Canon wants $700 just to look at my camera and 2 lenses "does this sound right" ??

[Waddizzle]

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@Robodot wrote:

Had this blurry photo problem from day one on 60D and 70-300 IS USM 4/5.6 at 300mm over 50 feet. Exchanged lens for another one at Best Buy, had the same problem. Started a warranty repair but decided it must be something I am doing wrong or a setting on the camera since both lenses had the same issue. now out of warranty the same problem persists and has gotton worse. sent 60D, 28-135mm lens and 70-300 into canon and they want $700 just to look at it, does this sound right ???

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I really cannot say, but I have always thought Canon would diagnose gear free of charge.  Maybe that only applies to camera bodies, though.  Lenses are probably far more complex to diagnose.  You probably need a special jig to hold it together as you take it apart to look inside at how the elements are aligned.

One thing I do know for certain about repairing electronics is that 3/4 of the repair cost is diagnosing the problem.  I also think you need to take a more objective look at your “testing” methods, which I thought were fundamentally flawed in a couple of ways.  

For example, you reported a significant improvement in sharpness at higher shutter speeds, while also stating that your tripod tended to vibrate for a couple of seconds after you touch the camera.  Lower the center column to minimum is my recommendation for that problem.  There were a couple of other things I would have done differently, which I will not discuss here.  The tripod is one that jumps out at me, as I recall your other thread.

[RobertTheFat]

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@Robodot wrote:

thank you for your interest and suggestion. the colume was down and tight, I will double check all the other connections again. the tripod is the manfrotto 3001BD, 71RC2 fluid head and a 496RC2 ball head. I also use it for the spotting scope. The legs were fully extended parallel to the target on concrete slab. the camera was of course connected with the quick plate. 

Now that you mentioned that, i wonder if the plastic body on the 60D would create that issue??? Hmmm

thanks again for the suggestion, i will double check it all. When i purchased the camera I ran the same tests and also a backfocus check with both lenses. There was and still is a slight back focus issue. Of course with my limited ability and test equipment I considered that to be a small matter. My mistake was using the target at 30 feet, little did i know the problem is worse the farther the distance.

Since the subjects i enjoyed taking pictures of are more than 30 feet my results were not very good. There were enough good photos (1 out of 50) to make me think it was me and not the camera, its the camera. 

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A backfocus issue can be a bigger deal on a 60D because, unlike its predecessor and successors, autofocus microadjustment was left off of that model.

[jrhoffman75]

" both lenses had the same issue. now out of warranty the same problem persists and has gotton worse."

Since both lenses show the same results then I would first assume technique or camera problem. If you are confident on your technique then it would be camera.

If you think its back focus you can check that by placing the camera on your tripod and using live view to focus on a subject.

In LiveView the focusing is based on exactly what the sensor sees. "Normal" AF does not.

I would start with having Canon check the camera only. 

[Waddizzle]

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@Robodot wrote:

I did check for a back focus issue when i purchased it and recently. both times it shows a very slight back focus but I do not know if thats a big problem (both 70-300 showed the same thing here is a recent test:

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I really do not see a problem with the DOF in this shot.  Take a look at the illustrations near the bottom the page at this link.

http://www.dofmaster.com/doftable.html

The plane of focus does not fall in middle of the depth of field.  One third of the area of acceptable focus should fall in front of the focus plane, [with] roughly twice that distance in acceptable focus behind the focus plane.

You should always perform your [AFMA] focusing tests at maximum aperture, because this is the aperture setting that the AF system in the camera uses.  The whole point is that you want to see what the camera is seeing.  Test shots taken at stopped down apertures are simply put, not very useful.  The idea is to take a number of shots and come up with a working average.

The type of lighting used can affect the focusing system, too, so keep that in mind.  I have taken test shots indoors with artificial lighting, and gotten inconsistent results from one shot to the next.  When I moved everything outside into bright sunshine, my results were suddenly very consistent.  Sunlight has a broad spectrum, while artificial lighting generally does not.

There is a very good video on YouTube called “Dot Tune Method”.  It takes a lot of the guess work out of AFMA testing.