Dull pictures

I have been using D7000 for last 2-3 mo and working well, till recently when I have been noticing the pics to be dull, somewhat foggy without vibrant colors. Focus is fine, just not bright and brilliant like they used to be. I have changed to various settings without any improvement. I am not a pro and might have made some inadvertant changes in settings. I use nikor AFS 35mm f/1.8G and ED 16-85 f/3.5-5.6 lenses. Thanks.

It's hard to say what may have happened. Other than the pictures appearing foggy have you noticed anything else? Are there in particles showing up in the images? Have you checked your sensor? It may be dirty. There is a cleaning function in the D7000 try using that? I also recommend checking all of your settings. You may have inadvertently changed something. Is this issue on all lens? If you have reviewed all of your settings and checked your sensor consider testing your camera with another lens and see if it changes any. Have you checked the lens for smudges and or dust?

Post a picture as an example

A picture would help.
Try resetting all settings to default on the camera & see the optimum settings on your lens as well (focus, VR etc whatever is applicable)

Are you shooting RAW or JPEG? Check you picture control. Go under your Shooting Menu--Manage picture Control---Save/edit----then choose which setting;
Standard Neutral, Vivid, Monochrome, Portrait etc... Which do you have currently selected? You could have easily changed this and forgotten to change it back. Post a a few pictures so we can see what you are encountering.

Thanks folks. I am shooting in JPEG mode. and the problem of flat foggy results was being noticed with both my lenses. and as I said the results had been great previously.I have cleaned the sensor and changed to default settings and I will shoot again soon and let you know. will also post the pics if the problem continues. Thanks again.

Adam1 said:

Thanks folks. I am shooting in JPEG mode. and the problem of flat foggy results was being noticed with both my lenses. and as I said the results had been great previously.I have cleaned the sensor and changed to default settings and I will shoot again soon and let you know. will also post the pics if the problem continues. Thanks again.

Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure that sensor cleaning has nothing to do with dull pictures (but difficult to judge without seeing them). I strongly suspect that your jpeg settings (Shooting menu<set picture control) is the culprit. Go in the menu and set your picture control to standard and bump up the sharpening and saturation around 6. See if that helps.

Do not forget that lighting conditions also can make an image look dull. Sometimes it's a question of contrast and luminosity of the original scene.

Enjoy your Nikon!

On my 5100, 'Neutral' looks very dull. Set it to 'Standard' and you should see a big improvement.

Setting back to Default has done the trick and the pics are back to normal now. I guess, I will have to learn to make one setting change at a time. Thanks again. You have been very helpful

I'm glad that worked for you Adam. It easy to make changes and then forget to undo those changes. Thankfully resetting is easy should you find you changed something you are not quite sure of.