D800 focus issue

[takiainen]

Just thought it is better to share this with the community, since there seems to be a general idea, that the D800 focus issues have been solved.I bought my camera in March 2013 from Finland, and its serial number starts with "6". Since the beginning I noticed the focus was inconsistent with all focus points (including the center) - sometimes backfocusing and sometimes frontfocusing. I normally use Nikon 24/1.4, 35/1.4 and 85/1.4 primes. After 2000 or so pictures, I decided to try the proper focus test and the results are below. I also have the latest firmware installed.

I had three A4 size focus targets on well lit wall. Camera was on tripod, I used base ISO and the distance to wall was around 2m. AF-S mode was used, and focus was turned to infinity before autofocusing. Lens finetune was switched to OFF (it was no use anyway, since focus has been inconsistent). First liveview and then three shots using the viewfinder.

I tried only the left most, center and the right most focus point in this test, but later found that it seems that the camera struggles with all the left side focus points - the further left the focus point is, the more it struggles.



Below you find the results using 35mm, 24mm and 14-24mm f2.8 lenses.

 

[Zlik]

Strange: for the 35mm, it looks like you weren't parallel to the wall: the left chart with live view focus has more color aberrations than the right chart. Or maybe your lens is decentered ? A lens should be symmetrical. There are often differences between the center and the sides, but both sides should be very similar.

Regarding the left side focus when using phase detection AF, id does seem to be more off than the right side...

 

[elliotn]

I don't believe Nikon has fully resolved the AF issues with the D800, but your results look fine to me. Your D800 performs a lot better than mine.

 

[takiainen]

I noticed the same thing: it seems chromatic aberration is asymmetrical when using 35mm lens. I really don't know why, since the setup was the same with all the lenses - I did not move the tripod while changing the lenses. I haven't noticed this in real life photos though - or maybe I just haven't pixel peeped enough

The focus issue however bothers me almost every time I use the camera.

 

[Fastmikefree]

Hi

I don't agree with your statement saying that most of us believe that the problem has been solved. Most of the people with the left focus AF issue have just gave up.

It is true that the last firmware has improved the focus along with other things, but the left AF is still there with no fix for those impacted.

Kind regards

Phil

 

[takiainen]

Thanks for your comment Phil. Maybe it was then just my misconception. I've just seen several people saying there are no focus issues anymore with this camera. But since they truly still exists, I feel it is important to keep the topic alive - otherwise we might never see a solution to this problem.