I could use some help!

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GirlFromMarz

New member
I just upgraded on Sunday from a D40x to a D7000. I upgraded for the low light capabilities and have been ecstatic with the higher ISO! I rarely get a nice crisp photo though. My focal point is usually the most in focus but its really not very crisp. I'm playing with random objects around the room that don't move, trying different settings hand held and with the tripod. I was playing with it outside while my kids were playing and non of those are very nice. They were moving but my shutter was pretty fast.

Here is one of the better photos I took outdoors. 1/1250 & F/4.5 Shouldn't I be able to do better at these settings?
DSC_8582.jpg

Here is one I'm happy with indoors. 1/100 & F/3.2
DSC_8599.jpg

Any suggestions for me to start with for settings I should try using?
 
AC016

AC016

Senior Member
Can you please let us know at what ISO these pictures were taken at? Aside from that, in regards to helping you out, i can't help you get back to Mars, lol:p
 
Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
A few things to try...


  • Smaller aperture. Your depth of field at f/4.5 and f/3.2 is going to be pretty shallow. I'm typically all over f/8.0 for general purposes.


  • If you have it enabled, turn OFF the Vibration Reduction. In my experience with it, if you're not 110% sure you need VR turned on, you don't need VR turned on.


  • Go into your setup menu and increase the in-camera Sharpness setting. The adjustment goes to +9 but I found +7 or +8 to be the "sweet spot" on my D5100. Your mileage may vary of course.
 
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GirlFromMarz

New member
In the jump rope picture ISO was 200, the homework photos was ISO 1600.

I'll try adjusting the aperture, with the D40x I didn't typically go that high as I'd have to adjust the ISO too high, I'll give that a try!

I don't have any VR lenses, so luckily don't need to worry about that.

Sharpening I have at +6, but to be honest who knows what it was at when those photos were taken I've played around with a lot of the menu setting trying to improve it. But with it at +6 at the moment photos are still pretty soft, even on a tripod, unless I'm expecting too much.

I had thought I did fill out my profile, it must not have saved. Is that the information that shows up on the left under my name?
 
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Dave_W

The Dude
I'm going to go a little opposite of H-fish's suggestion and say leave VR on until you 100% comfortable at holding a camera super steady. And while altering the aperture will increase your depth of field, it will also increase the exposure times, which can be problematic if you're using this for low light situations. Lenses tend to be at their sharpest when the aperture is approx 1 to 1.5 stops smaller than their maximum opening.

Secondly, the D7000 is much like a professional camera and by that I mean your lenses can be fine tuned to perfect their focus. You will find few of your lenses are perfect "as-is" and that most of your lenses will require some subtle focus adjustments. When you have some time on your hands, about an hour or so, fine tune your auto-focus to match each of your lenses. The values you put for each lens will be remembered by your camera and each time you put the lens on, it will adjust to match your settings.

Here are a couple of charts and instructions for fine tuning your lenses. These below are just a few of all the charts and instructions that exist, do a google search and you'll find ton's on information on fine tuning your lenses.

http://www.tunerphotography.com/uploads/Instructions_for_using_the_AF_Fine_Tuning_Focus_Chart.pdf


[URL]http://regex.info/blog/photo-tech/focus-chart


[/URL]
 
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Don Kuykendall_RIP

RIP :(
GirlFromMarz said:
I had thought I did fill out my profile, it must not have saved. Is that the information that shows up on the left under my name?
Click to expand...

Yes, the main thing that really help is having your camera information there. It really help when people are answering questions that you have. I don't shoot the D7000 so I can't answer specific questions that pertain to your camera's controls but can help you with basic photography questions.

The jump rope picture looks pretty good but since we see only a small picture it is really hard to tell.

One of the things to check is what quality setting you have it one. For now you should probably have it on JPEG Fine and LARGE.

You also said you do not have VR lenses. Did the camera not come with a lens? All the kit lenses are VR. But that is probably not your problem anyway,
 
BackdoorArts

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
What Dave W said. I also found that the mirror slap of the D7000 was rather aggressive. Try shooting in Quiet Mode (bottom wheel on Q). It's a much smoother shutter feel, and unless you have hands like a vice I'm convinced it produces sharper photos with that camera. Darrell Young agrees in his book Mastering the D7000.
 
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fotojack

Senior Member
I liked the first shot of the jump rope. I took the liberty of tweaking it a bit to see if it made any difference. I think it did. Your thoughts?

DSC_8582.jpg
 
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jwstl

Senior Member
Which lens are using? It could be you are noticing differences because you now have significantly more resolution and the lens may not be up to it.
 
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Rexer John

Senior Member
fotojack said:
I liked the first shot of the jump rope. I took the liberty of tweaking it a bit to see if it made any difference. I think it did. Your thoughts?
Click to expand...

Good job Fotojack.
I'd photoshop the person out of the background.
I'd prefer the shadow to be fully in the picture too, it's an important part of the shot if it's available.
The original pic looks like it's been cropped so maybe it's in the original image.
The tree and house don't bother me.

​Nice photo.
 
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GirlFromMarz

New member
Tracsoft - Don Kuykendall said:
One of the things to check is what quality setting you have it one. For now you should probably have it on JPEG Fine and LARGE.

You also said you do not have VR lenses. Did the camera not come with a lens? All the kit lenses are VR. But that is probably not your problem anyway,
Click to expand...

I just checked that, the jump rope was basic and the homework was normal, both JPEG & large, I just switched that to fine.

Both my previous D40x and the D7000 I purchased body only.

BackdoorHippie said:
What Dave W said. I also found that the mirror slap of the D7000 was rather aggressive. Try shooting in Quiet Mode (bottom wheel on Q). It's a much smoother shutter feel, and unless you have hands like a vice I'm convinced it produces sharper photos with that camera. Darrell Young agrees in his book Mastering the D7000.
Click to expand...

Changed that a well.

fotojack said:
I liked the first shot of the jump rope. I took the liberty of tweaking it a bit to see if it made any difference. I think it did. Your thoughts?

View attachment 32591
Click to expand...

I think its the small size I'm not really noticing, LOL What was tweaked?

jwstl said:
Which lens are using? It could be you are noticing differences becasue you now have significantly more resolution and the lens may not be up to it.
Click to expand...

On both of these I'm using the 50mm 1.8D.


Thanks all of you for helping me trouble shoot this. I want to master this focus business. Its frustrating and there are so many things I could be doing wrong!
 
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GirlFromMarz

New member
Rexer John said:
Good job Fotojack.
I'd photoshop the person out of the background.
I'd prefer the shadow to be fully in the picture too, it's an important part of the shot if it's available.
The original pic looks like it's been cropped so maybe it's in the original image.
The tree and house don't bother me.

​Nice photo.
Click to expand...

My neighbor decided to take her garbage out at the wrong time. LOL Here I was just playing around with the different settings and I think I was looking at the exposure and white balance changes, wasn't really paying attention to the composition, it was after I loaded it to my computer I noticed the focus problem I'm having.
 
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fotojack

Senior Member
Jennifer, the tweaking I did was extremely basic, done in Irfanview. First I cropped it to the size you see there. Then I did Auto Color Correction, then Sharpen. I also gave it a little boost in saturation and contrast. That's it. :)

Yeah, Rexer.....I just wanted to show what a little tweaking could do, not utilizing any PS or LR, just a small basic processing program. Imagine tweaking in PS! :)
 
L

Lee

Senior Member
pedroj said:
Auto Focus Constant might help...AF-C
Click to expand...

This ^^^

When I got my D7000 a few weeks ago I set up some still lifes in the house (cuz ya know it just kills ya to get new gear and not be able to use it RIGHT NOW, lol). I too noticed that my photos weren't sharp. I knew it was settings based and extremely unlikely to be the camera. After a good hour of tweaking and adjusting settings I changed the AF servo mode and also changed the focus points (I did this due to the subject and how I wanted the focus to apply to my specific image). Immediately I had tack sharp images - or at least the parts that I wanted sharp were sharp and the others were nicely blurred. Also, MF is a good way to ensure your images are properly focused, although this is not practical for every situation - or at least not in my level of experience.

It would be great once you find what is causing the issue if you would report back to us :)
 
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GirlFromMarz

New member
I am getting much better results! Some of the changes I made were the AF-C, I changed a3 to OFF, a6 to AF11, and dynamic 9. I'll post some photos later.
 
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