R5 focus about 1/5 of the time

[katmod]

I am having focus isues with my R5 since I got it in August of 2021. I have sent it back to Canon twice and they have sent it back saying there is nothing wrong with the camera or lens and the images I sent are in focus. They are not. Only about 1 in 5 images is really sharp. I have tried different AF modes and different lenses. I have the 5D MK3 and and the 6D and both take much sharper images than the R5. I have been shooting Canon since I went digital with the 20D. I've been a full time photographer for about 10 years and I cannot use this camera. Has anyone had this problem? I don't know how to get this fixed and I can't use images that aren't sharp. I am hoping someone else has been through this and knows what the issue is.

[rs-eos]

You'll need to post examples.   Along with what lens or lenses you are using.

Have you used any tools (e.g. DPP software) to verify where the focus points of the images were.  Perhaps they may be in front or behind a bit of where you thought they were at?

[jaewoosong]

I was shooting for an indoor family event and gave my brother my R5 (he's a fuji/nikon shooter) while I took video with my 5Dm4.  He mentioned that he was getting a lot of blurry pics and that the IS on the 70-200 EF lens I attached wasn't working.  Took me a few min but my brother knocked the top dial which controls ISO from Auto (my default) to ISO 125.  Since the camera was in Av mode, it slowed down the shutter speed to compensate.  He also ended up changing one shot to servo and color balance from auto -> sunlight.  But back to the ISO.  Once I changed back to auto ISO, all the images came out sharp again (I've shot thousands of pics with no issues and didn't know why my brother was shooting so many blurry pics til I realized he knocked the iso dial.  That was the first major issue.  The 2nd batch of blurry pics came when he hit a button i programmed to swap betweeen one shot and servo.  Since my default focusing point was center focus, he was focusing on wrong spot on some pics he took.  The white balance, though annoying, I could fix in post.  That said, I should have given him the 5Dm4 to shoot the pics while I used the R5 for video (I gave him the R5 as we needed silent shooting at the event).  Both of your older cameras (and my 5Dm4) does not come with a dial auto-programmed for changing ISO on the fly and my guess is that you might have hit the dial like my brother and changed the ISO (I'm considering disabling the top dial to avoid manually changing ISO as it caught me off guard before).  It's easy to verify if this is the issue if the ISO of all of your blurry pics is the same ISO (i.e. ISO 125).

[katmod]

Thank you. I have tried different ISOs and that didn't help. I have also tried servo and spot focus. I have never shot servo but all of the reviews say this camera works best in servo. So when I had focus issues I went back to spot. In the camera I can see the spot is on the target. But when I look at the photo later at 100% it is not in focus. 

[Hiram1]

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@ThirtyOneToday wrote:

I am having focus isues with my R5 since I got it in August of 2021. I have sent it back to Canon twice and they have sent it back saying there is nothing wrong with the camera or lens and the images I sent are in focus. They are not. Only about 1 in 5 images is really sharp. I have tried different AF modes and different lenses. I have the 5D MK3 and and the 6D and both take much sharper images than the R5. I have been shooting Canon since I went digital with the 20D. I've been a full time photographer for about 10 years and I cannot use this camera. Has anyone had this problem? I don't know how to get this fixed and I can't use images that aren't sharp. I am hoping someone else has been through this and knows what the issue is.

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Wherever your subject is positioned the EOS R5 can find it and focus on it fast, using 5940 AF areas that cover virtually 100 per cent of the frame. These focus areas can be used together, individually, or in zones that can be moved around the frame according to where the action is.

[katmod]

Thank you. But my camera thinks it finds focus. And I can see where the focus points are and that the camera thinks it's focused. Then I look at the image afterward at 100% or 200% and it is not sharp. I see all of these nature photographers catching birds mid flight and their images are super sharp. My camera could never catch that. It can't even capture a a still subject with precise sharpness in bright light.