Autofocus issue

I had a chance to take the 500 and Tam out today and ran into a frustrating issue. I have back button auto focus on, set to continuous, single point. I wanted to get an egret stretched out, so set the focus point wide right. When I tried to focus, it bounced in and out and then locked unfocused. Just now, I set up at home and tried some shots. The first is the point far left, focus on the painting where the red dot is. No issue with focus. The second is with point far right, focus on the curtain. Changing to 25/153 makes no difference

If I set the focus point on any of the 5 center points, I get focus anywhere I point. Outside those on either side, no focus unless there is full contrast.

I have tested with my 4 zooms, Tam and Nikon, with the same results. I can manually focus fine.

Any ideas if this is some setting issue? Or an issue with low contrast focus? Or I'm just not as smart as the camera?

I haven't had this issue, so I am of no help.

Just a guess but...

I suspect the problem may be related to the strong back-lighting under the chosen focus-point in that particular shot.

Went outside and took some shots. I focused on the knot hole; using all the variations of focus method. I got focus only two ways:

any focus point in the center, top to bottom
any focus point in the center side to side





Using any other focus point in the four quadrants will not focus



To see if it was some wonky option setting I did, I reset to factory defaults and tried again: Same results.

I switched bodies to my 5300 and had no problem focusing with any of the focus points it has, so it may be low contrast, but certainly not that bad.

wev said:

Went outside and took some shots. I focused on the knot hole; using all the variations of focus method. I got focus only two ways:

any focus point in the center, top to bottom
any focus point in the center side to side
View attachment 220519

View attachment 220517View attachment 220521View attachment 220518
View attachment 220520

Using any other focus point in the four quadrants will not focus

View attachment 220522

To see if it was some wonky option setting I did, I reset to factory defaults and tried again: Same results.

I switched bodies to my 5300 and had no problem focusing with any of the focus points it has, so it may be low contrast, but certainly not that bad.

Click to expand...

Might not help but you need to sand and paint the grey wood. LOL

Don Kuykendall said:

Might not help but you need to sand and paint the grey wood. LOL

Click to expand...

It was -- 9 days ago.