For the near-field in-line digital holography, the multi-plane reconstruction method used to eliminate the twin image works well when the reconstructing distance is exactly equal to the actual recording distance. However, it does not consider and analyze the influence when there is a deviation between the two distances. In practice, it is difficult to accurately measure the actual recording distance, and the deviation between the reconstructing distance and the actual recording distance always exist in the digital reproduction. A thoughtful analysis for this method is presented and it is found that this method is very sensitive to the distance deviation, and as the deviation increases its efficiency and effectiveness will be greatly decreased. The distance deviation sensitivity of this method can be used to improve the auto-focus accuracy and sensibility in the reconstruction of Gabor in-line digital holography. Principle analysis and experimental verification confirm the above conclusions.