Macronaut Loc: Redondo Beach,Ca.

If you think that there is any chance at all that you may eventually get a full frame camera, purchase FF lens now. It will save you $$$ down the road. Also, on your crop sensor, you will be using the best of the center of the FF lens. Do not rule out some of the Sigma lenses.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

That explains it. You do not have a focus problem. The first image you posted, which was described as having nothing in focus, actually has everything in focus. That doesn't mean everything in the picture is sharp, but the lack of sharpness is not due to poor focus.

The image was shot in fairly good light (Exif says the LV was 14.3 EV). However, using 1/80 for a shutter speed when using a 122mm focal length on a APS-C sensor is almost guaranteed to cause motion blur from camera shake if it is not mounted on a tripod. The commonly used rule of thumb is a shutter speed of at least 1/effective_34mm_focal_length for hand held shot. Hence at 122mm you would want to use at least 1/183, or maybe about 1/200 for a shutter speed.

Another problem is using Shutter Priority and setting such a low speed will necessarily stop the lens down. In that case it was f/36. With an APS-C size high resolution sensor like that in a D7100 you really don't want to stop the lens down past f/11 if it can be avoided, and even then it requires use of software sharpening to remove the diffraction blur. At f/36 it requires considerable expertize with sharpening to remove diffraction blur.

Hence, for that one particular image, configuring the camera for Manual exposure with Auto White Balance enabled, and using a shutter speed of about 1/320 with an aperture of f/8 would probably have resulted in an ISO of about 250. And most significantly it would have produced a very sharp image.

There are other modes that can accomplish the same result, but that is the easiest because you set both a shutter speed that you know works with that focal length and you also set the aperture to the sharpest fstop. Then you check to see what ISO that causes the camera to set. In this case you might then want to go a little either way with the shutter speed just because there is room with the ISO too. If there is some reason (flying birds or whatever) that makes a faster shutter speed useful, it should be fine at least up to ISO 1200 or maybe 1600 (you will need to experiment and decide how high the ISO can be before there is too much noise for you tastes). Likewise you probably could have made the shutter speed a little slower, and thus bring the ISO value down, if you want as much dynamic range as possible for manipulation later in post processing.

Lots of things to think about! Lots to learn, It's great fun... But there is nothing wrong with your camera or lens!

martinfisherphoto Loc: Lake Placid Florida

Again User related.. On a bright sunny day and you have the Shutter speed{Shutter Speed Priority}set at 1/80th second. You set this, Not The Camera.. So the camera closes the aperture down as far as it can so your photo will not be Over exposed...And No, if your hand holding at this shutter speed, No part of the photo will be in focus.... A very simple fix, start with getting a Book called Understanding Exposure 3rd addition by Bryan Peterson and learn about the Exposure Triangle. This will get you on the right path to understanding how your camera works.
Oh, I see someone beat me to the problem.....

mcveed Loc: Kelowna, British Columbia (between trips)

Its pretty clear to me that your picture of the cliff is not 'out of focus'. It is just blurry. The blurry is caused by human error - yours. First mistake - shooting at f36; this is almost certain to cause diffraction which will make the entire image soft. Second error - shooting at 122mm and a shutter speed of 1/80 secs. Sure your image stabilizer can compensate for camera movement up to 3 stops but why use it? Third error - using digital in-camera zoom. That is just cropping in the camera. Bunch all of these things together and your chance of getting a clear sharp shot is significantly reduced. Try shooting the cliff on a tripod at f4, ISO 200, and shutter speed whatever gives you a good exposure. I'm sure you'll find that the lens is not at fault. Remember - any aperture smaller than f11 will start to give you some diffraction. Study a DOF calculator for a while and you will find that apertures smaller than f11 are rarely needed.

MtnMan Loc: ID

Nothing in focus suggests camera movement. The lens always has a focus plane.

Do you have VR on?

Are you assuring shutter speed at least twice lens zoom setting?

pyroManiac Loc: HIXSON,TN

I have the 18-140 and find it to be a very good lens EXCEPT at or near the 140 end it tends to search. Back off to 70, focus then zoom to 140 or where ever then it fine focuses quickly. Also you can manually focus to near perfect then autofocus will fine focus well. It seems that at 140 this lens goes past the correct focus point so fast as not to "see" it.

royden Loc: Decatur, GA

How about shooting on auto or program. AF switch ON. AF on Evaluate or whatever it's called on Nikons. ISO at 200. Shoot at twilight. If you know a Nikon shooter, have him/her use your lens.

SteveTog Loc: Philly

SX2002: That's not fair. Using a D90 should be illegal for this test. As old at is is, it's an amazing low light hunter. Beats my D800 hands-down! I love shooting low light and you can't imagine my frustration when I learned this.
To the OP: My recommendation for low light is drop your zoom requirement go with a fast prime lens in the range that you most often find yourself shooting in low light. I love low light expression. Photography would not be nearly as much fun without it. If you shoot low light a lot, you will thank me.

SteveTog Loc: Philly

double post - removed.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

The D800 literally runs circle around a D90. They are generations apart in sensor design. In low light the D800 is 1.4 fstops better than the D90, without even considering the quality of the pixels produced.

SteveTog Loc: Philly

That's very nice Apaflow, and it's true that the IMAGE CAPTURE works that way - hence the 'low light hunter' statement, but I shoot a lot of low light and I have found the d90 is much better at ACQUIRING A SUBJECT at low light - in the real world. Specs just get you so far. Low light shooting requires a lot of moving parts to work. Do a web search and you will see others have had the same experience as me.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

I'm not sure what you mean by "acquiring" a subject? Sounds like you mean the Auto Focus system?

That might be. But the much better image produced vastly outweighs whatever technical problems have to be worked around to get proper focus. Focus is mostly just learning how.

WessoJPEG Loc: Cincinnati, Ohio

Sell me the 18x140, I will take it.

SteveTog Loc: Philly

Hi Apaflo: Nobody was suggesting that he downgrade to a D90. Sorry if my admiration of the outstanding low light Auto Focus of the ancient D90 caused you consternation. It's one of the (several) reasons why I still have not given up that wonderful body, even though I do own supposedly superior D800 and a D5500 bodies. I do horrible things to that body. Things you wouldn't approve of. Weird science. Nasty experiments. Don't ask - I've already told you too much.

WessoJPEG Loc: Cincinnati, Ohio