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Canon 7Dmk1 and 28-135 IS USM Focus Blues

Iggythetiggy
Enthusiast

I've been fighting this for a while, and I'm pretty sure at this point it isn't me.  I have been fighting less than perfect focus with this camera since I picked it up. Both the lens and body have been to Canon and serviced to no help. But I for the life of me cannot seem to get razor sharp focus with my 28-135 IS USM it's better with my Tamron 100-300, and my old kit lens. Mt Canon 50mm 1.4 (old metal base) seems to be about the only lens I have that I can officially say I like the focus crispness. Got set up a few weeks ago on a beautiful morning in my favorite spot, and set up the tripod, my remote looking across a glass smooth lake to a grove of trees reflecting on it. I took pics in different modes, different speeds, manual and auto focus everyone just a hair out of focus.. very disappointed. A few would of been framers if the focus was good. 

 

So following a DIY using a row of batteries in place of the triangle focus tool, I set out again to micro adjist my lens. Well I did find it back focusing quiet a bit. So I did my best to get that sorted. But I found if I adjust my zoom it throws the focus out of whack again. It's front focusing if I zoom to say 135 mm. Canon said they checked the lens and it was good to go after replacing the focus motor in it. 

 

But since this seems to effect more than one lens in my back is there something bi am doing wrong or is this just a 7D thing? I was reading where the 7D seems to prefer the Canon L series lenses and I did borrow a friends very high end Zeiss 100mm and everything was tack sharp. So I'm back to either me, my settings, or my glass. I mainly shoot in manual mode as well. 

 

Any suggestions??

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

First I think that is going to be about what you can get from that lens.  However, "just a standard UV Filter on the lens.." remove that filter.  This lens doesn't particularly like filters besides a UV filter is useless in the digital world. It can only hurt and never help or improve a shot.  Otherwise, do as I suggested, reset the 7D to default. Shoot Raw format. Convert in DPP4, no $10 a month fee and it works very well. Use lens correction and add a bit of unsharp mask.

 

When you use Raw, you set everything in post edit.  All the settings in your camera are null. They only serve to tell DPP4 how to display the image on the screen as all settings can be edited. You even get greater range on those settings. Plus, Raw is a nondestructive format. On the other hand a jpg is destroyed a little every time it is saved whether you change it or not.  Every edit or alteration deletes into from the file which can never be recovered. Matter of fact when your 7D saves the photo the very first time to the CF card it deletes info that can never be recovered or used.

 

On the bird it looks like you missed focus a bit.

EB
EOS 1DX and 1D Mk IV and less lenses then before!

View solution in original post

12 REPLIES 12

"Now that I'm shooting in Raw 16 GB won't cut it in large format. 399 shots.."

 

That is good. Smiley Happy That is all you want to store on a single CF card. Buy a couple CF cards and switch them out. This helps eliminate he possibility of lose or corrupt files. 16GB is my favorite and go to size CF card. Any major brand from any big name store will do.  Amazon is not a good source, however.

 

Remember the camera and its CF cards are not, and they are not intended to be, photo storage devices.  You need to upload to your computer as soon as you get home. I, and many others, also make a backup of my original photo files.  External HDs are cheap now. 2TB is less than $100 bucks.

EB
EOS 1DX and 1D Mk IV and less lenses then before!

I've got a 7TB totally dedicated in Raid Configuration for photo storage. Currently sitting at 200 or so GBs. I honestly don't delete any photo unless it's totally messed up. 15 years worth of pics or so. Lol. I've been eyeing a few different 16GB Cards but like everyone is saying I've seen too many people burned with counterfeit cards.  I'll have to give B&H a try as my local BB looked at me cross eyed when I mentioned CF cards. They did have the new format CF card but none of the old format. I've had one on my Amazon Wish list but I'll definitely give B&H a look over. The card I have now is just probably 20+ years old as I used it in one of my original Elph Point and Shoot Digitals. Wasn't a cheap card back then.. and I did have to use it for storage as my then laptop only had a tiny Hard Drive. 

 

Only thing I've noticed with the card. Is using high speed shutter it stutters badly as it can't write fast enough to the old x200 card. It's a Lexar Professional, I've also got a couple Sandisk Extreme Pro 4 GB cards I grabbed at a yard sale a few years back with a broken PAS camera, for $5. Lol. But even they can't keep up with the HSS on the 7D I'll get a few round burst and a delay, and another pic and a delay. I never really use HSS but when I was invited to help shoot a race I found it very beneficial. 

 

Still a lot to learn with this body, but from what I've used it for I don't see too much of a need fmto upflgrade now that you've helped me sort out the issue or should I say non issue with the focus. 

I even got the guts tonight after watching a few videos to completely clean the camera. I went as far as pulling the focus screen as I had some dust in the viewfinder. Didn't realize after the rally race I shot how much and where dust can get. I usually sent it in and paid for a cleaning in the past. But it's clean inside now don't see dust specs in the viewfinder now and it seems to be focusing faster, even on a set of nearly flat batteries in the battery grip. So hopefully the weather breaks here in the next few days and I can sneak out barring further travel restrictions anyway. 

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