dropped our hit but is getting old with tens of thousands of frames shot thru it.

I would hope a two thousand dollar lens would come without issues and it’s fairly consistent thru all of them so I don’t think it’s the lens.

Your suggestion to send it to the factory is probably the only option I have short of spending another two grand on a new body.

Thanks.

[kvbarkley]

You should have really asked in the EOS forum above, most folks don't look down this far.

[Slashar57]

I didn’t know there were multiple forums. I’m sending it to canon in NY.

[Peter]

Some samples with full exif would be nice.

[TCampbell]

The 7D does allow for auto-focus micro-adjustment (AFMA) and it's possible that you've tweaked yours (you can adjust for "all lenses" or you can tell it to adjust based on lens model.)  I'd probably reset the AFMA in the menu system (check your manual for this -- this is something you'll want to know how to do to get the most from your camera.)

When evaluating focus, it's also important to know which auto-focus point your camera used.  If you allow the camera to pick ANY auto-focus point it wants... it will generally pick the point which is able to lock focus at the NEAREST distance to the camera.   E.g. if I'm photographing someone sitting across a table, but there's a flower arrangmenet in the center of the table.. it will prefer to focus on those flowers and not my intended subject because the flowers are closer.

You can control the AF and force it to use the one you want (which is what most photographers do).

I should warn... I see a LOT of posts about focus problems and what I find is that people are taking every-day photos, having a problem, and blaming the camera.  Most of the time (but not all of the time) the problem is the photographer and their knowledge about how the camera & auto-focus system works and not a camera fault.  So this means we need to isolate the photographer problems from the camera problems.  To do that... I would urge you to gurantee the camera cannot move... by using a tripod (don't evaluate auto-focus accuracy while doing hand-held photography).  Next... pick a stationary subject.  I use a focus test chart (a special chart with a scale laid down on a 45º angle with a target next to the scale.  Focus on the target, then read the scale to see if the sharpest markings on the scale are at the zero point (next to the target) or at some distance higher up the scale (farther away than the target) or some distance lower down (closer than the target).  This also helps dial in correct AFMA adjustments.

If you don't have a focus test chart, hang a sheet of newsprint on the wall... or shoot a brick wall (camera should be perfect "flat" to the wall... dont' shoot the wall on an angle... that's not a good test.)

[Slashar57]

Thank you I will look at this.