Canon 7D with Canon 100-400 Lens

[DC Studios]

Okay, Hoping someone can help me out with this.
I have never been able to get a good sharp image when using my Canon 100-400mm lens with my 7D. I've seen other people take beautiful pictures with theirs, but for some reason I can't seem to get it down. I don't know if it's me or possibly the equipment.

I actually sent the lens into Canon once, and they ended up having to fix the focus motor for $380.00. But for some reason I still can't get a good sharp image out of it. I'm tempted to send in my camera because when I use it on my 5D mkII, I don't really have problems.
Also, at 100% there always seems to be a constant grainy look to every image with the 7D when shooting with an open aperture, with any lens I use. Very visible with blue skies, or green grass, very very visible with any shot that has bokeh.

Has anyone else had problems like this or is this something I'm possibly doing wrong? I am sort of an amateur photographer, but I do have some experience. Any advice or help would greatly be appreciated. I have uploaded a sample image to maybe help you see what I'm getting out of it.

Camera: Canon 7D
Lens: EF 100-400mm F/4.5-5.6 IS
ISO: 400
Focal Length: 400
Exposure 1/500 @ f 5.6
No Flash

[ednorm]

The picture looks nice to me, I could not detect the grainy look you were talking about. The focus is on the bird as it should be, the same plane has some of the bush to the right in focus too, with foreground and background bokeh. The color looks a little flat, I wonder what color temperature your camera is set on? The settings such as daylight, cloudy, or tungsten all affect the white color balance of the shot you take you might check what you have it set to. I always shoot in either faithful or neutral with my 7d as it looks better to me. Another thing are you using SRGB? it shows up better on your computer screen with that setting. I hope this helps, if not maybe you could go into your menu and use the reset all functions option just in case you have some funky setting we are overlooking.

ed

[inkista]

Actually, looks like it's backfocusing a tiny bit. The bird is slightly oof, but the bush behind it is sharp. Have you tried using the autofocus microadjust feature on the 7D to see if that fixes the issue for you? Given that the lens works fine on your 5Dii, the 7D seems to be the culprit here.

[DC Studios]

I had a fellow friend of mine use my lens on his 7D and everything seemed to be coming out fine. He suggested trying to change my focusing pattern. I was using the spot focus on pretty much everything and he thought that might have had something to do with it. I'm going to try using a wider focus pattern other than spot focus to see if that helps. I'll try your other suggestions too. Thanks a bunch!!!