Need a quick painless favour if there's anyone on here that can help me out. I've got a lens that I think is focusing all over the show, anywhere but where it claims to be, I could do with someone with a known-good body to take a few sample shots with it to prove/discount it from my equation of things to fix!

Cheers!

sorry, i live in largs … a wee bit out of glasgow i'm afraid.

why not take it do a decent camera shop in the town and see if they'll let you try out a body for a quick test.

Tis a tad distant but thanks anyway. I'm thinking of taking it to the canon service centre for them to look at but I can see the costs just for looking/trying being extortionate. Problem is I dont have another lens handy to determine whether it's the body or the lens at fault, I could buy a nifty fifty to test it against I suppose.

Buy a body in argos or jessops, do your testing then return it for a refund

Interesting thought process there TT, I'd not considered that. However it seems a bit "wrong" somehow and I still wont know if their body is correct.

I've just popped an email to the camera place in town to see what they think/might charge.

i have a 40d and stay in the west end if that's any use to you

Could well be l_d – dont know about your work/commitments but if I could just meet with you maybe one lunch/evening in the coming weeks and get you to take a few shots with the lens and then email them on to me when you get home that could be really helpful.

There is a feature in this 1/4 EOS Magazine (canon users mag) which explains how to test the focus of a lens. Not sure it will solve your problem, but i can maybe send you a copy. if it helps, i'm also in glasgow.

Hi Rendo, is it the inclined ruler test?

I'm getting very definite front focus on it:
flickr ruler test and I'm getting MASSIVE front focus at times when shooting real objects with centre AF point and even MF:
http://www.jbuckle.homeip.net/images/photoqs/focus.html

Just seems to be all over the place 🙁 But with only one lens/body I have no way of determining if it is the body or the lens. I considered investing in a new lens to test it, but you've no knowledge that that is correct either so it's a bit painful to diagnose.

Looked at a couple of your plank of wood shots. Have you considered Depth of field. Can be adjusted by changing your aperture. Sorry if you have already tried this.
i looked at "50mm, 1/125th, autofocused" – foreground all seems to be in focus but distant objects aren't
and "50mm AF" – the wood is in focus, but fore/background out of focus

try the same shots on aperture mode 'AV'take one about f5 and another f22 and compare them

is the camera place aj johnstone or is it somewhere else. aj johnstone are approved canon service centre.

Yeah I've tried it on F errr 10 or 11 IIRC with the same shots, I get the same result, and I tried F22 out in Mugdock, trying to get the castle across the water, swept the entire run through from 5.6 to 22, no improvement. I chose the fairly large aperture in the plank shots to make the focal plane readily identifiable against the brickwork, I wasnt expecting it to be almost out of the image as it was in a couple of them. The SLR is a lot more sensitive to aperture than my P&S, thats for sure!

Yeah, the camera place is AJ Johnstone – they were the one one to show up on canon's site as approved, but I'm cringing at the possible cost if I take it to him, and I dont want him to match the body to the lens if the lens is at fault instead. I should probably just take it down and explain that to him, instead of waffling about it, I just dont like taking up a busy chaps time when I'm trying to avoid too much expense! I know it's possible to correct he body if it FF or BF with an adjustment screw behind the mirror, I'm happy to do that, but ideally I need to know that it's the body before I do that, or all future lenses will not match lol.

Do you want to try a lens then, where are you based? i'll be busy sunday, but i might be out tomorrow with my camera. if your out and about i could meet you.

is your email in your profile real?

Yup, email correct. Drop me a message and I'll see if we can meet up, cheers.

I'd email you but I can't find your address.

Ta.