I went ahead and did some basic editing to the second shot. Using Elements, I adjusted the white balance a little bit, levels, and USM (20,50), USM (.3, 250), resize, USM (.3,150), and Save As at about 204kB.
With the camera turned on, use aperture priority, and set the aperture wide open. Turn the camera off, and remove the lens. You should be able to look through it to see if there are greasy fingerprints or smudges on the glass. That would give AF a hard time, and make the shots blurry.
Also, have you tried a different subject to focus on. Sometimes parallel straight lines like on the calendar will cause AF to lock on the wrong distance.
Now that I've gotten out from behind that firewall and can see the photos, well, GAWD, that 28-135 photo looks awful!
Someone said it looks like a Lensbaby photo, and I agree. It seems to me the lens is at fault. Try a different lens, I think you will find the problem goes away. I suspect there is a serious issue with that copy of the 28-135.
Now that I've gotten out from behind that firewall and can see the photos, well, GAWD, that 28-135 photo looks awful!
Someone said it looks like a Lensbaby photo, and I agree. It seems to me the lens is at fault. Try a different lens, I think you will find the problem goes away. I suspect there is a serious issue with that copy of the 28-135.
Yeah like someone dropped it from 5 foot onto concrete, seems to me that an element is loose inside. Even a bad copy shouldn't be that friggen bad. Heck no lens might actually be better than that lens!
Sorry about the delayed response, I got kind of busy. Today though I managed to swing by a camera shop and the owner was kind enough to let me strap on a different lens. First I took a shot of the shelves with the original lens, then i switched them and took the exact same photograph again. Amazing!!
(I didn't say they were good pictures)
My company is getting me working gear by the weekend... le sigh. Thank you guys for all your help and suggestions- as always you were great :D
Is the lens clean inside? Could there be moisture you can't see? Was this lens stored in a humid space? Looks like the focus if off but in the center it's almost as it should be, weird. Didn't know Canon cameras had a lensbaby feature. :)
