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Focus issue Nikon D300 ore faulty 17-55 F2,8?: Nikon D300 - D100 Forum: Digital Photography Review
Hi,
I'm a freaid I experince problemes with the autofocus on my camera.
Pictures often comes out to soft, the pictures under are taken withe the Nikon 17-55 F2,8 at 55mm and F2,8 The viewfinder confirmed focus, but the pictures look to soft (except for the one with the ketchup bottle, that is tack sharp !)
Somteimes its like there's a soft grey layer over the hole image..
Never experince this on the D200, my fathers D300 dont struggel withe this..
Image control: Zoom out | Zoom 100% | Zoom in | Expand / Contract | New window
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You dont say where you have the sharpening set in the camera.
I shoot raw, and set the sharpening picture control to 1 in NX.
I then use the unsharp mask to further sharpen the image to my tastes.
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The sharpning is set to 4, as you can see, one of the picture is tack sharp.
I use singel point focus, not dynamic.
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Bumb!
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Were any of these images captured off a tripod?
If not, before I would make a statement about a lens or camera I would first retake the images with your camera/lens supported by a good tripod and using proper photo technique.
That being ... cable release or selftimer incorporated in your test.
You should be able to tell very quickly if it is a lens issue or human error.
The best of luck.
--
We suffer from so little individualism, we are so quick to replicate rather than innovate.
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I agree that you need to test this under ideal circumstances (tripod, etc), but I also think it is very possible you DO have a focusing problem.
I use the 17-55 / D300 combo quite a bit.
I have read the raves posted on the internet regarding this lens.
When it's good, it is fantastic.
However, my 17-55 is the lens I have the least amount of confidence in when it comes to focusing.
It is fast and it is quiet, but it often misses the mark.
My troubles are at their worst when shooting wider than about 28mm.
I have two bodies and the behaivor is the same on both.
I will send the lens into Nikon at the end of the season (fall) and see if they can help.
Adjusting the auto focus fine tuning seems to work for the longer end of this lens.
Under ~24-28mm there is not enough adjustment to compensate for the front focusing.
Manual focus seems to work fine.
When testing your lens/body combination on a tripod, be sure to include a manual focus test.
I always feel the need to offer a disclaimer on this forum.
I am not bashing this lens, I am not bashing the D300.
I am only offering MY thoughts and experiences, be they right, wrong or somewhere in between.
John
--
http://www.adker.com
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I just swapped a 17-55 for another sample.
The first copy was suffering from a bad case of front focus.
Quick tests make me think the new copy is much better but won't know until I get it on the tripod.
For me, the give away was when I shot a picture of a car 30 ft away, spot focus, wide open.
The car was out of focus but the pavement 10 feet in front of me was bang on.
The problem was more evident when opening it up to 2.8 then get some close focus shots (i.e.
Flowers).
I was able to fix it with some fine tuning (+11) but this wasn't acceptable for a >
$1000 lens.
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Could it be you were too close to the butterfly?
Minimum focusing distance is about 15 inches and shooting f/2.8, any error in focusing would be more dramatic.
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My 17-55/2.8 is tack sharp on the D70.
I mean tack sharp.
You could see every hair on a person's eye when shooting up close.
On the D300, the focus is slightly off and even with USM (and no in camera sharpening), I could never get the tack sharp result of the D70.
I ended up bringing the D300, 17-55 and the new 24-70 to Nikon to calibrate.
Seems to be sharper now, but I am too busy moving to test them out.
Btw, both of my lenses are a bit soft on the wide end :-(.
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All images is shot on 55 mm.
On the wide end it ain't perfectly sharp, but not bad enough to complain about.
The picture of the girl is shot on tripod, in door lighte and on camera flash.
The camera indicates focus, but picture comes out "blurry" , in daylighte its better (see the exampel of my "old man")
but that aint as good either!
I want the sharpnes of the red ketchup bottle.
So when its not "BANG" sunny lighte ore big contrast diffrence, It's miss focus all the time..
I tried a focus test shart with has rich contrast and the lens had no problem.
I experience same problem with the 18-70 kit lens and the 70-300 VR.
It miss focus when there's less lighte (and i dont mean dark!) I mean like when its around 21:00 evning lighte.
It's blur blur blur, no mather what i tried.
I change form dynamic to static.
From 51 point-3D focus to 51 point focus, to 9 point focus and singel point.
Iv'e shot aboaut 7000 pictures withe the camera now just trying to do what i want, i give it up..
Time to tak it to serivce.
Din't hadd this trubble withe the D200,D70, Canon 5D ore 30D..
This can't be user error alone..
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I have the Nikon 17-55 and also feel that the lens is sharp when it wants to be, but also lets you down at times for no apparent reason.
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The 3rd image of the man's eye.
Open in Photoshop CS3.
Select Smart Sharpen.
Use Gaussian Blur at 80 and 0.5.
This gives the image the kick you are looking for.
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