Anyone else had focusing issues with 350D (XT)?

I've sent the camera back for replacement now, but I was just

wondering if there's any known issue with back-focusing problems with

the 350D body?

 

The camera occasionally would take a perfectly focused photo, but

about 9 times out of 10, it would focus about 2 to 4 inches behind

whatever the selected focusing point was focused (beautifully sharp

pics of my sister's ear, for example, with her eyes blurred).

 

I tested it with both my Canon 50/1.4 lens (that's worked perfectly on

my film body) and a new Sigma 18-50/2.8 lens. I've manually chosen

different focussing points, put the camera on a tripod and taken

pictures of newsprint on the wall (at an angle to the camera to see

where the focus went, letters about 3/4" high with small type

underneath to check where it was actually clearest), with a tape

measure at 45degrees to the lens, and shooting portraits of my sister.

Up to a focusing distance of about 80cm it seemed to be okay, but in

the 1m+ range the camera just seemed almost always to be focusing

wrongly :-S

 

Anyone else experience anything like this? I'm hoping the replacement

body doesn't have a similar problem.

Hi Jonathan, Are you using a <a href="http://visual-vacations.com/Photography/focus-recompose_sucks.htm">focus-recompose</a> technique? If so you might want to check out the link. Good luck!

Jonathan, I'm having trouble with my 20D with what you mentioned being a problem for me as well as other issues. I'm taking mine back to the place I bought it in hopes that they can fix it without having to keep it for a month.

<p>Well, people have reported similar problems with previous consumer-level EOS DSLRs (a search for back-focus, back focus, or similar terms will turn up lots of examples), so I'm not surprised that some 350Ds might also have the problem. <a href="http://www.cps.canon-europe.com/kb/detail.jsp?faqId=1131">This</a> is what some people have had done in order to fix the problem.</p>

No I wasn't using focus-recompose. (Well I did sometimes at first, but after seeing the problem I made sure I wasn't doing that - set camera up on tripod and selected focusing point manually, used mirror lock-up and 2sec remote timer)