[macgyverx86]

I looked at the AF sensor, but couldn't get a a good view of the entire sensor. Taking in consideration what you said about the "big fluff" i used a blower and some dust flew but unfortunately there was no improvement.
Scratching the sensor: i couldn't have done that. I only used the dust blower few times, and when i bought the camera af worked fine (A bit slower and noisier as in Cannon or Nikon).

[samsungx20]

Hello!

I'm having trouble with focusing. Example - I photograph a person in a field using AF - set at SAF, adjust the spot focus indicator to where the person is & snap. But the person is never in focus, but the background always is. It has nothing to do with aperture or shutterspeed as they're at reasonable settings.

I have tried various lenses and its the same problem. If I focus in manual, it's in focus.

Even when I'm doing head and shoulder shots, the focus is not always correct. It will focus on maybe the neck, the face won't be in focus, and I am at a fair distance from the subject too. I'm really stressing out. Can I do some kind of in-camera setting to fix this?

If someone can please help me - I'd REALLY appreciate it.

I'm going to try the "Autofocus adjust", but the lenses that come with it, can they too be improved with the adjust method? I don't understand why a lens made for the camera needs adjusting. It's weird. But I DO have the same problem with the lenses that were made for the camera, plus my Tamron 17-50mm lens.
I have the camera set so I can focus with shutter speed & the AE button. Could that have anything to do with it? I feel like crying. I just want to be able to use my camera to focus correctly. Close ups are pretty ok - its full head to toe shots I'm having MAJOR problems with. It'll focus on the background and not my subject. BUT, focus on close-up is not right either, out of 5 shots took, about 3 will be in-correct focus. :-/ I even thought it might be MY eye sight & I had my brother take pics. Still, same problem.

Thank you.

[Marc Sabatella]

Your problem has nothing to do with AF adjustment, but is instead a normal behavior of the camera. The AF sensors are much larger than the red dots. So just because the red dot is right on the person, the AF sensor probably covers part of the background, and sometimes, the camera may happen to focus there instead (like if it happens to have better contrast, not be moving, etc). You simply need to learn to place the focus target somewhere that does not have any background too close to it. For example, aim for a person's midsection, not head. The further you are from the subject, the larger the subject will be in the frame, and the more likely it will be that the AF sensor will be squarely within the person and not hit the background - that's why you have a better success rate the closer you get.