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I just bought the canon eos 5d Mark II, and I am less than pleased with its focus capabilities. Regardless of lens, of auto or manual focus, with even the slightest editing or cropping it becomes more than apparent the image is only soft focus at best. 

 Does anyone have any suggestions besides throwing the camera out the window and buying a nikon?  

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"It is only a very wise man or a fool who thinks that he is able to identify all the finches which he sees" Michael Harris

Latest sightings: Blue footed Booby, Masked Booby, Galapagos Penguin, oyster catcher, brown pelican, lava heron

Perhaps it's defective. Under warranty??

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Luke 12:6
Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God.

Before you toss the camera out the window, BirdBrainy, do some research on the camera online. When I first bought my Olympus E-510, I too was a little disappointed with the out of the box results. Well it turns out that the camera's default settings were not the best settings for the results I wanted. After a bit of research, I changed the default settings and the image quality improved. As an example, if your camera has a noise reduction feature and it is turned on by the default settings, your images will probably be soft. I suggest that you find a forum that discusses that particular camera and see if anyone else has similar issues. The new cameras today can be overwhelming with all the various settings hidden in the camera's menu system and it might just be a matter of finding the right settings that work for you, the default settings aren't necessarily the best settings.

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My unorganized pictures can be viewed at

http://picasaweb.google.com/lonestranger102

I truly believe that your camera isn't defective.  I may be wrong, but with Canon (I own 2), you just have to have the correct settings for the application.  Were you in low light? Bright and sunny day? 

 BTW I'm jealous of you spotting the blue-footed booby! 

BirdBrainy:

I just bought the canon eos 5d Mark II, and I am less than pleased with its focus capabilities. Regardless of lens, of auto or manual focus, with even the slightest editing or cropping it becomes more than apparent the image is only soft focus at best. 

 Does anyone have any suggestions besides throwing the camera out the window and buying a nikon?  

You don't mention what lens you are using or if you are coupling it with an extender. The EOS 5D Mark II is a top of the line camera. If you could add more details on your equipment you are using.

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My New Avatar is in memory of Nancy my darling wife of 10 years who passed away on Monday November the 16th 2009 after an illness

My photo gallery http://thekiwi.org/photography/index.php

True, sorry about that! I am using it mostly with a Canon 75-300mm EF Lens, as well as with a brand new Canon EF 17-40 lens, no extender. I already had to upgrade to the new canon wide angle, as there was a ridiculous amount of vignetting with the non-canon lens I bought. 

I have read mixed reviews online, some claiming it has the best focus ever, others saying the complete opposite, which has been my experience so far. I am all ears if anyone wants to offer suggestions on settings, or anything really. I have been using it in a variety of settings, from full sun to low light, and had the soft focus problem everywhere.  

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"It is only a very wise man or a fool who thinks that he is able to identify all the finches which he sees" Michael Harris

Latest sightings: Blue footed Booby, Masked Booby, Galapagos Penguin, oyster catcher, brown pelican, lava heron

Try auto focus micro adjust?

http://www.kennewcombe.com/AFmicroadjust.html

 

BirdBrainy:

True, sorry about that! I am using it mostly with a Canon 75-300mm EF Lens, as well as with a brand new Canon EF 17-40 lens, no extender. I already had to upgrade to the new canon wide angle, as there was a ridiculous amount of vignetting with the non-canon lens I bought. 

I have read mixed reviews online, some claiming it has the best focus ever, others saying the complete opposite, which has been my experience so far. I am all ears if anyone wants to offer suggestions on settings, or anything really. I have been using it in a variety of settings, from full sun to low light, and had the soft focus problem everywhere.  

You will get results accordng to the quality of glass you use. You have a top of the line camera body and then you are using cheap glass  with it I beleive you will get great results using the "L" series glass try renting some lenses first you can rent from here

http://rentglass.com     from what I have seen they appear to be the best deal.

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My New Avatar is in memory of Nancy my darling wife of 10 years who passed away on Monday November the 16th 2009 after an illness

My photo gallery http://thekiwi.org/photography/index.php

I found this article to be very interesting, and possibly relevant to your problem, BirdBrainy. It deals with lens and camera tolerances and explains why perfectly good lenses on one body will be less than perfect on a different body. It also mentions how the 5d MarkII has a microcalibration feature to resolve these tolerance issues. Well worth reading if you've ever had focusing issues, with valuable information for those of us looking to uprade our lenses or cameras in the future.

http://www.lensrentals.com/news/2008.12.22/this-lens-is-soft-and-other-myths

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My unorganized pictures can be viewed at

http://picasaweb.google.com/lonestranger102

I'm guessing that perhaps my 75-300mm lens needs calibration, as reflectively, it is the one that was on when I was having more severe focus issues... Does anyone have a cite that explains how to lens calibrate? I tried following the link on that sight but it was not functional for some reason. 

The wide angle lens I was also using is an L  series (EF 17-40mm f/4L USM), which I totally failed to mention, and I did get much sharper images with it, but still, I guess I expected more... perhaps both need calibration...  

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"It is only a very wise man or a fool who thinks that he is able to identify all the finches which he sees" Michael Harris

Latest sightings: Blue footed Booby, Masked Booby, Galapagos Penguin, oyster catcher, brown pelican, lava heron

BirdBrainy:

I'm guessing that perhaps my 75-300mm lens needs calibration, as reflectively, it is the one that was on when I was having more severe focus issues... Does anyone have a cite that explains how to lens calibrate? I tried following the link on that sight but it was not functional for some reason. 

The wide angle lens I was also using is an L  series (EF 17-40mm f/4L USM), which I totally failed to mention, and I did get much sharper images with it, but still, I guess I expected more... perhaps both need calibration...  

Try setting your fstop to f8 I think you will find that to be sweet spot of that 75-300mm lens

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My New Avatar is in memory of Nancy my darling wife of 10 years who passed away on Monday November the 16th 2009 after an illness

My photo gallery http://thekiwi.org/photography/index.php

I returned the camera body and got a new one, and am still getting soft images with the 75-300mm, but the wide angle is super sharp, I am sure it is the lens now, thank you guys for all your help, now I just need to save up for the L series zoom lens... sigh...

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"It is only a very wise man or a fool who thinks that he is able to identify all the finches which he sees" Michael Harris

Latest sightings: Blue footed Booby, Masked Booby, Galapagos Penguin, oyster catcher, brown pelican, lava heron

Also, I had to argue with some geek squad guy at best buy that the images were soft in the first place (okay, I know it was the lens, but it might have been the camera....) he kept saying, oh, thats about what you get with digital cameras, you can't crop that much... I basically had to explain what the "full sensor" on the 5d mark II was capable of, as he obviously had no clue and thought I was crazy to even expect to make good cropped images with it... that and he couldn't figure out how to put the lens on the camera... just line up the red dots... you'll be fine... some camera experts...

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"It is only a very wise man or a fool who thinks that he is able to identify all the finches which he sees" Michael Harris

Latest sightings: Blue footed Booby, Masked Booby, Galapagos Penguin, oyster catcher, brown pelican, lava heron

My experience says never, ever assume a Geek Squad member is an expert on anything.  You might get lucky occasionally, but think about it, if they're really that knowledgeable, would they still be working at Best Buy?

This is true... =D

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"It is only a very wise man or a fool who thinks that he is able to identify all the finches which he sees" Michael Harris

Latest sightings: Blue footed Booby, Masked Booby, Galapagos Penguin, oyster catcher, brown pelican, lava heron