Stan, I would greatly appreciate any pointers you can share with me to allow for better testing of my camera. I tried to control everything I could - camera, lens, distance to target, target itself, aperture, shutter speed, horizontal and vertical alignment of the camera. I did not have another camera to perform the same test with, that is true.

Contrast detection is not something that I was and am concerned about. As I said, LV focusing is decent and while it seems to me that is has changed a bit when using right side focusing it is nothing that I would be considering as an issue worth sending the camera for service. The problem I have is with phase detect focusing which got worse after a trip to a service shop while I'm being told that this is "within specifications". This is the biggest issue I have with my experience.

Once I get my camera back I am going to retest the camera with different target, different lens and possibly try to do AF fine tune in the process.

Alex
http://www.yermakov.net