Still more 5700 low light focusing - 9 days and counting

[Mel64]

I have had my 5700 less than 24 hours, but am already thinking about returning it within the Ritz 10 day return period. I love everything about it except you-know-what! I am so frustrated. What good is the beautiful color, the noiseless imagery, the outstanding resolution, if I can't get a head and shoulders shot in focus? I have used the Sony DSC-S85 and the Minolta D7i, and both of these focus quickly and easily in low light and give nice, sharp images. I hate to give up on the 5700 and get one of these instead, because of the limited zoom of the Sony, and the image noise issues of the Minolta.

I guess I am just venting out of frustration I will certainly spend much of the next 7-8 days trying to get more familiar and comfortable with the 5700. I wont part with it without trying. Any suggestions as to how any of you have adapted or accommodated this situation are appreciated.

 

[arra]

If the low light focusing is a real problem then go for Minolta and "let the noise be with" You ;-).

When I've bought my digi cam I've started to travel instead of taking boring pictures in completely dark rooms. So low light focus isn't problem to me, that's why I go for Nikon...

PS. If You will choose SONY try F707, it's very good camera...

--- Arra ---
Poland
Nikon 4500 + CF 128MB + HAHNEL LITHIUM BATTERY HL-EL1 720mAh
http://www.pbase.com/arra/misc_nikon_4500

 

[ronin]

I have had my 5700 less than 24 hours, but am already thinking
about returning it within the Ritz 10 day return period. I love
everything about it except you-know-what! I am so frustrated. What
good is the beautiful color, the noiseless imagery, the outstanding
resolution, if I can't get a head and shoulders shot in focus? I
have used the Sony DSC-S85 and the Minolta D7i, and both of these
focus quickly and easily in low light and give nice, sharp images.
I hate to give up on the 5700 and get one of these instead, because
of the limited zoom of the Sony, and the image noise issues of the
Minolta.
I guess I am just venting out of frustration I will certainly
spend much of the next 7-8 days trying to get more familiar and
comfortable with the 5700. I wont part with it without trying. Any
suggestions as to how any of you have adapted or accommodated this
situation are appreciated.

If you haven't already turned AF Area Mode
to "Off" then this could be your problem.
Go to the second set of menu's then select
the FOCUS options. The first option is AF
Area Mode. Set it to "Off", then try shooting
in your usual "low light" conditions. I find that
my E5000 will focus in near darkness with
this setting. I haven't heard any good
reasons as to why this works, maybe
someone else in this forum can explain the
differences between the central focus point
in the "manual" and "Off" modes.

Have fun shooting!!

 

[swivel man]

Mel, check out these threads please....it shows how you might be able to improve low light focus (at the expense of autofocus lag, however.)

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1007&message=3213148

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1007&message=3217724

I have had my 5700 less than 24 hours, but am already thinking
about returning it within the Ritz 10 day return period. I love
everything about it except you-know-what! I am so frustrated. What
good is the beautiful color, the noiseless imagery, the outstanding
resolution, if I can't get a head and shoulders shot in focus? I
have used the Sony DSC-S85 and the Minolta D7i, and both of these
focus quickly and easily in low light and give nice, sharp images.
I hate to give up on the 5700 and get one of these instead, because
of the limited zoom of the Sony, and the image noise issues of the
Minolta.
I guess I am just venting out of frustration I will certainly
spend much of the next 7-8 days trying to get more familiar and
comfortable with the 5700. I wont part with it without trying. Any
suggestions as to how any of you have adapted or accommodated this
situation are appreciated.

 

[Terry Thorn]

I have had my 5700 less than 24 hours, but am already thinking
about returning it within the Ritz 10 day return period. I love
everything about it except you-know-what! I am so frustrated. What
good is the beautiful color, the noiseless imagery, the outstanding
resolution, if I can't get a head and shoulders shot in focus? I
have used the Sony DSC-S85 and the Minolta D7i, and both of these
focus quickly and easily in low light and give nice, sharp images.
I hate to give up on the 5700 and get one of these instead, because
of the limited zoom of the Sony, and the image noise issues of the
Minolta.
I guess I am just venting out of frustration I will certainly
spend much of the next 7-8 days trying to get more familiar and
comfortable with the 5700. I wont part with it without trying. Any
suggestions as to how any of you have adapted or accommodated this
situation are appreciated.

I can sympathize with you. I returned my 5700 to the store today. Even if it DOES focus, it does so very slowly and the lens seems so slow (light transmission-wise) that you're usually knocked down to a shutter speed which requires a tripod or flash. I guess I've been spoiled by the Olympus 2100 with it's fast lens and image stabilization. Hopefully, there'll be a successor to that camera from Canon. I don't expect Olympus to produce one. I was hoping that the 5700 would be it but, sadly, it's not. As for noise, I'd say that the 5700 exhibits as much, if not a little more, noise than my E-10 and everybody hollers about the E-10 being noisy. Hmmmm.

 

[Jim K53618]

I have had my 5700 less than 24 hours, but am already thinking
about returning it within the Ritz 10 day return period. I love
everything about it except you-know-what! I am so frustrated. What
good is the beautiful color, the noiseless imagery, the outstanding
resolution, if I can't get a head and shoulders shot in focus? I
have used the Sony DSC-S85 and the Minolta D7i, and both of these
focus quickly and easily in low light and give nice, sharp images.
I hate to give up on the 5700 and get one of these instead, because
of the limited zoom of the Sony, and the image noise issues of the
Minolta.
I guess I am just venting out of frustration I will certainly
spend much of the next 7-8 days trying to get more familiar and
comfortable with the 5700. I wont part with it without trying. Any
suggestions as to how any of you have adapted or accommodated this
situation are appreciated.

Well I hope you feel better now : )

I know exactly how you feel, the CP5700 delivers awesome quality images, great lens, and great body, but it totally sucks in two area's, low light, and manual focusing. No getting around it my friend, even after you configure it for optimin performance as others described, it's still gonna suck in low light and MF when compared to most digital cameras made in the past 3 years! Even the 7i does better in low light and MF! What can you do? Well if it really bothers you that much you can exchange it for something that will do better in low light and MF, but you will be giving up a lot in the trade. You can definitly do better then the 7i!!! I'd get the F707, E20, S602, C-2100, and just about any other camera before the 7i. I just couldn't deal with the dimage noise levels : )

It wouldn't be so bad if only Nikon put a freaking AF assist lamp on it, and magnify feature and distance scale for MF. It would have been nice if the 5700 also supported D-TTL flash too. Oh no, now you got me venting too!

Any way, it's really hard passing up the quality, for now. Problem is that the next company that comes out with a 5700 clone with improved focusing and MF, will bury the 5700 ; )

Until then, there is nothing better : (

Regards!

--
Every Camera Has Short Comings,
some camera's fall short of coming!

 

[thepieces]

the AF area off works great in most circumstances..... but its no good for macros... i was trying to focus on a butterfly and it was focusing on the flowers behind it...... i put AF area mode back to auto and bam butterfly razor sharp background blurred

I have had my 5700 less than 24 hours, but am already thinking
about returning it within the Ritz 10 day return period. I love
everything about it except you-know-what! I am so frustrated. What
good is the beautiful color, the noiseless imagery, the outstanding
resolution, if I can't get a head and shoulders shot in focus? I
have used the Sony DSC-S85 and the Minolta D7i, and both of these
focus quickly and easily in low light and give nice, sharp images.
I hate to give up on the 5700 and get one of these instead, because
of the limited zoom of the Sony, and the image noise issues of the
Minolta.
I guess I am just venting out of frustration I will certainly
spend much of the next 7-8 days trying to get more familiar and
comfortable with the 5700. I wont part with it without trying. Any
suggestions as to how any of you have adapted or accommodated this
situation are appreciated.

Well I hope you feel better now : )

I know exactly how you feel, the CP5700 delivers awesome quality
images, great lens, and great body, but it totally sucks in two
area's, low light, and manual focusing. No getting around it my
friend, even after you configure it for optimin performance as
others described, it's still gonna suck in low light and MF when
compared to most digital cameras made in the past 3 years! Even the
7i does better in low light and MF! What can you do? Well if it
really bothers you that much you can exchange it for something that
will do better in low light and MF, but you will be giving up a
lot in the trade. You can definitly do better then the 7i!!! I'd
get the F707, E20, S602, C-2100, and just about any other camera
before the 7i. I just couldn't deal with the dimage noise levels : )

It wouldn't be so bad if only Nikon put a freaking AF assist lamp
on it, and magnify feature and distance scale for MF. It would have
been nice if the 5700 also supported D-TTL flash too. Oh no, now
you got me venting too!

Any way, it's really hard passing up the quality, for now. Problem
is that the next company that comes out with a 5700 clone with
improved focusing and MF, will bury the 5700 ; )

Until then, there is nothing better : (

Regards!

--
Every Camera Has Short Comings,
some camera's fall short of coming!

 

[imtoad]

If you otherwise really love the5700, see this thread for a workaround.

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/read.aspforum=1007&message=3280074

 

[Mel64]

First thanks to all of you who responded.

Turning AF Area Mode OFF, does seem to help, but here in my thrid day of 5700 ownership, my furustrations with focusing this camera continue to grow, because there are (I think logical) things I would like to do that this camera wont allow.

So, for example, I am taking multiple head & shoulders type shots from the same position, I would like to set focus and leave it there. The only way to do this is in MF mode. The focus lock button is a joke, because as soon as you take one picture, focus is not locked anymore (again except in MF mode). And if you auto-focus, and then switch to MF, the focus on the camera reverts to whatever it was the last time you used MF. I want to use auto-focus and then lock, because I have the feeling that autofocus has more contiinuous (less gradation) than manual focus. (I may be wrong)

So then I say, well, if I use aperture priority, I can just stop down and let depth of field take care of any slight error. WRONG! Can't go any lower than f8. (By the way, it would be nice to have DEPTH OF FIELD table for the lens at 1x, 2x etc.) SO, the saga continues - I have 7 days left - should I, will I keep this camera?

 

[arthur53821]

I know how you feel, and there are no good answers. I have the same love hate relationship with my 5700, and towards the D7i. I've taken some of my best pictures ever with the 5700, but feel the autofocus and the human interface leave much to be desired. It's almost like you need to own both the D7i and the 5700, for both have the dedicated flash, and have a camera bag big enough for all that. At that rate, maybe I should have a DSLR. If I were faced with low ambient lighting (such as a reception), or action or telephoto photos (for example at the race track), I'd go with the D7i and put up with the extra post processing. In reasonably good lighting with no fast action the 5700 is the winner. The f707 is pretty darn good, but a tad too point and shoot, and the s602 is darn nice for the price. Perhaps for X-mas Nikon will come up with a 5700i and get it right. Until then, if we want to play the game we just have to pick one and compromise.

 

[Sander G.]

Perhaps you can try to use the lock button and keep it pressed during multiple pictures. Then it will keep the focus lost. The button is not designed to push it ones and keep focus, instead it keeps focus while it's pushed.

Hopes this wil help some.

Sander G.

First thanks to all of you who responded.

Turning AF Area Mode OFF, does seem to help, but here in my thrid
day of 5700 ownership, my furustrations with focusing this camera
continue to grow, because there are (I think logical) things I
would like to do that this camera wont allow.

So, for example, I am taking multiple head & shoulders type shots
from the same position, I would like to set focus and leave it
there. The only way to do this is in MF mode. The focus lock button
is a joke, because as soon as you take one picture, focus is not
locked anymore (again except in MF mode). And if you auto-focus,
and then switch to MF, the focus on the camera reverts to whatever
it was the last time you used MF. I want to use auto-focus and then
lock, because I have the feeling that autofocus has more
contiinuous (less gradation) than manual focus. (I may be wrong)

So then I say, well, if I use aperture priority, I can just stop
down and let depth of field take care of any slight error. WRONG!
Can't go any lower than f8. (By the way, it would be nice to have
DEPTH OF FIELD table for the lens at 1x, 2x etc.) SO, the saga
continues - I have 7 days left - should I, will I keep this camera?

--
Greetings Sander G.

***********************************************
don't know what you don't know
only know what you know

 

[johnd1]

Arthur,
Can you elaborate on what you mean ,the 707 is a tad too point and shoot?
John
arthur wrote:
The f707 is

pretty darn good, but a tad too point and shoot, and the s602 is
darn nice for the price. Perhaps for X-mas Nikon will come up with
a 5700i and get it right. Until then, if we want to play the game
we just have to pick one and compromise.

--
USN MCPO (ret)