My wife has a Canon 500D that came with the usual pair of kit lenses, however we find that the 55-250 zoom is just about unusable as the pictures are so soft. We took the whole thing back to Canon, they charged us for a repair and the result was the same, And there was no report from them, nothing.

Does anyone else use this same lens, and do you have any issues with it?

The first thing I'd be doing is contacting Canon and asking what they did, and unless they can come up with a good answer, try to get your money back. Obviously it's not a high-end lens but I've never noticed them to be unusually soft. Are you shooting on auto or manual? Could you post an example picture?

The first thing I'd be doing is contacting Canon and asking what they did, and unless they can come up with a good answer, try to get your money back. Obviously it's not a high-end lens but I've never noticed them to be unusually soft. Are you shooting on auto or manual? Could you post an example picture?

Almost all shots are taken on auto, as they are action shots and she is not able to focus on the target beforehand. I will try and find an example of a poor shot.

With a television zoom lens, there are two focus adjustments, the zoom focus itself and backfocus, which adjusts for the lens itself. Now I don't know if this applies to still cameras, but I imagine there is some setting that does a similar job.