The 60D Needs AF Microadjustment

[unfocused]

alex, you've lost me in the second half regarding the nikon shoe...

I assume he means something like THIS (Amazon link). That one, like most of the 3rd party hotshoe covers sold for (and listed as compatible with) Canon dSLRs, press the microswitch at the front of the hotshoe and 'trick' the camera into thinking an external flash is mounted, which disables the pop-up flash.

I think there's a little more to it than that.

There is a design flaw with the 7D (probably with the 60D too) where the small microswitch on the hot shoe mount can get bent and come into contact with the small metal contacts that are designed to tell the camera that an external strobe is on the camera. This can happen when the foot of a strobe (or in Alex's case, the foot of a hot shoe protector) pushes the metal contact against the microswitch and then when the strobe or hot shoe protector is removed the metal contacts continue to push against the microswitch and complete the circuit making the camera believe a flash is mounted in the shoe.

This then prevents the camera's built-in flash from popping up when you press the button to pop up the flash.

It's a real problem with the 7D because if you can't get the pop up flash to pop up, you can't use it to trigger an off-camera flash.

I learned about this the hard way and found it mentioned on several discussion boards. The solution, as Alex 007 said, is to use a very small jeweler's screwdriver to separate the metal contact strip from the microswitch. Apparently, Alex had this problem using a Nikon-brand hot shoe cover/protector. Not a big surprise to me as the contact strips on the Canon seems to be very thin and easily bent just enough out of shape to accidentally complete the circuit.

Fortunately, I only had this problem once and it was at home where I had a jeweler's screwdriver handy.