Nikon D7000 Focusing Wierdness

[CrazeUK]

Hey Guys.
I have a Nikon D7000, bought used of a fellow TP user.

I don't often get to use the camera so a bit slow in noticing something that i have noticed a few times, but it doesnt always happen.

Today i was at the annual Manchester Day Parade and noticed a few things.
On the whole the camera was set to Auto, and wanted to use the flash, which i kept pushing down.

1. The camera seems to want to focus on every other part of an image, except where i want it to focus. During the shoot i did notice ensure the little black square focus point was on the subject matter.
This isnt in all the photos, just some of them.

Could this be the infamous back focus issue?


2. Less of an issue, a lot of the photos of the subjects where a little dark.
The camera was on auto, and kept wanting to use the flash on a slightly over cast day. Saying that the sun was behind the clouds behind the subjects.

 

[Ivan S]

1, Auto mode does that, to get around it you need to set up what focus type to use, my suggestion would be AF-C and set it to use the 9 center focus points, you do this by pressing in the button that says AF M at the side of the lens on the camera body and using the front and back control dials to select what you want to use, you can see it change on your top LCD, you can set these in auto mode.

2, On auto the camera will use the flash if needed for the exposure, if you stop it by pushing it down, of course shots will be dark.

 

[badboy1984]

Is full auto mode you using so it will do that ..... the camera will just use whatever focus mode they think is the best and also will pop the flash if the camera thinks is dark .....

 

[Storm Guitarist]

Hey Guys.
I have a Nikon D7000, bought used of a fellow TP user.

I don't often get to use the camera so a bit slow in noticing something that i have noticed a few times, but it doesnt always happen.

Today i was at the annual Manchester Day Parade and noticed a few things.
On the whole the camera was set to Auto, and wanted to use the flash, which i kept pushing down.

1. The camera seems to want to focus on every other part of an image, except where i want it to focus. During the shoot i did notice ensure the little black square focus point was on the subject matter.
This isnt in all the photos, just some of them.

Could this be the infamous back focus issue?


2. Less of an issue, a lot of the photos of the subjects where a little dark.
The camera was on auto, and kept wanting to use the flash on a slightly over cast day. Saying that the sun was behind the clouds behind the subjects.

If you use P mode you will be able to choose the focus point yourself and the camera will do the rest for you just like auto mode. Auto mode on a slr is terrible for focusing as it will usually focus on the the thing nearest the camera. Especially impossible if shooting birds in trees or reeds.You will get fantastic shots of grass and have a desire to throw the camera in the reeds :bang:

I used to use exposure compensation an awful lot as I grew to know where it would constantly underexpose.

It could be worth do a factory restore on the camera to set all the setup settings back to default and then go from there(this is because you bought it 2nd hand). Check out fro knows photos on youtube he has a lot about setting up the camera

 

[CrazeUK]

Hey Guys. A quick update.. and i am Shocked.

I decided to have a look at the issue of Back focusing.

I came across This site. http://regex.info/blog/photo-tech/focus-chart

I printed the sheets, and used the 5% sheet under my well lit room, although it is lit by 8 50watt halogens.

I focused on the black bar, and noticed the writing at the very end of the sheet was in focus showing quite a bad back focus problem.

So i messed with the AF Fine tune settings on the D7000. Set it to -20 (Maximum adjustment). It got a lot better but still off by about 5 points.

Then i took shots from around the house to see how clear the pics where.
Here is a comparison of a cropped can about 3 meters away using my 16-85 F3.5-5.6 GED Nikon lens.



My issue is it still doesn't seem to be sharp :s
Should i be worried

I actually feel physically sick now :s