Focusing issue - lots of pictures useless :(

jamiebonline

jamiebonline

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Jamie
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Hi all

Big problem with my Nikon 85 1.8 AF D. I tried it on a D90 and a D7000 and it is not nailing focus on any shot it seems. It confirms as focused in the camera but every shot is slightly blurred. Is there any way to fix this? I bought it secondhand cheap. Now I think the seller might have known about this. Also, the focus ring makes a kind of odd sound when I rotate it manually. Like a soft scraping sound.

Thanks for your help

J
 
Have you tried to manual focus in live view then swap it back to autofocus to see if the lens tries to correct itself?

From the description of soft scraping noise it sounds like it's possibly faulty inside
 
ian-83 said:
Have you tried to manual focus in live view then swap it back to autofocus to see if the lens tries to correct itself?

From the description of soft scraping noise it sounds like it's possibly faulty inside
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Hi Ian, yeah well I tested it again. Different bodies and different lenses on the bodies to see the other lenses were OK. All is fine except the 85. It seems to be focusing beyond the point of actual confirmed focus. Of course shooting at 1.8, which I was doing, makes matters worse. I think the scraping sound is new. I am pretty sure when I got it, it was OK. I would have noticed. I transported it to Spain where I live now. Maybe it got damaged in transit or something. Bummer. It cost me 220. I wonder is it even worth trying to repair. If I was going to manually focus, I would have bought the Samyang 1.4. As it is I don't even think it is manually focusing properly with the confirmation chip. Focusing with live view for portraits is a no-go for me.
 
jamiebonline said:
It confirms as focused in the camera but every shot is slightly blurred
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jamiebonline said:
It seems to be focusing beyond the point of actual confirmed focus
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Are you sure it's a focusing issue?

Any examples (with EXIF data) to demonstrate whether it's "every shot slightly blurred" or it's "focussing beyond" the focus point as these aren't necessarily the same thing and there are too many assumptions that need to be made without examples to refer to.
 
Your diopter in your VF is tuned ok I take it? That's the only reason I can think VF and final image might differentiate, though AF should compensate for that....
 
Try using a tripod. At 1.8 any slight movement can affect focus position.
 
The D is a film lens... it is not uncommon for them to require (quite) a bit of AFMA although I'm not really certain why that is. The D7000 has that capability, I don't think the D90 does.

The scraping noise could certainly be a problem, but I would think it's not causing the focus issue as such. But if it's a slight/soft noise with no ratcheting/binding I wouldn't be too concerned. I don't think it's worth sending out for service.
 
Alastair said:
Are you sure it's a focusing issue?

Any examples (with EXIF data) to demonstrate whether it's "every shot slightly blurred" or it's "focusing beyond" the focus point as these aren't necessarily the same thing and there are too many assumptions that need to be made without examples to refer to.
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Good point. OK so here are 3 of them with I think the same issue. By the way, I also took a number of pics of a model with the background being more than 20 metres behind her and it failed to focus on her. good light, focus point locked so I thought and it beeped :) To not nail this type of shot is obviously not normal. Something else I notice with other shots too, when the model is farther from me, the effect seems to be worse.

By the way in answer to others, tripod and diopter couldn't be related. Remember, the other lenses work perfectly and I know about camera shake and shutter speed. In Spanish sun in aperture priority the shutter was at 2000 or more a lot of the time.
 

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Those do not look like a lens issue to me... It looks more like the camera is picking a different point to focus on than you think it is.

Start with AF-S, single point, center point selected, and subject centered... see what that gets you.
 
sk66 said:
Those do not look like a lens issue to me... It looks more like the camera is picking a different point to focus on than you think it is.

Start with AF-S, single point, center point selected, and subject centered... see what that gets you.
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hm.. I have used two different cameras and different lenses. My Sigma gets the focus almost every time. The 85 focuses beyond the subject almost every time. On both cameras. I will try what you said though.
 
jamiebonline said:
hm.. I have used two different cameras and different lenses. My Sigma gets the focus almost every time. The 85 focuses beyond the subject almost every time. On both cameras. I will try what you said though.
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A lens with better clarity/sharpness/contrast is less likely to cause the camera to shift AF point.
 
jamiebonline said:
So what do you think based on what I said and the files?
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Based on your original post I expected it to be camera shake. Becuase there was no real information provided to goon.

Based on the files provided I go with the post from @sk66 that there's a mismatch between what you think the camera is doing and what the camera is actually doing. I'm afraid you will need to get the tripod out to investigate this.
 
sk66 said:
Those do not look like a lens issue to me... It looks more like the camera is picking a different point to focus on than you think it is.

Start with AF-S, single point, center point selected, and subject centered... see what that gets you.
Click to expand...

I tested again where there is one object and nothing anywhere near it or behind it for 20 metres or so and it focuses seemingly on nowhere. probably again beyond the point it confirms. very odd. looking back through the pictures i took, 90 percent of them are focusing a certain distance beyond where i have set focus.
 
I would start off checking where the focus point was. I have the software sk66 posted but I've saved you pics and it's saying that the camera is not supported, but maybe it's just because they're not the original files with all the data in tact. If the focus point is where it's supposed to be then I'd test for front/back focus issues. I'd also check the contacts. Failing that it really needs to go back to Nikon service/repairs.
 
markyboy.1967 said:
I wouldn't say its an f1.8 issue as non of the images have anything sharp in them, i would expect somewhere to be sharp in the image but there isn't.What shutter speeds? What focus mode were you using?
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I'm not so sure I agree tbh, there are areas that are considerably sharper than the model, especially the railing pic.
 
The lack of critical sharpness anywhere could be many things, wide aperture, movement, etc. But that isn't really the issue at this point... the issue is that the point of maximum focus is not as expected.
I still suspect technique, I've never seen AF confirm focus and be that far off... I think that's about impossible w/o the camera itself being severely damaged.
 
sk66 said:
The lack of critical sharpness anywhere could be many things, wide aperture, movement, etc. But that isn't really the issue at this point... the issue is that the point of maximum focus is not as expected.
I still suspect technique, I've never seen AF confirm focus and be that far off... I think that's about impossible w/o the camera itself being severely damaged.
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I have used a D7000 for 5 years and never seen this with any lens and I have used about 4 or 5 different lenses. I would be surprised how it is technique. I am not doing anything differently. It doesn't add up. I used a D90 too and as I said both work perfectly with two other lenses I have.

I have now taken literally hundreds of pictures with a tripod at different apertures and shutter speeds (making sure the shutter seed never goes below 1/160 just to be sure no shake. I have also changed focus modes. Every time, the focus is out (but larger apertures show it more of course) and if I switch to manual focus and move the focus anti-clockwise fractionally, the object comes into focus. That's how I could still use this lens but it slows things down for sure. I would be kind of focus bracketing and always miss a load of shots at 1.8 or 2. I googled this and can't find conclusive examples of this problem. It seems it does exist though. Or it does now :D

A point was made that none of the pictures have a point as sharp as it should be. That's interesting. I don't know that but it seems as sharp as my 50 1.8. More or less.
 
markyboy.1967 said:
I wouldn't say its an f1.8 issue as non of the images have anything sharp in them, i would expect somewhere to be sharp in the image but there isn't.What shutter speeds?
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I agree ... take the image of the girl on the bench, there is good distance between the foreground and background but everything is 'fuzzy' right the way through.
 
" I am pretty sure when I got it, it was OK. I would have noticed. I transported it to Spain where I live now. Maybe it got damaged in transit or something."

Maybe you were right 22 posts back seeing as you've shot it on two different bodies that are fine with other lens and both showed the same problem.
 
jamiebonline said:
A point was made that none of the pictures have a point as sharp as it should be. That's interesting. I don't know that but it seems as sharp as my 50 1.8. More or less
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That could be due to being unprocessed and posted here (web compression, etc).

Something doesn't make sense...
The camera's PDAF system compares multiple separate images (aperture dependent) taken from the objective lens, and it determines if the images are "the same" (in phase). If they are, then the camera believes the image is in focus. There is a tolerance built into it so "in focus" may not be maximum/critical focus, and AFMA allows for fine tuning. This is all fairly lens independent in that PDAF can work w/o any electronic/data communication w/ the lens.

I've never seen PDAF that far off, I'm fairly certain it is well beyond the AFMA range. Additionally, it should not be "worse" when the subject is farther away and there is more DOF. However, it is quite possible for the camera to be set/operated so that it will take a picture w/o achieving/confirming focus... if the lens is bad, this is the only thing I can think of that would allow this. And it is quite possible for the camera to be focused at a point other than where you think it is (technique/settings). In all of the example images the point of focus seems to be somewhere closer to the central AF point rather than where you want it (actually appears to be low center).

Have you confirmed that the camera is reporting the correct point of focus and that it believed the image was in focus? Have you tried/ensured that the camera is set to use only one focus point (center), only focus once, and will not take a picture unless it's in focus? Without doing those two things we cannot rule out technique/camera settings as being the cause.

As I said initially, it is not uncommon for an older wide aperture film lens to need AFMA. You could try that w/ the D7000; I would just set it to the max (-20) and see if/how much that helps. But if it's some other setting/technique, this will just confuse the issue.
 
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