[ptritch]

I'm pleased with my Canon G3 except for one critical area: Consistently poor focusing. In comparing the G3 to an older Sony DSC-S70, the 3.3mp Sony consistently outclasses the 4mp G3, focusing much more sharply no matter what the range, from 3 feet to infinity.

Can anyone tell me if there is a procedure for calibrating the focus mechanism on the G3? If not a owner-level procedure, is there one at repair shop level or even the Canon service center?

I know I can call Canon and ask these questions but I have read very mixed reviews of their technical support and repair activities and I'd rather poll the members of this forum for their candid opinions first.

I'd appreciate any information you can provide. As I said, I really like the G3 but I'd also like the autofocus to work a lot better than it does.

[xgerryx]

Have you checked the focus settings. I think the G3 has a few advanced focus settings like single, continuous and macro. If these are not set right you would have problems achieving a sharp focus.

[ptritch]

Thank you for the idea but switching betwen the Single and Continuous focus modes does not help the situation.

Switching to Manual focus does help, but what I'm mainly trying to do is improve the functioning of the Autofocus mode, a point upon which I should have "focused" more clearly in my initial post.

[linskyjack]

Have you tried moving the AF box around the image area--you can move it to 300 positions---it's set by default to center focus. Also, Canon's are notorious for coming out of the camera slightly soft---I have never shot with one that didn't need a little sharpening in PS. Thats a good thing because there is a trade off in the chip's ability to capture color etc. In other words, I shoot Raw with a Canon DSLR and I sharpen everything that I shoot. The results are often startling. By the way, can you post an example of the problem you think you are experiencing.