I've given up on auto-focus

[Trevor Ash]

I've decided to give up on auto-focus. Score +2 points for anyone that thought "Bet he shoots with a Canon digital!"

I'm serious though. Today a whole panorama series was ruined due to autofocus "inaccuracies" with my camera and lenses.

For those that say "send it in to Canon" I already have. It seems like when they tune it for one lens it gets un-tuned for other lenses.

I have a few lenses that it does okay with but then there's a couple that it just always wants to back focus with. You guys have heard of these issues from others before so I won't bore you with the details. Let me just say that I know what I'm doing and it's the bloody camera/lens fault. It's a good thing I don't do much action otherwise I'd be pretty ticked off.

Now, once I move to Illinois I'm going to hand walk all my crap into the service center and ask what they can do to make all the lenses autofocus correctly with my camera. But until then, it's manual focus for me 100%.

Yes, I'm trying not to be so frustrated but I am.

[shadz]

I got pretty frustrated with the Canon AF PDQ myself. I only use one autofocus point now, the center one mostly, though I'll change it for certain shots. Even that doesn't work all the time. What ticks me off is you can't can't really tell on the fly unless you check and enlarge in the LCD after EVERY shot. Riiiight. Frustrating.

Having said that, I still like my rig and I still use the AF, though not the 7 points they make such a big deal about. Mostly it does pretty darn good, so I'm not complaining. I DO take more than one shot of everything these days tho.

Short version: I feel your pain brother.

[Speed]

Trevor,

I have one word for you:

NIKON

:-)

You KNEW someone would do that!

Sorry to hear you're having problems with your gear. I've heard of this sort of thing from Canon and Nikon users, and I'm sure it is very frustrating.

Shoot manual focus then, but keep shooting buddy!

[tijean]

I have a perfect solution for you. Pack all of your Canon gear into the closet. Seriously, just follow me here. Buy a low end Pentax. Not an old Pentax, just low end. The ZX-10 will do very well for this. I think $400-$500 was paid for mine new 6 years ago. (Misguided present). You can pick on up for $80 over at keh.com near mint now.

Now get a big, cheap zoom. The 100-300 4-5.6 Pentax AF will do nicely. I was very young and had more money that sense thanks to living in Northern VA during the internet company boom. Forgive me.

Shoot with it for, let's say, 3 months or until you kick it into submission.

Shooting things that are not moving. Shoot things that are not moving with fast film and a high shutter speed. Stand very still while it hunts for the, say, big red ball in the center of the frame. Try to very slightly over or under exposure because you think understand the lighting situation better than the camera. Fight with the camera for permission to do this until the lighting changes anyway.

No, I am not implying that you are whining or that you are just too picky. For the amount of money you spend on any quality system you want to, I dunno, work properly. Just felt like putting it in perspective for anyone browsing through thinking "Canon must really blow!"

... and I wanted to whine about the ZX-10.

disclaimer: I love my Honeywell and K-1000, and lust over the LX. Pentax cameras are great until they try to think.

*editted for MASSIVE typos.

[Trevor Ash]

haha, thanks for the laugh and perspective tijean You're right, it could be worse.