Shots went out of focus during Continuous (L) burst sequence

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Ray

New member
There I was waiting a field for a steam loco to pass, for an unrepeatable shot (my grandad used to drive it and it is unlikely to ever be back on a line near me). D5200 on a tripod. Cable release. 18-105mm Nikkor VR with VR switched off. S mode at 1/500th set. Continuous (L) shooting mode. Pre focused and switched to manual focus, test shots with electric trains all nice and crisp. Steam train goes through, take a burst of 7 using the cable release.

when I review the pics they are out of focus completely, not a slight shift, no part is in focus at all.

When end I recheck the previous test burst of an electric train, the first 6 are sharp, and the 7th shows the same out of focus characteristics as the steam train pics. So it went out of focus mid burst and stayed like that for the next burst as it was on manual focus. I never touched the camera as I was using the cable release.

I can't work out why it went out of focus. Does anyone have any ideas? Many thanks. Ray
 
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Rick M

Senior Member
Did you hold the release button on the remote down the entire time? It may have tried to reacquire focus if you let up on it at all.
 
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PaulPosition

Senior Member
Just a simple cable release, right, not a programmable gadget for focus-stacking and "holy grail timelapses" and such ?

No idea, as of yet, but I'll think hard about it. Meanwhile, I'm bumping this up.
 
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egosbar

Senior Member
what focus mode are you in , im only familiar with the d7100 but id say the 5200 be very similar , i shoot for action shots , 21 point focus with either continuous focus or in your case maybe 3d tracking if your camera has it would work well , ive had no problem following birds in flight tack sharp so a train should work

if you practiced on the electric and the last shot lost focus and your on manual then maybe you had to re focus before the next train , chack your not o single focus point
 
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mauckcg

Senior Member
Ray said:
There I was waiting a field for a steam loco to pass, for an unrepeatable shot (my grandad used to drive it and it is unlikely to ever be back on a line near me). D5200 on a tripod. Cable release. 18-105mm Nikkor VR with VR switched off. S mode at 1/500th set. Continuous (L) shooting mode. Pre focused and switched to manual focus, test shots with electric trains all nice and crisp. Steam train goes through, take a burst of 7 using the cable release.

when I review the pics they are out of focus completely, not a slight shift, no part is in focus at all.

When end I recheck the previous test burst of an electric train, the first 6 are sharp, and the 7th shows the same out of focus characteristics as the steam train pics. So it went out of focus mid burst and stayed like that for the next burst as it was on manual focus. I never touched the camera as I was using the cable release.

I can't work out why it went out of focus. Does anyone have any ideas? Many thanks. Ray
Click to expand...

What did you pre focus on? If you were focused too short, all the shots would be out of focus. The aperture also plays into the depth of field of for the amount of stuff in focus.
 
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Ray

New member
Sorry not to have replied earlier. I prefocussed on an earlier train.

I did a practice burst on another electric train. I was checking the first few of that burst, which was fine, when I heard the steam train coming so I stopped checking. The steam train burst were all out of focus. When I rechecked the last electric train set, shots 1-6 were in focus, shot 7 wasn't. The camera was on a tripod, on manual focus, VR switched off, the camera was fired using a cable release.

I will post the last in focus and first out of focus shots shortly.
 
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Ray

New member
Thanks for all the replies. I can reveal the cause of this 'mystery' and of course it is user error! On closer examination of the Exif info timestamps I realise the last in focus shot and first out of focus shot are not part of the same burst, they are about 30 seconds apart. All electric trains look the same, and the sequence of movement looked right and fooled me. Clearly I must have touched the camera and changed something before the final electric train test burst. In the field I thought was was checking the most recent burst, but obviously I wasn't. Do'h.

I appreciate all the replies, as a newbie it is good to know that the members are friendly and helpful, I hope not to receive too much scorn for this cock-up. I will continue to use the forum and hopefully will be able to help someone else another time.

I managed to make a composite of a shot of the steam train taken elsewhere to overlay over the first shot of one of the in-focus electric train bursts. so it wasn't a complete write off. See https://www.flickr.com/photos/15136073@N03/14207326088/. And if you explore there you will be able to see that I have got shots right a lot of the time since I got my first Nikon in December!

Thanks again for all the replies and help.
 
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