What is backfocus?

arshuter

Senior Member
I was cruising through lenses on ebay reading discriptions and on one the seller said, "works well on my D750 on live focus mode but has back focus if I use normal mode." Can someone please explain this? Thank you
 

pforsell

Senior Member
I was cruising through lenses on ebay reading discriptions and on one the seller said, "works well on my D750 on live focus mode but has back focus if I use normal mode." Can someone please explain this? Thank you

It means that the lens focuses behind the intended target (further away from the camera.) Sometimes this can be helped with the camera auto focus fine tuning, but if it is a valuable Nikkor lens, I'd send it to Nikon service. If it is an off-brand lens or a cheap Nikkor kit lens, I'd forget about it.

There are a few old Nikon lenses that cannot be tuned to work perfectly. For example the AF 80-200mm f/2.8 one-ring lens is one of those.
 

arshuter

Senior Member
It means that the lens focuses behind the intended target (further away from the camera.) Sometimes this can be helped with the camera auto focus fine tuning, but if it is a valuable Nikkor lens, I'd send it to Nikon service. If it is an off-brand lens or a cheap Nikkor kit lens, I'd forget about it.

There are a few old Nikon lenses that cannot be tuned to work perfectly. For example the AF 80-200mm f/2.8 one-ring lens is one of those.
This was just an off brand. I didn,t intend to buy it I have never heard that term before and was curious what they meant. Thank you for clearing it for me.
 

pforsell

Senior Member
This was just an off brand. I didn,t intend to buy it I have never heard that term before and was curious what they meant. Thank you for clearing it for me.

No problem. There's also the complementary term front focus, which means the camera focuses a bit short from the intended target.
 

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Contributor
Not sure how third party lenses work, but this explains how to adjust the AF if a lens front or back focuses on a Nikon body. I'm not sure if this feature is available on the D3xxx or D5xxx series though.

 
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