SqBear Loc: Kansas, (South Central)

Members,

I have a Nikon D7000, am not really happy with it. After the purchase (used) I discovered that the photos taken were back focused and not on the individuals in the front of the photo. I read about the issue, made the suggested charts and set the focus accordingly.

First Q: Is the photo out of focus?
It is SOOC, only thing I did to it was crop it from 3,010KB to 1,212KB.

Second Q: (Technical) in the screen, the small icon RGB blinks all the time. I could not find anything in the manual to tell me about this or why it is always blinking???

Third Q: (Technical) In the file naming menu, i have set up as: DVP_1234, However, the file is named: _DVP1234 - Why and how do I change this? I've tried several times and cannot get the file to remain as i want it.

Lastly, if the photo in your opinion is out of focus, should i send it to Nikon for adjustment(s)? Or is there a camera shop in the Plain states area that could do the same as Nikon?


Any help appreciated

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CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

1. Does it seem in-focus to you? It's not. Why shoot at f/13? And, are these the results from attempting to focus tune an 18-105 lens? If you take away any focus tuning and simply place an AF point on the figure's eye at f/5 (or full auto) with lens or any DX lens, are you saying you can't get a better result than this example?

2. Did you download and text scan 'RGB' within the PDF manual? It looks like maybe page 166 addresses this question. There are 26 references to RGB in the manual, so finding the correct reference should be doable. Given the file name issue in Q3, this blinking seems to be related.

3. The underscore occurs when you create images in the Adobe RGB colorspace, see page 204 of the D7000 manual.

If you believe the camera doesn't focus correctly, send it in for service or take it to someone who says they can do it for you. You might consider getting rid of it, if you've never been happy with it.

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

I agree the settings probably contributed to the lack of sharpness. Before doing anything else I would retake this pic with a lower f stop number and a higher shutter speed. First, try it with the camera flash on and shutter at 1/100 of a second and f8, iso-100. Set your auto focus to center point autofocus, with the focus area set as small as possible, which will focus sharpest at the center of the frame. If it is still not sharp, then to be certain you are not pressing the shutter hard enough to shake the camera, try the shot with a tripod and the 10 second timer so the shot is taken with you not touching the camera or moving near the tripod or camera. Finally, if it still is not sharp, are you sure you did the focus adjustment for the lens correctly? The way I do it is to take a picture of a ruler at a 45 degree angle, resting against a wall. I use center point autofocus and focus on the center of the ruler (the 6" mark). That should tell you if there is front or back focus as if so, one of the other inch markers will be in sharper focus than the 6.

P.S. It would help to know how tall the toy soldier is and how far away you were when you took the shot.

P.P.S. About 15 seconds tweaking the brightness and contrast of your pic in Photoshop yielded an apparently sharper pic.

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Grahame Loc: Fiji

a) You do not say if the posted image is from the NEF or camera JPEG. If from the camera JPEG the camera settings will affect apparent sharpness. If from the NEF, capture sharpening to alleviate AA filter softening, any creative sharpening and finally output sharpening based on downsizing size and intended use will be required.

b) You do not say how and where you placed the focus point.

c) When choosing subjects to test 'sharpness' choose ones that have very good contrast between obvious sharp edges.

d) If you have fine tuned your focus have you undertaken result comparison between AF and manual Live View focusing?

CO

It was known that a small number of D7000's had a severe back focusing issue. I had one of those. I had the AF fine tuning all the way to the extreme and it still was not enough. The same lenses required only very small amounts of AF fine tuning on my other Nikon cameras. I ended up returning that one and purchasing another one from a different company. The autofocus was calibrated much better on that one and only required very small amounts of AF fine tuning.

I've checked with Nikon service if they perform AF calibration. They do not. Canon does offer that service for their cameras. I wish Nikon did.

Are you using the .jpeg files out of the camera? Nikon sets the default sharpening for the picture controls very low at level 3. Nikon expert, Ken Rockwell, recommends to go through all of the picture controls - neutral, vivid, standard, monochrome, and increasing the sharpening to level 6.

Download Nikon View NX-i or Capture NX-D from Nikon's website. You can activate "Show Focus Point" and see exactly where the focus point(s) landed. I just did that with one of my photos. I can see that I had the single focus point right on the balloon.

Turn on "Show Focus Point" in Nikon View NX-i or Capture NX-D

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I use the DataColor SpyderLensCal to check for back or front focusing

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camerapapi Loc: Miami, Fl.

I use my Nikon D7000 often and I have not noticed back focus in any of my subjects. Your image looks fine in regard to focus but it is dull and needs processing as demonstrated by Bobspez.
I do not like to adjust focus in camera I prefer a technician to do that job but that is me. I have never experienced focus problems with any of my cameras.

I cannot comment on the why the RGB icon blinks or about the file naming because I do not have those issues with my camera.
My D7000 has proven to be an excellent tool.

uhaas2009

I have the 7000 and you can adjust the focus in camera with the lens what focus wrong. Not all lenses doing this. Try other lenses too. Remember in the viewfinder shows a green dot if your subject is sharp.
The blinking on camera screen shows that there is overexposure- in the marked era there is almost no data left.
I used the 7000 with a18-55mm f2.8 (not a problem) and 70-300mm VR, f5.6....where the focus motor in the lens broke. Before I know this lens was broken I took 40images and maybe about 10 pics was sharp.
I have a 100mm f2.8 tokina what focus wrong on the 7000 but on my 810 no problem. I don’t know why is that.
The 7000 isn’t bad camera. The focus system on the 810 is way stronger (more expensive too) I bought all my gear used.

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

I opened the OP's pic with Capture NXD and when I selected show focus point it didn't select anything. On pics I have taken it does. Does that mean nothing was in focus?

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

You are more of a Nikon expert than KR. Give yourself some credit . . . Just sayin'

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

I highly recommend that if your body is working well with other lenses you leave it alone. Clearly the one lens is the problem, so I would have the lens checked out. I am not a fan of matching a body to a lens by adjusting the body. Anyone with multiple bodies and lenses would have a really hard time keeping everything straight. If the body is in spec, then it's easy to spot a problem lens. Besides, especially with a zoom, the simple focus offset adjustment provided in the camera bodies shifts the focus point for all focal lengths and distances - which means you may fix it for one combination of distance and focal length and find that other distances and focal lengths are out of whack. Focus issues in lenses are rarely linear - meaning that you may find good focus at 18mm and back focus at 55mm. Making an adjustment at 55mm will likely result in front focus at 18mm. Nikon is best equipped to fix this.

The underscore at the beginning of the filename indicates that you shot the image using AdobeRGB color space. This is described on page 204 - the section entitled File Naming. If I were shooting jpeg, AdobeRGB is the way to go.

If you are referring to the RGB blinking next to the word Highlights at the bottom of the screen, it is simply showing you that you have enabled the Display Option to show clipped highlights as blinking, and the up and down arrow on the multiselector button will cycle through the various display screens until it gets to the Highlights screen. If you disable highlights in the Display Options - you will no longer see the screen or the blinking RGB. Uhass2009 was close but not enough to get the cigar on this one . . .

jefflane

Not clear what the above first paragraph is talking about. Both Canon and Nikon will adjust focus points for individual lenses and register them. Canon (but probably not Nikon) will set it differently for wide and tele for zoom lenses. You can only register one of each focal length or range, but you can set separately for lens with and without extender.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

You're extrapolating current 2019 features onto a circa 2010 camera ...

jefflane

Point taken. Well, 2014 features, anyway.

mas24 Loc: Southern CA

That's interesting information about the D7000 DSLRs. Nowadays, photographers prefer the used/refurbished D7100/D7200, because it has 24 megapixels instead of 16 megapixels on the D7000.

CO

Thanks. I know that you are Nikon user and very knowledgeable about them.