D5100 Auto Focus not so great

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silvercreek

Senior Member
When preparing to snap a picture using the AF lens setting, the picture doesn’t always come out as clear as it does when I manually focus. I'm holding the shutter button down part of the way until it focuses. Sometimes it's a clear focus and sometimes it's not. What am I doing wrong?

I don't have any sample to post because I have been so frustrated that I deleted the pictures.
 
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pistnbroke

Banned
try the AF-S setting which is what most professionals would use ...pick the point you want as main focus ..pick an edge ( it wont focus on a monotone area) ..half press until it bleeps and then re frame and fully press.
I often have a bride and groom in church and can focus on mum a long way behind and between them giving mum in focus and the couple out of focus...alternatively focus on the bride and thats the main focus. All this spatter focus with multiple points tries to do its best but can fail at wide apertures to get what you want....
 
Marcel

Marcel

Happily retired
Staff member
Super Mod
Maybe, just maybe, the light conditions were not good enough or your subject not contrasty enough for the camera to achieve good enough focus. There are light or subject conditions that can make auto-focus imposibble. Hope this is what it was. Otherwise, I don't know.
 
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CameraTester

New member
Yes I agree with using AF-S. But my lenses are all manual so I haven't really gotten to test out the auto focus on the D5100, but I had the D5000 and D3000 and they did great. Wouldn't imagine they would make it worse in the better camera. But I hope everything works good for you.
 
BackdoorArts

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
AF-C by camera default is usually set to Release mode, which will fire whether it has focus lock or not. Dark conditions or smaller maximum apertures, in my experience, even with AF-S can lead to focus hunting or near misses.
 
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pistnbroke

Banned
if you are in AF-S mode and the shutter cannot fire unless in focus you will have no problems if you pick an edge to focus on in the plane you want in focus . half press and re frame...IF you zoom to re frame or the object moves you will loose focus. try to use A (not auto ) with minimum of F8, min 1/30 iso 100-3200 .Use a VR lens . I assume you have the sharpness set to +9 , high iso noise reduction on ,are using Large and are not confusing lack of sharpness with bad focus
 
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AC016

AC016

Senior Member
Silvercreek, please let us know what the lighting conditions were and what AF mode you were in and how close to the subject you were. Just saying you were not getting it focused does not tell us much. You may also want to change the title of your thread because the AF system on the 5100 works just fine. Again, post more details.
 
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pistnbroke

Banned
Tripod whats that ..old technology ..VR lens rules

only thing I would use a tripod for is Fireworks or night street scenes
 
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Scott Murray

Scott Murray

Senior Member
pistnbroke said:
Tripod whats that ..old technology ..VR lens rules

only thing I would use a tripod for is Fireworks or night street scenes
Click to expand...
Tripods are great for a lot of situations, I am unsure if you can get decent blur in a waterfall with out one ;) unless of course you want the whole lot blurred lol
 
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§am

Senior Member
Tripods and their variants are also useful for time lapse photography, self portraiture (if you're into that kind thing), and probably a whole host of other things.
VR is still useful, and has its place, but I wouldn't say you should have one over the other, or you can do without one if you don't have the other :)
 
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hoangtien1211

New member
Newbie question: is there a way to switch quickly between letting the camera picking the focus point automatically and user picking the focus point manually? like the dedicated button on Canon.
 
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