Testing for the autofocus problem?

Rasmus

Senior Member
Hi all

I bought a d7000 a few days ago, to replace my d3100. I love the better feel of it, and more accessible controls, and the size suits my big hands better.

However i'm starting to worry i might have this much-discussed autofocus problem; only problem is, all i can find on it is some rather vague explanations, and no easy to way find out if i have a problem with my unit, or simply poor skills with it :confused:

I shot a bunch of pictures of my daughter today, the lighting wasn't perfect by any stretch, but i was a bit concerned when about 25-33% of the pictures were out of focus, or simply blurred. In a light setting, with a d7000 and the 35 mm 1.8, i didn't expect that, considering how little she moves.

So in short: how do i verify if there is a focus issue in my new d7000? i bought it online, so i'd really hate having to send it back already, so if i could test it a bit myself first, that'd be better.

I'll add a couple of the blurry pictures for reference, in another post, it seems i need to log in with explorer to get the uploader working.
 

Rasmus

Senior Member
D7K_0425.jpg
D7K_0479.jpg
D7K_0481.jpg
D7K_0501.jpg This ons is also horribly overexposed for some reason

Disregard the poor settings, we were just messing around a bit, but surely the gear combo i listed should be capable of making pictures a lot sharper than this?

No editing done, just resizing the out-of-camera jpgs
 

Marcel

Happily retired
Staff member
Super Mod
The first shot was done at 1/30s. This is way way too slow a shutter speed for kids. They do move just enough to make you believe the shot is out of focus. But it's motion blur. Also, the face itself was in the shadow so there was not too much the contrast detection focus could work with. Sometimes I find that manual focus works better...

The flash shot is perfectly focused and sharp. This should tell you something.
 

Rasmus

Senior Member
The first shot was done at 1/30s. This is way way too slow a shutter speed for kids. They do move just enough to make you believe the shot is out of focus. But it's motion blur. Also, the face itself was in the shadow so there was not too much the contrast detection focus could work with. Sometimes I find that manual focus works better...

The flash shot is perfectly focused and sharp. This should tell you something.

I was going to argue that the flash didn't fire on the last one, but the exif data says otherwise...that's kinda strange, since i rarely use a flash when shooting indoors with the 35 mm.

But you're right, the shutter speed was too low, i was shooting in aperture priority mode, and on my 3100 that was usually fine for indoors, but i clearly need to micromanage a bit more with the d7000.

So in short, you're not seeing any hardware problems, only problems with the person behind the camera :) That can be corrected without sending my camera away at least... i hope
 
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