lsaguy Loc: Udall, KS, USA

Ziggy posed for me this afternoon while I tried to get her in focus. I've cranked the diopter adjustment to the top of its range and left my glasses off. For each shot I reduced the size to 33% of full then close cropped on her face. On a couple I'm almost there with the Takumar 135mm f3.5. I don't know if I've reached the resolving power of the lens or if my focal point is just slightly in front of her nose. The last one I'm so close to getting her right eye just right. I can hardly wait for the new autofocus lens to arrive on Thursday.
Any and all comments welcome.

Thanks folks,
Rick

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Curmudgeon Loc: SE Arizona

My eyes are so bad I can't use manual focus at all. If it were not for AF I wouldn't be shooting any more. Enjoy the new lens.

lsaguy Loc: Udall, KS, USA

Thank you, I'm really chomping at the bit for Auto focus.

Rick

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

What kind of focusing assistance does Nikon provide?
Something like a "focus acquired" light/signal?

lsaguy Loc: Udall, KS, USA

I'm still studying the manual. I'll look it up. Opening up Acrobat right now. Thanks for the tip.

Rick

Pablo8 Loc: Nottingham UK.

On the D300, a solid green circle lights-up when focus is achieved. The circle is in the bottom , left corner of the viewfinder screen. Next to it , will be the selected symbol for the exposure metering.

Bultaco Loc: Aiken, SC

Also on the D7200 & D500.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Thank you.

I use “focus confirmation” as a guide on my Pentax and figured that Nikon must have something similar as well.

oldrunner

Both my D300S and D500 have a setting that does not let the shutter release until focus is achieved.
It is in either the setup menu or the shooting menu.
Other Nikons may have this also. I have never depended on my vision to get the correct focus.
To get the most out of your camera, you need to understand and use the settings. I would get a book other than the one supplied with the camera. These settings are hard to understand and you need a clear guide to them. I use books by David Busch.

b top gun

I use older manual focus Nikkor primes on my D7100 and D850 regularly. As long as the camera recognizes the lens, it is entered into the non-CPU menu and selected, both bodies do their thing. I use the green circle focus indicator light in the lower left corner most of the time, very handy.

uhaas2009

The cameras see always sharper than my eyes can. On mirror less body I would try again but with DSLR I gave up and trust my focus.....

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

The first two images are a little off...

The third image is well focused.

I don't know what lens you used, but if f/2.8 that you used is the largest aperture, you might try stopping down a bit. Most lenses are sharper one or two stops smaller than their max aperture. Large apertures also demand more precise focusing.... in the third shot you got luck and the dog's eye, nose, muzzle and earare about equally sharp. But at f/2.8 it would be easy for part of it's face to be out of focus.

All three images are seriously underexposed... a stop or more. You may not be aware of that if you're working with an uncalibrated computer monitor. Most monitors are waaaaayyy too bright to accurately adjust photos for brightness.... not great for color accuracy, either, though issues with that are usually more subtle. Too bright display on a computer monitor causes people to accept or adjust images way too dark without realizing it until they make a print or see the image on a calibrated monitor. Calibrating monitors allows you to much more accurately evaluate your images and adjust them, if needed.

I hope you don't mind... I downloaded that third image (which is great, BTW... that's a very cute dog!), made some adjustments in Photoshop with my calibrated monitor. Brightened it up a lot... especially in the center tonalities. Then I applied a bit of a warming filter... shade tends to be a bit blue. Finally I used a high pass filter technique to sharpen selective parts of the image (the dog, but not the background). The reason I used high pass sharpening was because it tends to boost micro-contrast, which helps a lot with the fur and whisker detail, and around the dog's eye.

I thought about lightening the image a little more, but held back to keep from blowing out too much of the highlights where the sun is on the dog's white fur.

Here's the result, for comparison....

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Old Dutch

As stated by others, the D300 shows a "circle" next to the metering icon at lower left. Also, in the "pencil point" icon of the Menu settings under "autofocus" you can set the shutter release to Focus priority, preventing release until the image is focused. i shoot the D300, and just checked, and It works pretty well, in fact. Sometimes just closing down the aperture for more depth of field and turning on "Auto ISO" to compensate for light loss can help too. If not, it is probably the lens; Some are just a bit soft no matter what you do. I had a tamron like that. Nice looking model, by the way; Reminds me of my prom date!

Bigmike1 Loc: I am from Gaffney, S.C. but live in Utah.

I'm afraid I only use automatic focus also.

AndyGarcia

Hi there, I have a D300. A light comes on when you get focus. I can't remember the colour. That's using Nikon non AF lenses.