Still not focusing.

[Bram]

Alright some of you may remembe rmy post about my manual lens not mounting on my D40x.

The lens is a 80-200mm MC Matrix Auto Zoom 1:4.5, it's a nikon.
Now I finally got this thing mounted and I go to take a shot, I try and focus but sitting there for an hour and a half I couldn't get it to focus like at all.. in manual mode I couldn't figure out the settings at all! I was definately not pleased.
The object looked kind of yellow-ish through the viewfinder. I have no idea why this lens will not focus, if anybody has any idea let me know.

Here is a photo of the lens

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[Dao]

Did you mean the focus ring cannot turn with your hand?

[Bram]

No it does it just wont focus properly no matter what I do.

[Big Mike]

How close are you trying to focus? Every lens has a minimum focus distance, and with a lens like that, it may be several feet. So can you focus on something that is farther away?

[Bram]

Now that I think of it I was trying to focus on a shell which was on the table and I was sitting in the chair at the table maybe one foot away. Then I tried the door handle going outside. That was about five or so feet away, which also came out noisy and fuzzy.

[Big Mike]

Well, noise & fuzzy isn't necessarily out of focus.

It's likely that you don't have enough light, and thus the camera is needing to use a long shutter speed. And a long shutter speed will cause blurry photos if either the camera or the subject are moving (if you are holding it in your hands etc.).

Try shooting outdoors during the day. Try shooting by putting the camera on something solid (tripod or table etc.) and using the self timer.

[Bram]

Hm i'll definately give that a shot, considering my conditions now, I only had the table light on and had it in my hands, this is my first time really shooting in full manual mode so i'm having a little trouble with ISO settings, white balance, and more settings. I'll definately give it a shot later today though thanks.

[djacobox372]

That lens is pretty slow (f4.5) so you may have a hard time focusing it in dark spaces.

Shoot it outdoors and trust the "in focus" indicator in the viewfinder (assuming the d40 has one).