Inaccurate autofocus on Yongnuo 50mm 1.8

[TheStupidForeigner]

After reading a lot of positive reviews on photography blogs and other websites, and considering my absolutely tiny budget I decided to get a yongnuo 50mm 1.8 lens. First of all to anyone who is considering to get this lens... Just don't.... It really isn't worth it, apart from focus issues it also drains camera battery over 10x faster than my stock lens, even when the camera is powered off for some weird reason....

So anyway this was my first lens with such a huge aperture of 1.8 and of course I am happily playing around with the shallow depth of field and found it incredibly hard to get a sharp focus in the right place. I read a bunch of articles, watched a bunch of videos on getting sharp focus and put all the advice into practice but still more than half of my photos came out slightly soft on the eyes. I still continued to blame myself until I finally searched more about this lens and found that other people had the same problem.

So I just wanted to ask if anyone here had any suggestions on what I could do to overcome this problem? Other than obviously buying the canon 50mm as I really can't afford it at the moment, and while I do have a warrenty card I wouldn't have a clue where to return it to as I got it off ebay... I have been trying to learn manual focusing but as I usually shoot people it is incredibly hard at wide apertures. Any other suggestions? I know people on here always have great ideas that I never think of

I'm using it with a canon d1100 in case that has any effect.

 

[ronlane]

I'd try to get rid of it and get the new Canon 50mm f/1.8 STM. You are finding out that you didn't save anything by getting the youngnuo.

I have this new Canon being delivered today, can't wait to use it.

 

[Dao]

Can you do a quick test.
- Set a magazine or Newspaper or anything similar on a stand or something that you can make it stand.
- Put camera on the tripod or a table/desk with a sandbag.
- Set the camera on center focus only and point at the target (magazine/newspaper etc).
- Set the lens to Automatic focus, focus it and take a shot with 8 sec delay timer.
- Set the lens to Manual focus, focus it manually and take a shot with 8 sec delay timer.
- Compare the result. Looking at the area where you focus (center) and see if there is a difference.

After you try few times and if the result shows the AF is off and are consistent, the lens / camera may need to be adjusted to work together. The higher end Canon DSLR usually has a micro adjustment that allow user to adjust. But I think your D1100 do not have that feature.