manual focus problem

stefan22

Senior Member
hello .. have a d3100. one of my lenses is a 50mm f1.8 D which I must manually focus with. when doing so through the viewfinder I frame/get what is an in focus picture and it turns out to be 'out of focus'. my 60 year old eyes are obviously NOT as good as they once were but I only wear glasses for reading and not for long sight. am wondering if there's a quick adjusting fix for this problem. a way that I can best overcome this? anticipated thanks
 
Last edited:

Marcel

Happily retired
Staff member
Super Mod
The ground glass used with modern DSLRs is so thin that it's really hard to focus with. That's why some third party focusing screens exist.
You could still use the little lights that go on in the viewfinder to see when the focus happens. You just have to half push your shutter release button to get the focus sensor on and you should get the little arrows and green light in the bottom left of your viewfinder.
 

WayneF

Senior Member
hello .. have a d3100. one of my lenses is a 50mm f1.8 D which I must manually focus with. when doing so through the viewfinder I frame/get what is an in focus picture and it turns out to be 'out of focus'. my 60 year old eyes are obviously NOT as good as they once were but I only wear glasses for reading and not for long sight. am wondering if there's a quick adjusting fix for this problem. a way that I can best overcome this? anticipated thanks

For manual focus, you can use Live View. Live view focus is sort of slow and poor for auto focus, but it works well for manual focus. Because then you can press the + button at side of display to zoom in and magnify the view you want to see (press + a few times). If what you want to see is not centered, you can use the arrow keys to position the view any way you want. Anyway, magnified a few times makes manual focus pretty easy.

See D3100 manual page 43 (the paragraph at bottom about magnifying the view).
 
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