Problem with my D5000

[cre8ivehand]

Hi all,

I've been experiencing a problem with my camera (or it could be me). Whenever i take a picture and review it on the LCD screen straight after it looks really sharp but when i transfer the pictures to my computer the picture looks fuzzy and at times out of focus :(

Could anyone suggests any solutions or better technique?

Thanks all

Tubz

[Kaye]

Hi Tubz,
Join the club with all of us! (and probably most photographers).
My shots always look brilliant on the LCD screen, but when blown up to correct size on the PC, they rarely look the same.

My only suggestion is to know and check your camera settings, and concentrate your focus on your subject.
Using a tripod for your shots will also help, as slight hand shake (movement) will blur your shot.

[mrdoug]

Tubz... like Kaye said, welcome to the club. I shot an entire shoot with a contestant of the Ms. Minnesota Pageant, right? 2/3's of the shots were just blurry enough that the couldn't be used. Totally sucked! It's at that point that I went and bought a Manfrotto mono-pod with a rotating ball-head. Cumbersome at times, yep. But I get less than 10 photos for an entire shoot now that are blurred... which is approx. 250-500 shots. Just my input, buddy.

[edward53]

Hi yes i had the same problem with my D5000 and the way i stopped it was if your ISO is automatic then the default was 200 and hand held you need 250 to 500 for hand held. I have never had that problem again. Below 250 you have to have a tripod/monopod.
Edward

[jerryph]

ISO has nothing to do with this.

What is likely happening is that first ANY photo reduced to a smaller size looks sharper than when on screen. Second is if one is shooting RAW, you are *not* looking at the RAW image, you are seeing a camera modified JPG image that is embedded in the RAW file.

Of course, then you look at the RAW file and this is basically an unedited "digital negative" of what the sensor captured... and *all* RAW files need at least some sharpening.

What I would like to know is:
- what format is the camera shooting?
- What lens are you using? (quality lenses give quality images)
- what camera settings are you using?

Finally, I would want to see an example of this blurred image, it could be something else as well.

[nikd5000]

it sounds like you need to adjust your diopater its right beside your eye piece

[AndyP]

There could be one or two things going on here, I suffered from #2.

1. Get your shutter speed up a bit, do you use VR? If so make sure it is on, also if using the camera in a tripod turn the VR off.

2. Is the focus of the camera correct? I suffered with my D5000 back focussing, i.e. I took an image of a squirrel and the point of focus was right on the nose, however the tail was in focus. This gave a fuzzy impression to many of my images, I used the Nikon ask a question bit on their site and got asked to use all my lenses to take the same shot and upload them, did this and they agreed back focus was the issue.

Hope that helps

Andy

[cre8ivehand]

Sorry not sure what back focussing is :( When i'm indoors my camera is set up 1/60, 4.5 aperture, iso 200 sometimes I use exposure compensation. I use the kit lens that came with the camera. The lighting in my sitting room is a single economic bulb would that have any bearing with regards to the quality of pictures?

Thank you all

Tubz

[AndyP]

Back focus is where you have focussed on one point (nose) the nose is OOF, but the tail is in focus (or something else behind where your focal point was.

Turn your iso up indoors, or use a flash, get the shutter speed up too, economic bulb is dreadful light and wont help you at all. Better still get outdoors with good light and see if your issues go away.

Andy

[Patey]

If some of your photograph is sharp then check you AF setting. If however none of the photo is sharp, chances are that it's camera shake.

Most important lesson is learn how to hold your camera correctly and squeeze the shutter gently. Hand holding a standard focal length lens at 1/60 should be no problem.

Practise, practise and more practise. :)

[jerryph]

Still waiting to see an example. Without it, all that everyone is doing is guessing.

[cre8ivehand]

As you can see on the left hand side the picture is sharp but on the right hand side it is out of focus :confused:

[mj702002]

I won't be of any help to you with your problem...but I think you may get asked for your exif on that shot for those that can help you to see what you used to take that shot!

[Bambe]

the exif would be really helpful. My theory is that you were too close for the lens so it couldn't focus. As a result the shot is soft. I bet if you pulled back a bit and then shot it would be much much better. when I look there's a very small area that is in focus. Perhaps your aperture was too open.
Are you using the autofocus or are you doing it manually?
is your lens a vibration reduction or not?
What was the shutter speed? If it was too low (less then 1/60) then any hand held shot is very likely to be soft due to motion blur. It's very very difficult to keep the camera still enough below 1/60 sec handheld.

[AndyP]

I concur with Bambe on this, details needed; do you know how to get the exif data?

If not, go to your image in the file, right click and look at the properties and the data will be listed.

This looks like motion blur and also a wide open aperture to me.

Cheers

Andy

[coffee]

I don't know what focal length you are using, but generally speaking, 1/60 shutter speed is not fast at all while hand holding, and can cause camera shake easily at any focal length longer than say 50mm (ish). So unless you are using an wide angle lens and/or tripod, you need to speed up the shutter. You have room to raise your iso to speed shutter. EXIF data would be of great help though to know the problem.

You are also very close to this object at a larger aperture. So you are going to have a small area of the object that is going to actually be in focus, with a lot of drop-off beyond that. If you take the another image of the same object using a tripod and say f/13 or so, you will see more of the object in focus, with with greater depth of field.

[cre8ivehand]

Sorry for forgetting the EXIF:

Focal length: 55mm
Aperture: f/5.6
Sutter speed: 1/30
ISO: 720
Metering mode: Pattern

[AndyP]

1/30 answers your query,

speed it up.

Andy

[LarryH]

IMO, Bambe is the closest in that you violated minimum focusing distance. The more distant portion is the part that is sharper.
The aperture of f 5.6 should be adequate for required DOF.

If it were, in fact, motion blur it would be consistent throughout the image, i.e., everything would be blurred, not part in focus and part OOF.

I agree that 1/30 is too slow for hand held but don't think that is the villain in this case.

Just my $0.02 USD:)

[pipedesign]

If you are like me you get into the settings menu's and think you need to change something but often forget about it next shoot.
Maybe you should consider resetting everything to factory default and start again.