Porblems with soft focus on 2 year old D90?

Have had my D90 for a couple of years, and it was working great. Recently, I'm noticing it have a lot more trouble with the autofocus, particularly indoors. Doesn't matter if I'm using my kit zoom lens, 50mm 1.4 or 85mm 1.8.

What I'm seeing is much slower AF overall, and worse, generally "soft" focus even when I'm shooting a still target in good light.

On top of that, I'm seeing much more grain in my photos overall. Is my sensor shot? What's going on?

I've recently found myself in the same position regarding the focus issues. All of a sudden it seemed that my d90 wouldn't focus properly. Granted, I'm dealing with taking pictures of my 3 and 6 year old but 6 months ago I didn't seem to have this many problems.

I reset my camera back to factory settings with seemed to help a little, but still have quite a few shots that aren't as good as I think they should be!

It could be that I'm more critical of what is in focus, but I'm not sure. I'm planning on upgrading to a D7000 soon (un-related to my focus issues), but I would love to know what I'm doing wrong.

Thanks,
Mark

--Hi,have you tried cleaning the lens contacts on the lens and the camera and cleaning the sensor mite help.Worth a try if you havent.
Paul
http://s888.photobucket.com/albums/ac89/trumpyman750/

Thanks, I was just thinking that as well (never cleaned). So I've just cleaned all the lens/camera contacts. Hopefully that will help.

I'll post back later positive/negative.

Thanks,
Mark

Thanks to both of you. I know what you mean about shooting moving targets since I'm mostly photographing 2 kids under 4. But I totally agree - the camera's performance has gone downhill.

Factory reset didn't help at all for me. I did clean the lens well with no improvement, and it doesn't seem to matter which lens I'm using. Will try the senor and camera next. Here's hoping that works!

For now I'm using my husband's GH2. It's a decent camera but not my baby, if you know what I mean?

I think a lot of times, we change our method of shooting over time. Maybe you've changed your default ISO value or aperture. Are you using or not using flash more or less. I am suggesting that because like you I noticed a subtle change in my D90's performance and discovered it was me, not the camera. I went back and looked at photos from early in my ownership of the D90 compared to those more recent. The specs were noticable in their difference. I was shooting more with wider apertures because I bought the 50mm 1.4 like you. So with the wide apertures there is softness of course. And I had also begun to shoot with the 10-24 Nikon and then not paid attention to settings I had used and used the same with other lenses.

In all likelihood the camera is fine. Sometimes I compare what you and I have experienced to computers. They are always kick-ass when we get them, then as time passes we expect more from them and assume they are finished because they don't match other, newer, higher spec models.
--
John

I thought this might be the case, but the lenses aren't new, and factory reset didn't help. I mostly shoot in the P function, and just adjust ISO, white balance, and occasionally exposure. Rarely use flash. I don't think my methods have changed but it's worth a look back. Thanks!

lidobb said:

Have had my D90 for a couple of years, and it was working great. Recently, I'm noticing it have a lot more trouble with the autofocus, particularly indoors. Doesn't matter if I'm using my kit zoom lens, 50mm 1.4 or 85mm 1.8.

What I'm seeing is much slower AF overall, and worse, generally "soft" focus even when I'm shooting a still target in good light.

On top of that, I'm seeing much more grain in my photos overall. Is my sensor shot? What's going on?

Click to expand...

The increased grain in your photos may actually be a consequence of the "soft" focusing, (assuming that you're at a reasonably low ISO, 800 or under). You may want to try a couple of experiments to prove this to yourself. Try focusing on a brightly lit still life with LiveView AF, then with Viewfinder AF (not handheld, use a tripod or some other stable platform), and check to see if there are signficant differences in the focus achieved. Also try just manually focusing the camera. LiveView may be easier to use here as well, but at least you should be able to get a very sharp image. I suspect that when you do the graininess will disappear.
If you get differences between LV and VF AF, the camera body needs realignment.

Thanks!