If you like his blue eyes, how about starting with a B&W base with a color layer above masking everything but his eyes?

In both color and B&W, it needs to be lightened up quite a bit. I'd move the white point in curves or levels down to raise the contrast and brighten it.

It also looks like there's a fair about of motion blur, so you might want to try the motion-removal filter.

The camera body pulls an ID from the lens and uses that to distinguish the lenses from one another. There'll be a problem if you have multiple copies of the same lens model, or in some cases non-Nikon lenses use the same ID for different models. If that happens, about all you can do is write down the fine-tune value for each body-lens combination and re-enter it when you change the lens.

Another possibility is that you've exceeded the fine-tune table size. Older and intermediate-grade bodies had 12 slots, newer pro bodies have 20.

That's not a good way to do a fine tune because you are not able to take into account the "average" location for a given setting. I.e., take 5 shots with a given fine-tune setting and you'll get 5 different planes of sharpest focus. You want to find the most likely focus location for a given setting. Usually we approximate that location by taking the average of 5 to 10 shots. If that average location is behind the target, you subtract around 10 from the current fine tune value, and repeat the process adjusting the increment down as you progress.

With your method, you don't even know where the sharpest plane location is for a single shot, much less the most likely over many shots. The shift from a fine tune increment of 5 BTW is often, depending on the lens, smaller than the typical shot-to-shot variation. My experience with the Sigma 50mm Art is that it is better than older or cheaper lenses for shot-to-shot variation, roughly on par with the Nikon 50/1.4G or 50/1.8G, but not nearly as consistent as the Nikon 24-70/2.8E or 70-200/2.8GII.

It's pretty common for people to make a fine tune adjustment based on a single shot and heading off into the weeds because they are not aware of the intrinsic variation which must be accounted for. Unfortunately, that's what you are doing too.

You're not using the Horshack Dot-tune method are you? It's a cool idea and ought to work, but it isn't reliable.

The problem with using the focus confirmation dot is that is covers too broad a range and is only a rough guide toward being in-focus.

If you are manually focusing, you really need to be using magnified LiveView as the confirmation dot is just not accurate enough. That's not saying you might not get lucky, but having the dot on is not a guarantee of sharp focus.

When you perform the fine-tune, how much variation are you seeing over your trial shots? Can you post an example or two?

Then is *has* to be front or back focusing, or inconsistent under AF. Have you tried to fine-tune it again?

So you're saying that it is *not* front or back focusing -- that the plane of sharpest focus is spot on the AF point?

Does careful manual focus via magnified LiveView, and/or LiveView CDAF also yield soft images?

I suggest you turn on the blinkies and chimp your shots so you can adjust down the exposure when you've saturated one or more color channels. The night shots would have looked much better if so much of the highlights hadn't been blown.

If I suspect a focus problem, the *very* *first* *thing* I do is take a picture of a well-lit textured wall or surface from an angle. Point to a recognizable feature, focus on it, trigger the shutter and example the picture to verify that the focus plane is on the feature and not in front or behind. If necessary I use a tripod to remove the possibility of motion blur. Then repeat at least 4 more times to see what the deviation (front/back) is. Until I know that information, I have nothing to go on.

Out of curiosity, is the problem that it focuses inconsistently (front-focus sometimes, back-focus other times), or is the plane of sharpest focus softer?

I think you meant /b]1:4[/b] (f/4)

I'm not quite sure how to parse this. Does this mean you took the time to do a proper (and usually necessary) focus fine tune calibration? If so, do you have an sample images from the procedure?

For what it's worth, my 24-120/4 is by far my most used lens.

For your situation, have you considered a sling bag? You'd get the protection of a backpack but have quick access.

Having an AA filter is important. Any sub-sampling sensor such as the almost universal Bayer filtered sensors should have an AA filter to prevent aliasing artifacts -- moire being the most obvious. Many people shoot subjects without repetitive patterns at pixel-level detail so they don't see moire, or have enough camera shake or subject motion blur to provide an AA-filter equivalent, but assuming there are pixel-level details with contrast, aliasing artifacts will *always* be there when there isn't some type of pre-sensor blur. Without patterns in the frame there won't be moire, but the artifacts will manifest as increased color-noise proportional to the contrast of the details -- which can be of much higher intensity than the common photon "shot" noise. I would hazard a guess that most people look for moire but not aliasing color noise, and wouldn't be happy if they did.

BTW, moire is nothing more than the color noise organized in a way that you can see it at a coarser level, and thus more obvious.

There's a popular notion that cameras like the D500, D7100, D7200, D800E, D810, D850 and Z7 have a high enough spatial resolution that the lens can provide enough softness to act as an AA filter. My tests, and plenty of sample photos from proud owners, show that even notoriously soft lenses are still plenty sharp enough to produce moire and alias color noise.

There are people, some have responded in this thread already, that say they don't see moire or artifacts with these cameras, but they may want to look more closely and critically at their images, or work on their technique to reduce shakiness as it is very easy to produce with those cameras. Ironically, I've heard comments from other people wondering if moire has become a trendy thing over the last few years since it has been popping up even in advertising photos.

With the power switch off and a good battery inserted, does the green flash-card-read/write light come on when you insert a flash card?

You know that handholding isn't going to compete with a tripod, and you also know that more light allowing a faster shutter speed will yield better results. Those two are pretty obvious.

Next though is the question of how you focus. How are you focusing?

If you are using auto-focus, how do you know your camera/lens combo isn't slightly front-focusing (focusing slightly in front of the intended point)?

I'd use a tripod and remote, turn on LiveView, go to max magnification of the area, and manually focus. Arrangement of the lighting to cause high lighting contrast at the in-focus area can also help the appearance of the sharpness.