I recently purchased the D5200 with the 18-55mm kit lens (my first DSLR) and I'm quite pleased with it. For the past two months I have been reading articles and watching videos to improve my understanding and skill. I primarily enjoy shooting landscapes. Prior to this camera I was using a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ8. It has a "super-zoom" ability that I just loved. I could zoom in on the moon and get reasonably sharp shots that included craters, even some of the smaller ones. Now I realize that the 5200 kit lens is limited to 55mm and thus I can't get similarly zoomed shots with it, but I noticed something frustrating right out of the box. If I roll it to the max of 55mm and place the focus point on a distant object (300ft or so), the object never comes out sharp. The first day I had it I took a photo of a couple guys and their cart on a golf course a couple hundred feet away and they were quite blurry. I figured it was because I didn't know the camera well/didn't use a tripod. Even on the tripod, distant objects never come out sharp. I've tried auto focus, manual focus, zoomed-in live view, nothing seems to work. I recently learned about image stacking as a way to get varying distances of the same shot all in focus, but that would obviously require one of those shots to have sharp focus on the most distant portion, something I can't seem to get. Am I missing something here? Is the 18-55mm kit lens simply insufficient for sharp distant shots? When I take shots of the night sky and focus to infinity, the stars seem pretty sharp. I see landscape photos online where the foreground, middle, and distant mountain peaks that must be a mile or more away, that have exquisite detail throughout. Maybe I'm expecting too much of this lens? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Please help - Noob question on distant object focus
- Thread starter Bren610
- Start date
You could verify what the lens can do by using Manual focus once. Manually focus it for sharpest clearest view in the viewfinder, or on the zoomed in Live View screen.
I'm kinda guessing, but use AF-S instead of AF-C. And you have up to 39 dynamic focus points that the camera can select. if you want it to use the One that you select, use Single Point AF. D5200 Reference manual, page 36.
The Reference manual is a much larger manual, available here:
Nikon | Download center | D5200
Stars: The infinity marking is not precise. A popular way to focus on stars or Moon is to use Live View, then zoom the LCD view greatly so the scene is seen greatly magnified, enough to see a few bright stars, and then focus manually to make those stars sharp on the magnified Live View screen.
I'm kinda guessing, but use AF-S instead of AF-C. And you have up to 39 dynamic focus points that the camera can select. if you want it to use the One that you select, use Single Point AF. D5200 Reference manual, page 36.
The Reference manual is a much larger manual, available here:
Nikon | Download center | D5200
Stars: The infinity marking is not precise. A popular way to focus on stars or Moon is to use Live View, then zoom the LCD view greatly so the scene is seen greatly magnified, enough to see a few bright stars, and then focus manually to make those stars sharp on the magnified Live View screen.
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Horoscope Fish
Senior Member
The URL tag got misplaced.
I just showed a URL.... the forum did the HTML work.
Horoscope Fish
Senior Member
Your post looked like this:
I don't know how the closing tag got there, but that was the problem.
.....
All I mean to say is your URL was not closed until the [/URL] tag, which appears at the end of your post.
I don't know how the closing tag got there, but that was the problem.
.....
There are no URL tags here. I did see conflicting data at different times. The first time I checked the page source, I thought there was a </a> tag (which thinking that may have been my mistake, but it was confusing, it should have worked). But my added text was missing in the source - a search for my word Sorry found only one earlier one. Simply not in page source, but it did show on page (Javascript can do that).
Now, no </a> (which is obviously the problem), but the added text does show there. Somehow it changed with time (but still doesn't work right).
Horoscope Fish
Senior Member
Here is your original post with some spaces added to defeat the BBCode:
==================================================
==================================================
Notice the closing [/URL] tag is adjacent to the [/QUOTE] tag. The [U RL] tag is closed ([/U RL]) at the end of your post, not at the end of your link, where it should be. Everything within the [U RL] ... [/U RL] tags is considered part of the hyperlink.
I moved your closing [/U RL] tag to correct location in my quoted post of yours, putting at the end of the hyperlink where it should be:
In your post you say, "If I add text following a link, it continues the linkage throughout all following text."
The incorrectly placed [/U RL] tag explains WHY, "the linkage continues throughout all following text."
...
==================================================
[QU OTE=WayneF;493710]You could verify what the lens can do by using Manual focus once. Manually focus it for sharpest clearest view in the viewfinder, or on the zoomed in Live View screen.
I'm kinda guessing, but use AF-S instead of AF-C. And you have up to 39 dynamic focus points that the camera can select. if you want it to use the One that you select, use Single Point AF. D5200 Reference manual, page 36.
The Reference manual is a much larger manual, available here:
[U RL="http://downloadcenter.nikonimglib.com/en/products/24/D5200.html"]Nikon | Download center | D5200
Stars: The infinity marking is not precise. A popular way to focus on stars or Moon is to use Live View, then zoom the LCD view greatly so the scene is seen greatly magnified, enough to see a few bright stars, and then focus manually to make those stars sharp on the magnified Live View screen.
(Sorry, I don't know how to fix this. If I add text following a link, it continues the linkage throughout all following text. If I look at the page source now, this added text is not seen... the forum is doing this with Java script or something? )
[/ URL][/QUOTE]
I'm kinda guessing, but use AF-S instead of AF-C. And you have up to 39 dynamic focus points that the camera can select. if you want it to use the One that you select, use Single Point AF. D5200 Reference manual, page 36.
The Reference manual is a much larger manual, available here:
[U RL="http://downloadcenter.nikonimglib.com/en/products/24/D5200.html"]Nikon | Download center | D5200
Stars: The infinity marking is not precise. A popular way to focus on stars or Moon is to use Live View, then zoom the LCD view greatly so the scene is seen greatly magnified, enough to see a few bright stars, and then focus manually to make those stars sharp on the magnified Live View screen.
(Sorry, I don't know how to fix this. If I add text following a link, it continues the linkage throughout all following text. If I look at the page source now, this added text is not seen... the forum is doing this with Java script or something? )
[/ URL][/QUOTE]
==================================================
Notice the closing [/URL] tag is adjacent to the [/QUOTE] tag. The [U RL] tag is closed ([/U RL]) at the end of your post, not at the end of your link, where it should be. Everything within the [U RL] ... [/U RL] tags is considered part of the hyperlink.
I moved your closing [/U RL] tag to correct location in my quoted post of yours, putting at the end of the hyperlink where it should be:
In your post you say, "If I add text following a link, it continues the linkage throughout all following text."
The incorrectly placed [/U RL] tag explains WHY, "the linkage continues throughout all following text."
...
I tried that this morning.
I usually have it on AF-A which auto chooses what is appropriate so I did change that, however I have never seen it start trying to adjust the focus on it's own (continuous) when shooting landscapes.
Thanks for the thoughts!
I guess the BB codes are only in the compose window. I did not look then, but they get replaced with HTML in the page source. Anyway, it would seem to be a forum bug.
55mm at 300 feet is asking for a lot from the system. At 28.5 degrees FOV, at 300 feet the view is at least 150 feet wide, that translates to 40 pixels per foot - the head will be just 20 pixels. At that distance the minimum you need is 300mm, which will give you a field of view of around 27 feet - 220 pixels per foot.
https://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-p....html#tab-ProductDetail-ProductTabs-TechSpecs
https://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-p....html#tab-ProductDetail-ProductTabs-TechSpecs
If you want to shoot at long distances regularly, avoid zooms and use prime lenses. The 300mm F4 AFS is the least expensive Telephoto Prime that can be used wide open for distant objects.
https://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-p....html#tab-ProductDetail-ProductTabs-TechSpecs
https://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-p....html#tab-ProductDetail-ProductTabs-TechSpecs
If you want to shoot at long distances regularly, avoid zooms and use prime lenses. The 300mm F4 AFS is the least expensive Telephoto Prime that can be used wide open for distant objects.
Fixed it. This can happen if you edit something right after a link. It takes the URL tag and puts it at the end of the text. If you click the A/A at the top left you can see what it's doing.
Bob Blaylock
Senior Member
If this is the same 18-55mm lens that came with my D3200, then it doesn't even have an infinity focus mark. And worse, if you set it to manual focus and turn it all the way in that direction, it actually goes past infinity; unlike all my very old lenses, where the hard stop is at infinity. Out of the box, there really is no good, easy way to set this lens manually to infinity.
I just recently added an infinity mark to mine, which was a bit tricky, due to the fact that the focus barrel is only adjacent to the zoom barrel, rather than to any fixed reference. I put two marks on the zoom barrel, for each end of its range, and an infinity mark on the focus barrel, which lines up with one of the other marks only if the lens is at one extreme or the other of its zoom range.
This picture shows my infinity mark lined up with the mark that is valid with the lens zoomed out to the 18mm end of its range. To the right, along the zoom barrel, you can see the other mark, that is valid with the lens at the 55mm end of its range.
Bob - My lens isn't exactly the same as yours, but similar. I was having a hard time figuring out how to make sure I was focused to infinity when I started shooting the stars. Coincidentally, I also put a mark on my lens with a small bit of my daughter's nail polish. I wonder why they stopped marking them, it seems like a pretty important thing to have on there.
Bob Blaylock
Senior Member
Perhaps you have the newer VR-II collapsible version, that was introduced later with the D3300. I took it for granted that since you had the D5200, that you probably had the same lens I have, which is the one that would be contemporary with the D5200 and the D3200; but it's not at all improbable, I suppose, that later instances of the D5200 were sold with the newer lens.
In the case of both these lenses, I think it's clear that it was not really intended for the advanced photographer who is likely to care about a marked/calibrated scale for manual focusing; but for the novice that will nearly always be content to let the focusing be done automatically. The design of the lens doesn't really leave anywhere to put such markings, and altering the design to allow for such markings was very obviously not a priority with this lens.
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My take on the Infinity mark is
. With AF you need a bit of leeway, as the internal sensor determines the distance. May be the extra throw is to compensate for the sensor/focus pair shifting mechanically.
. For faster AF the throw (movement) of the focusing mechanism is as little as possible (as long as the sensor is accurate at small angles). That results in large focus changes for small MF angles. So the actual infinity will be a little vague.
If you notice some of the older MF lenses had about 270 degrees of focus ring movement. That made the incremental focus changes easier. My 18-55 has less than 30 degrees and some lenses have even less. In contrast the 105mm F2.8 AIS macro has more than 330 degrees.
Bob Blaylock
Senior Member
It's oddly, never occurred to me to even think of that. I do know that when manually focusing my modern 18-55, it seems much less precise and much trickier than my 1960s-1970s non-AI manual-focus lenses. A shorter throw would certainly be sufficient to explain that.
Bob Blaylock
Senior Member
You weren't kidding about the short focus throw on this lens.
As previously mentioned, it focuses slightly past infinity, as shown in the first picture. The second picture shows it focused all the way to its closest setting.
For comparison, here's my ancient 1972-vintage non-AI 50mm ƒ/1.4. The whole focusing scale cannot be shown in one picture. Looks like it has slightly less than 180° of throw.
Looking at my other two ancient lenses, they both appear to have slightly more than 180°.
I guess it's like you say—the newest lens is optimized for autofocusing, with the ability to be manually-focused just there as a minor afterthought. It doesn't even have a printed scale (other than the infinity mark which I added) and the short throw makes manual focusing very imprecise; but allows for faster autofocusing. The other lenses, of course, were made long before anyone even imagined that cameras would ever autofocus, and they are designed to allow the easiest and most precise manual focusing.