D90 / Nikon 50 1.4 Help...

[gconnoyer]

Trying to do a little research for my cousin. She has a d90 and recently bought the Nikon 50mm 1.4.

She is having issues with it on her D90. I talked to her and gave her a few different things to try over the phone, because she told me "some of my shots are coming out blurry"

I told her to bump up the shutter speed (hoping to eliminate camera shake, if that's what she was doing)
Also, had her raise her f-stop. Hoping that maybe she was just missing focus and shooting wide open was giving it the "blurred" look she was getting.
Neither worked so I met her and we tested and swapped lenses.

First I shot with her camera with the 50 on it to see if I could replicate the problem. And I noticed that sometimes it would just miss focus, even if I was taking the exact same shot as a second before without moving at all.
So I threw the lens on my D700 and tried to get it to do the same on my camera and couldn't. I couldnt get it to miss moving back and forth between focus points, or even shooting multiple shots exactly the same (same procedure it was missing on her body)
Next we put all of my lenses on her body to see if it would do it with any of them....and it didn't.

So it seems to me that there is an issue with her body and that lens. Somewhere, sometimes?

Anyone have any experience with this?

Thanks in advance!

 

[tirediron]

The first and most obvious possibility seems like damage or corrosion to the contacts on the lens mount. Remove or have her remove the lens and examine the row of contacts carefully to ensure that none are damaged/pushed in, etc. Then, holding the body so that the lens opening points to the floor CAREFULLLY AND GENTLY use the eraser off of a pencil to clean the contacts by rubbing in across them a few times. If that doesn't work, and you're sure that the problem is NOT with the lens, then I'd say it's off to the repair shop. Were the other lenses you tested 'D' series or AF-S, or a mixture?

 

[gconnoyer]

Thanks for the reply. I'll have her do that and see if that helps.

My 24-70 is an AFS, my 50 is a D, and my sigma is a DG(?)

Her 50 is the AFS G

 

[shadowlands]

My former copy took blurry shots as well. I tried millions of different ways... it was hit/miss.
I finally sent it back and bought the 17-55 f2.8 and I'm all smiles!!!
I may have had a bad copy, but either way... it was for the best (for me).

 

[gconnoyer]

Thanks for the help guys!

 

[KmH]

Take into account that your D700 has a much more sophisticated and capable Auto Focus module (Nikon Multi-CAM 3500FX autofocus module) in it than her D90 uses (Nikon Multi-CAM 1000 autofocus module).

 

[gconnoyer]

I agree but I would think that it would miss focus on a few shots regardless of what lens is on the D90 (if that were the case)

She is just planning on taking it back to the store she bought it from and having them look at her lens/camera.

 

[kateean2]

The first and most obvious possibility seems like damage or corrosion to the contacts on the lens mount.