Its obvious its not the combo fault. Migrating from the D700 (I havent actually got down to using the D810) there are a lot of changes in the UI of this model. Very confused. For eg programming the AE/AF-Lbutton to AE-Lock (Hold), in the D700 once a picture was taken the AE lock reset. Here the AE lock remains locked until the button is pressed again. So I messed up quite a few shots here. Also AF-S and AF-A and AF-S Auto was quite confusing couldnt figure it out A simple snapshot of this church seems to be OOF, So I guess there is a learning curve here too, In camera sharpening I have never used previously, but it seems here I need to. Shot about 150pictures and got only a handful useable. All comments highly welcome
http://www.smugmug.com/photos/i-zwRx3DT/0/O/i-zwRx3DT.jpg
Well, at first I thought it was wide open, because of the abberations on the lamp. The exif says F6,3. I assume it is front-focused.
Where did you focus and how?
Shutter button half pressed
And, before the anti-AF-fine-tune vultures show up, have you checked and tuned AF fine tune on that lens?
No, Sir
Also, have you tried back-button focus?
No, Sir
With a back button focus, tripod (not really necessary but really really handy) and live-view manual focus you can very easily determine the AF-fine tune value and set the lens/body combo to a better shape. And in field, too. No test shots of test charts necessary.
Will do so if necessary, thanks for your reply
Try this and see yourself. If you are unhappy with the results, you can always revert them.
First, you need to set the AE-L button to Focus, so that the shutter button is independent of focusing. In the camera menu, Red Pen, F4, Assign AE-L, Press - set mode to AF-ON.
Now the camera shutter button only shoots and the AE-L works as focus button.
The, get the camera on a tripod, set it to M or A and wide open (ie. F3,5).
Find a suitable scene where you can easily determine focus. Good old brick wall would do, like would anything else that is not likely to confuse AF.
Set camera to Live View and zoom the view on the display (+ - buttons) so that you can see fine details on the test surface.
Turn the focus ring on your lens to achieve the best possible focus. Leave Live-view and do not touch neither the focus ring nor the AE-L "focus" button.
Half press the shutter button and check the two triangles and a dot in the bottom left corner of the viewfinder. If the dot appears, the focus achieved by your manual focus in Live view and what the AF module of the camera thinks are the same. This is supposed to be unlikely according to the photo shown.
If the triangle is like this < it means that you need to set the AF Fine tune values to positive number.
Go to menu, Orange Wrench, AF fine tune, ON, and set some value, say 10.
If it is still <, set more.
If it is >, set less.
Fiddle with the number until you see a dot when you half press the shutter button. This means that the AF module is tuned.
You can do a simple test. Take a photo with manually focused lens. Then turn the focus ring (de-focus the lens) and have the camera auto focus by pressing the AE-L button. Compare the shots. They should be more or less the same focus. For this the AF-S mode with beep confirmation is quite handy ;-)
Do this for a set of focal lengths, say 18, 35, 50, 70, 140 mm and average the results. Unfortunately there is only one AF fine tune value for the whole lens, but something is better than nothing.
Good luck.
