Issues With D3100 Focusing

radar

New member
Hi all,

this may have been posted im sure it has buti cant find it at the moment.
Ive had my D3100 for about 3-4 years everything to my knowledge is working fine on it and Ive had the Sensor cleaned on it about 4 months ago.

Problem is I can never get a clean in focus picture out of it and looking at other Facebook users that use a D3100 when you double click there photos to view at 100% they dont seam that in focus either.

Looking at the below pics from facebook im wandering if in fact its simply the camera not up to where i want it to be

EG-
https://fb.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=294978440707339&set=gm.729255123827418&type=1&theater
https://fb.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1545334162346495&set=gm.727895830630014&type=1&theater


So i have 2 questions

1-If i use photoshop to view my pictures and i view at 100% is that in fact 100% of the picture or not ( eg am i viewing the picture at a crazy inlarged size so its out of focus or pixalated )
2- even at auto or manual i cant seam to get this thing to give me a clear crisp in focus pic.

Ive tried shooting in Raw makes no difference

can someone help...lol





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Viewing at 100% on a computer monitor will never look good even with a better camera. Have you ever printed one of your photos and looked at it? For a D3100 the shots you have above look just fine.

Shooting in RAW will not make them sharper unless you do the proper PhotoFinishing on them. Also if you are shooting in JPEG please make sure you have the picture control set correctly to sharpen them. Most of these cameras are set very low or at 0. Needs to be set at 6 or 7 at least. Look it up in the manual if you don't know what I am talking about. Been a long time since I had the D3100 so I don't remember how to tell you how to set it.
 

aroy

Senior Member
There are many reasons for "unsharp" images. Here are some of the most common ones, and their remedy.

. Wide open Aperture. Very few lenses are sharp wide open. Most get their maximum sharpness a stop or two down. So if your maximum aperture is F5.6, then F8 to F11 will give sharper pictures.

. Motion blur. It is either camera shake or image shake due to wind. Happens to all of us some times. For former, grip the camera firmly, legs spread out. For latter shoot at higher speeds - 1/500 or more. In case of low light use flash to "strobe the image (flash is 1/5,000 or faster). Read up on correct stance on the net.

. Lens AF. Many AF lenses focus slightly off, either ahead or behind, resulting in hazy images wide open. To chek your lens AF do the following
. Mount the camera on a tripod.
. Place a graduated scale against a wall or some bricks, so that it is at 45 degrees - lower end towards you, upper end away from you.
. Adjust the tripod so that the camera is horizontal.
. Adjust the tripod height so that the image centre is at a whole graduation, around the centre of the scale.
. Now take shots of the scale at aperture wide open.
. Check which part of the scale graduation is the sharpest.
. In case the graduation at which you aimed is the sharpest, congratulations, your lens AF is perfect at that distance.
. If the lower portion is sharper, it is front focusing.
. If the upper portion is sharper, it is back focusing.

In case the lens is front/back focusing, note by how much. If most of your shots are at a longer distance, try the above at that distance. If it is not feasible, at least you know how much to compensate (front or back). If it is front focus say by 5mm, then focus on the nose middle to get the eyes in focus, conversely focus on the ears if it is back focus. There is no hard and fast rule, you will have to experiment and get it right. In case you cannot get it, use F8-F11 to get sharper images.

. Soft Lenses. This is rare, but some lenses are soft. For example the 70-300 AF is quite soft at 250-300mm range, and has a lot of CA. The original 18-55 non VR version is softer than the current VR-II. So read up detailed reviews on the lenses you have/want to use and check their sharpness at various apertures.

That apart there are no reasons for images from any camera to be soft. Proper technique and steady hands will always result in sharp images, though to get razor sharp images with vibrant colours you may have to get more expensive lenses, normal lenses available today are quite sharp.
 

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
Are you shooting in JPG? If you are you probably need to adjust the Sharpness setting in your Picture Control menu. Adjusting this one setting will have a huge impact on the overall sharpness of your JPG photos. To do this...

  • Turn your camera on.
  • Press the Menu button.
  • Highlight the "Shooting" menu (the camera icon).
  • Drop down to "Set Picture Control" and click right once.
  • From here I suggest you highlight "Standard" and click right once.
  • In the "Quick Adjust" menu move the slider for "Sharpening" to +7.
  • Drop down to "Saturation" and adjust the slider to +1.
  • Press "OK" to save the changes and exit the menus.
If you shoot using any of the other Picture Control settings (Landscape, Portrait, Vivid, etc.) you'll need to make Sharpness adjustments in each one.

....
 
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