What's Wrong With my Wife's D5300?

Do a program reset from the menu and try again.

Tootsall said:

Do a program reset from the menu and try again.

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Hi,

Thanks. That in fact was the first thing we tried. :-|

So some things to try before throwing in the towel and heading off to the repair center.

You don't have any weird ISOs or minimum shutter speed overrides programmed in that would force the camera to go with a smaller aperture (although it shouldn't if in A priority). Have you checked exif data to confirm that the camera at least thinks the lens was at f3.5? Cleaned the contacts between the lens and body? Tried different lenses to see if the problem is possibly there and not in the body?

If all of that seems OK, then i would set the camera on a tripod, focus on something about 4-6 feet away (I'm guessing that this is the 18-55 VR kit?), and take a series of shots in A priority while running through the aperture range. Try this in both auto-focus both EVF and live view and a third time in manual focus. Is there any change in the result?

That should point you in the general direction of the problem.

If camera shoots with very wide depth of field, then aperture must be closed down a lot. There's no other explanation. Maybe there's some problem with communication between lens and camera, or lens is broken and stuck in some small aperture - e.g. f/10-f/16. That would also explain focus hunting, if not enough light is coming through closed down lens. However, it should be immediately visible since viewfinder would be darker than usual. And that would probably mess up with exposure metering and you'll see other effects as well.

To test aperture you can shoot multiple images in A mode and with fixed ISO. Start with open aperture and then close it down. Brightness should remain constant, and you should only notice that shutter speed gets slower. And DoF should be different.

DavidM67 said:

Greetings,

When I treated myself to a Nikon D810, my wife 'inherited' my D5300 with kit lens.

We just got back from a trip to Berlin, and I got some really nice pics. My wife, however, is having issues with the D5300, and it's been six months since I touched it, and can't remember how to solve this.

She will frequently aim at something, and the camera will 'hunt', i.e. it will keep trying to focus, the lens shifting back and forth without ever being able to focus. I've been standing next to her when this has happened, and when I look at her lens, it's turning left and right constantly.

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This has happened to me once or twice and when it has, it was because I was using single point AF and assumed that the focus point (which sometimes isn't easy to see) was in the center of the frame when it actually was located somewhere else in the frame. If the AF point was over a low contrast subject that was difficult to focus on, such as hair, fur, smoke, clouds, etc., the lens would hunt and focusing would eventually fail. This isn't necessarily why your wife is having a problem but it should be checked.

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Member said:

Another gripe that she has, is that sometimes, she'll be in aperture-priority shooting (as an example) flowers. She'll be standing three feet or so from the flowers, with her lens at f/3,5, and a building say 250 feet away behind the flowers. The effect she's looking for is the flowers to be in focus, and everything behind them, blurred - and indeed, this is the result when I shoot the same scene with my 810 and my 50mm prime set to f/3,5. When she takes the shot, however, everything is pin-sharp.

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Even accounting for the narrower depth of field of your FX sensor D810 this is impossible if similar parameters are used. Using DOFMaster shows that an FX sensor at f/3.6 (it also allows f/3.4 to be selected but not f/3.5) at 3 feet with a 50mm lens, the DoF is 0.22 ft, ranging from 2.89 ft. to 3.12 ft.

Switching from an FX sensor to one of Nikon's DX sensors, leaving all else the same actually reduces the DoF from 0.22 to 0.15 ft, but that's because the focal length was still 50mm. Changing it to 33mm (which is equivalent to 50mm with a DX sensor) increases the DoF to 0.35 ft. There's no way that a building 250 feet behind the flowers would be pin-sharp. Unless, that is, the D5300 actually focused on the building. If that happened, using 250 ft. for the focus distance show that instead of having a DoF of 0.35 ft., it increases to a near limit of 41.8 ft. and a far limit of infinity. The flowers wouldn't be pin-sharp but detail is often hard to see in flowers, and if you/she didn't zoom all the way in (in playback) to check for flower details, the flowers might have seemed to be fairly sharp. The only ways to increase the apparent DoF would be if your distance estimates were too low for the distance of the flowers and if the focal length used with the D5300's kit lens was reduced, say, to 18mm.

If you post a few of your wife's photos we may be able to figure out what happened.

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Member said:

Is there something wrong with the camera, or is she doing something wrong?

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As described, it can't be a camera or a lens problem.

Have you tried different lenses, some from your D810. The hunting sounds like she could be set in AF-A focus mode, or set for face recognition, and it's hunting for a subject to focus on. At least that's my first guess at what's going on. I'd go through all the menus and compare them to the settings on the 810 and see if you can duplicate them to the best of what the two cameras can do and see if you still have the problem.

Yes that's what it is. It's set in continuous focus mode or facial recognition, and so it's constantly changing focus every time you move the camera.

It's quite normal behaviour for some settings

Make sure autofocus is set to AF-S and do a review of settings

Take care

This is almost certainly an autofocus use issue. If in AF-C, the focus will hunt every time the camera is pointed in a different direction. If in AF-A "auto" mode, you can never guess where it will focus, but it will be programmed to lock onto the closest objects. OK for snapshots of people, not so much for landscapes or creative photography. I would suggest putting the camera is AF-S mode, single-point focus. Alternatively, AF-A mode, single-point focus, but you give up some control here, as the camera may transition into AF-C mode if it thinks the subject is moving. For moving subjects, consider selecting AF-C multi-point focus mode. These settings should make autofocus behave in a more rational way. For a beginner, I would put the camera in "P" mode and select AF-S single point. Once comfortable with that mode, I would go into "A" mode for DOF control and remain in AF-S mode. I use AF-S single point and aperture priority for 90% of my shots.

Cheers.

Sounds very typical of a bit of dust on the AF prism under the mirror, just a speck of dust there will have the AF hunting backwards and forwards wondering why it can't correctly find focus, a dust blower on the AF prism usually does the job!

Its so easy to move the single AF point on the D5300. Before each shot make sure you press OK.