Hi All,
For the past 7 or so years I've been using D500. About 4 years ago I've added Nikon 200-500mm lens. No problems, sharp pictures etc. Few days ago I bought new D780. Took it for a test drive and I am completely dissapointed with the results.
I'm new to the forum so I can't attach sample picture yet. I do mostly aviation photography. Yesterday we had finally crystal clear blue sky.
Looks like quarter of the picture (left side of the picture) is completely blurry. Tried Program mode with different focus settings (single point with AF-C or AF-S - or d21 with AF-C - and of course fully Autofocus). Nothing is working for me. Every shot has left side blurry.
Next test was shooting in A mode. Played around with F stops. Nothing really helped.
Last night I fine tuned the lens on the camera and went out again this morning to test it.
Same results as yesterday. Left side of the object is blurry and 3 right quarters of the shot are sharp.
I've tried another lens today. AF-S Nikkor 70-300mm 1:4.5-5.6G ED and I have similar results, but not as obvious as the 200-500mm lens.
What I'm doing wrong? Both lenses produce perfect images with my D500.
Thanks!
Hi @d2l5! I'm very interested in seeing sample photos. As soon as you have one more approved post, you'll be able to attach files, and we can analyze them more closely.
Done, feel free to attach the photos any time.
Very peculiar. I'd also be interested in seeing samples. If you set it on a tripod and take an image of a flat-ish textured surface, it should tell you what's what. I usually use a flash too but a very bright outdoor thing like a wall would work too.
Mystery solved :) Went to my buddy who has exact same setup D780/200-500mm. I've changed all the settings on the camera to match his (that was kind of unnecessary as we saw the results few minutes later). So, it turned out to be my lens...
At this point can't lock on a target. Be it stationary object or moving object. I've used his 200-500mm on my new body, no problems. Sharp pictures across the board.
Yesterday I went out to the airport to try the lens with my D500 and it produced the same results. Focus was in a wave mode and couldn't lock. It was doing the same thing on D780 day before and yesterday.
It is very freaky coincidence. I was using my D500 with 200-500mm lens on Feb 13th without any problems. Bought D780 day later on Feb 14th and that's when I switched the lens on the bodies and that's where the lens went south...
Yesterday I've attached my old Sigma 150-500mm on D780 and all day long I had nice sharp pictures. The only downside was vignetting. I had vignette control off on the camera. I'll try again today with vignette control on Normal and High to see if it makes any difference. For now I will have to stick with the Sigma lens until I get my 200-500mm back from the Nikon repair place. Four years old lens...
Anyway, the first short is the one with blurry left quarter with Nikon 200-500mm lens and the British Airways shot is with the horrible vignetting using Sigma lens.
I don't know what I'm doing wrong, as it seems that the pictures I'm posting are being compressed from 4.5MB to 45kb
Vignette Control was set to High on D780 and the Sigma 150-500mm. Did not help at all. Shots above 300mm were pretty bad (vignetting wise). Anything under 300mm was acceptable. I guess I need to send my 200-500mm for repair asap, unless I want to spend extra time playing with post processing.