Out of focus subjects - Canon G7

[jian]

I have the above compact and I am really disappointed with it. Whenever I take pictures of people, 7 times of ten, the subject will be slightly out of focus and the background in focus. This gives the effect of the subject having been superimposed on the background.

The Canon has various focusing modes, i.e. face detect, but no matter which mode I am in, I will get out of focus subjects. Am I doing something wrong or is this camera faulty? I have noticed this on some other digital cameras as well. I used to use a Contax G2 rangefinder and also varios Nikon SLRs but never had this problem before.

Os is this a digital camera trait?

[tontoshorse]

Apologies if this is a bit obvious, but are you depressing the shutter button to focus on the subject and then fully depressing it to take the pic?

cheers

[jian]

Yes, am definitely focusing before depressing the shutter fully.

[bodoman]

Not knowing the camera or its controls, my only other thought is maybe it is set on spot focus and with that narrow field of focus you might be focussed on the area behind the subject without realising it or the camera could be faulty

[Gordon @ Convergent AV]

It's certainly not a fault of digital camera's. Back focus can be a problem in some low light situations though. On the Belfast photo meet I took a shot of a black bench with a bright green grass area behind. My Canon 5D, 24-105 focus locked on the bench no probs but Electolyte's back focused all the time and he couldn't seem to get it to lock to the bench. His was a Canon350d I think, not sure of lens.

Gordon

[onefivenine]

I've never had an issue with the G7 focussing incorrectly.
I always use the selective focus option, and move the target area on the LCD display to suit the subject.

The shutter lag is another matter but it is a P&S, and can get round that by manually focussing, although that's a bit of a fiddle.

[jian]

Face detect is probably the worse for back focus but I get it on the other options as well. Pictures are taken in bright conditions so I dont think it is low light that is causing it.

[onefivenine]

Originally Posted by jian

Face detect is probably the worse for back focus but I get it on the other options as well. Pictures are taken in bright conditions so I dont think it is low light that is causing it.

This doesn't sound good to me... I'm thinking "back to Canon"...
Can you post an example shot of the problem with the shooting/exif info?

[jian]

Most of the shots are of family so I dont really want to post them but I'll see if i can find anything.

I'm going to take it back to canon and ask them to check it, only thing is that i dropped the damn thing last week so there is a slight dent to the hosuing, not sure if they will count this against me, but this problem has been there for as long as I have owned it.

thanks for taking the time to respond everyone.