3300 out of focus?

tea2085

Senior Member
I was able to return to some acreage I owned several years ago. I had limited time and did not want to practice manual settings as I may not ever be able to return. I shot JPEG "auto". Some of my pics were clearly out of focus- I was really disappointed. About 75% seemed to be clearly focused. Being a newbie, I have shot most of my pics in the past in auto, all with perfect focus. I am wondering now if my camera is malfunctioning or if there's another reason for what happened. My lens is clean and I don't understand what is going on.. Help!
Paul 012.jpg012.jpg015.jpg015.jpg017.jpg
 
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cwgrizz

Senior Member
Challenge Team
Can you post an example or two of the poor images with exif data. It makes it much easier to guess why you are having a problem.
 

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
Can you tell me how to post a picture from my computer? Paul
Open a new message box. Along the top is the tool-bar with icons for Bold, Italic and Underline text and all that... Over toward the right is the "Insert Image" icon. Click on that icon, make sure you're on the "From Computer" tab and then navigate to an example photo on your computer. The rest should be pretty self-explanatory but post back if you have trouble.
 

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
Do I drag the photo I want to "add an image"? Paul
No... You click on the icon labeled, "Insert Image" (hover your cursor on the icons and their purpose will pop up).
On the "Insert Image" dialog box you click on the "From Computer" tab.
Then you click, "Browse".
From the new dialog box that opens you navigate to the picture you want to post.
Then you click, "Open".
Then you click, "Upload Files".

...
 

Daz

Senior Member
There is Exif on those photos, they look like the camera has clearly missed focus, you mention that 75% of the time it catches focus no problem, we all have "those" shots that are just out of focus ...

I own the same camera and that looks very zoomed into an image (if that was a full frame image I would be worried)

Is that the whole image or is that a zoomed in portion (aka pixel peeping) ?
 

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
Thank you soo much Fish. Now, how do I get the picture to show exif data? Paul
We can see the EXIF data just fine. You were shooting at f/8 and the shutter speed was 1/640 so aperture and shutter speed were both fine. The shots are so badly out of focus I'm thinking the obvious thing is that the camera was not focused when the shot was taken. When you half-press the shutter button on your camera, you'll see a "focus confirmation dot" illuminate in the viewfinder, it's located at the very bottom left when you're looking through the viewfinder:
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focus dot.jpg
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When you take a shot, if that dot is not clearly lit, you do NOT have correct focus. You can still trip the shutter, though; the camera will let you do that. If you want, you can change a setting so the camera will not take a picture unless it has focus-lock. I would test your camera and see if you're getting the focus confirmation before taking your shot. Remember... No dot = No focus.

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Daz

Senior Member
I agree with cwgrizz and Horoscope, the Nikon's also have a focus "Beep" you can turn on so that you have audible confirmation that you are in focus
 

cwgrizz

Senior Member
Challenge Team
HF, I think you may have missed one word in this: "if that dot is clearly lit, you do NOT have correct focus."

I think you meant, if that dot is NOT clearly lit, you do NOT have correct focus. :confused:




 

tea2085

Senior Member
Fish,
The focus dot is not showing up. Recently I was playing with the ISO settings, Is it possible I screwed something up? Paul I added some pictures-also.
 
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Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
Fish,
The focus dot is not showing up. Recently I was playing with the ISO settings, Is it possible I screwed something up? Paul
Put your Mode Dial on the green "Auto" setting; then nothing else like ISO really matters because the camera will take control of that sort of thing. If you're in full daylight and using a relatively wide aperture, say, f/4 you should be able to get focus confirmation on SOMETHING. Try taking a photo of something across the street for instance, not two feet in front of you. If you STILL don't see the focus confirmation dot, we need to know that.
 

Daz

Senior Member
Put your Mode Dial on the green "Auto" setting; then nothing else like ISO really matters because the camera will take control of that sort of thing. If you're in full daylight and using a relatively wide aperture, say, f/4 you should be able to get focus confirmation on SOMETHING. Try taking a photo of something across the street for instance, not two feet in front of you. If you STILL don't see the focus confirmation dot, we need to know that.

Fish in Auto on the 3300 (dont know if you can on other bodies) you can still change the focus from AF-A and MF)

So Tea, in the bottom left of the screen make sure you have selected it as AF-A
 

Daz

Senior Member
When you have the back of the camera on as if you are going to take a pic, press the I button (Bottom button on the left of the camera), then use the directional dial to scroll to the one at the bottom, press OK and it will give you an option to change it from MF to AF-A
 

tea2085

Senior Member
Daz, we're almost there- my directional dial is only letting me toggle between raw and auto flash-can;t get to MF. Boy, am I dumb.
 
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