My Rebel XT 350D hates 50mm lenses. Allow me to elaborate: I have a slightly broken 50mm F/1.8. A piece of plastic on the lense fell out of the back, but it still worked, so I kept it around. It was basically aesthetic. One day, I noticed my camera's AF not working. So I took the lense out and examined it. After awhile, I discovered that it was one of the contacts that was jammed. I tried to loosen a piece to wiggle it out (my camera was out of warranty, and the repair seemed simple enough). Well, I slipped, and I broke the mirror inside. Ok, broken mirror. I take it to a Canon authorized repair shop and paid $230 CAD for parts and labour to replace the mirror box. The repair was done, and I took it back - no problems - until I started noticing a strange attribute in my photos. The focus was all off. It would sometimes focus on the foreground, sometimes the background, sometimes nothing. So I thought it may have been the focus modes, so I made sure it was manually set to center-focus (the center AF point was selected) and it was set to ONE SHOT. No avail. Sometimes it would work, but usually, I'd get backfocusing. So something random would be in focus, and the thing I wanted in focus would be blurry. So I called the repair shop. They said they'd take a look at it. So I bring it back with my lense, and they told me that the camera was fine. They tested one of their lenses on my camera and the focus issue was gone, and they tested my 50mm F/1.8 on one of their cameras and said it exhibited the same problems. Ok... So I take my camera back, and I bought a 50mm F/1.4. A fresh new one off a reputable store in town, and slapped it on my camera (hoping it was really just a broken 50mm F1.8). Guess what? Focus issues. It won't focus properly. It would look like it was focussed on the focus screen, but it'd be slightly off, leaving a tiny bit of room for manual adjusting. So either I got a bad lense (straight out of a new box), or my camera is still messed. Strangely, most of my longer lenses don't have this problem as often as the 50s. So I called the repair center and explained it to them. They're baffled and suggested I send it to Canon for a second opinion. Any ideas? Sending it to Canon would be serious downtime for my shooting, as well as huge potential expenses. The repair center said they have no idea and can't do much about it. Personally, I'm rather upset they charged me all that for a repair that only semi-works.
Flog the camera? Personally, I intend to test the lense at the store I bought it from (it was an eBay division of a local store) so I can be 100% sure I got a working F/1.4. As for the camera, it's really not worth that much anymore, since you can get brand new Rebel XTs for $599. I just might keep it around for sentimental reasons.
Sounds like a camera from hell. As the 350D and 400D aren't really that expensive I'd personally stop throwing money at the nightmare. But I think you should try and contact Canon first for a second opinion as to why this appears with 50mm lenses. Maybe they know something that the repair shop don't. This sounds a bit like a shoddy repair job IMO.
I never thought the focus was that great on my 50mm f/1.8, tbh. When it was in focus it's quite sharp, but that's really just as true as any other lens I've used. Although now that I think about it, that really seems true of my camera in general, not just the 50mm lens. When shots are in focus they're very sharp, but a lot seem to be quite soft. I always thought I must be slightly insane, but if it's not just happening to me... dunno, we don't even have the same body. Don't really know what to tell you, unfortunately.
Update: I got myself a 40D. So far, it seems as though the 50mm F/1.8 is truly broken, but the 50mm F/1.4 works very well. The repair center said they'd look at it again. This time, I intend to bring the default kit lense which works, so maybe they can calibrate it. I really hope they can fix my Rebel XT. At least that way, I can offset the price of the 40D.
my camera hates 50mm too... but thats because its such an annoying focal length on digiSLRs, think my money would have been better spent on a flash.
Hm? Well, it depends what you're doing, but it's a pretty useful focal length imo, at least as far as primes go. I think an 80-85mm would be too long on a cropped body for portrait work, and it's pretty solid for product shots as well (which is essentially portrait work anyways). Anyways, enjoy the 40D scq. I played with one in a Best Buy, and it could well end up in my bag in the distant future. Some nice improvements over the 400D I've got now, I must say.
Thanks Firehed. The 40D is great. I sent the XT back to the shop. Yeah, the 40D is a HUGE upgrade over the 350D. Up one class and 2 generations newer.