Focus issues

[Susan Will]

Can anyone suggest why my 55-200 lens is now not focusing my photos look grainy not clear like they used to. Could this be a camera issue or something with my lens?

 

[ntz]

would you mind please to post some example + ideally also RAW ?

 

[Douglas Brown]

Susan, I would suspect that if the photos are grainy then it may be high ISO setting. However, if your lens is not properly focusing, then I would start by cleaning the gold contacts on both the lens and the camera where they meet.

 

[nokk]

post a few examples so we can see what you're talking about. focusing issues and excessive grain could be two entirely different issues.

 

[Original katomi]

Find a wall or something to photo to see how the focus shifts

 

[Susan Will]

If you enlarge these they seem grainy to me this is 55-200mm lens

 

[SquarePeg]

Yes they look grainy and the deer looks like missed focus. Are you shooting Nikon? Can you see where the camera says the focus point was? It was a bright day, what settings were you using?

 

[Susan Will]

Yes they look grainy and the deer looks like missed focus. Are you shooting Nikon? Can you see where the camera says the focus point was? It was a bright day, what settings were you using?

yes Nikon I have center focal point

 

[zombiesniper]

Here are the setting on the second image.
Not familiar with the 3200 but the higher iso could be the issue with the second image. Didn't check the deer as it seems to be a missed focus.

Now 1/4000 is a very fast shutter speed for a flower. At your highest focal length even 1/320 should be able to get a stable sharp image. 1/4000 is hummingbird territory. Again F11 seems a bit high. F8 should be able to get the DOF large enough to get the whole flower in focus. Now if you were at 1/320 then F11 would be fine to maintain a good exposure.

 

[Douglas Brown]

Susan, the high ISO setting of 3200 is contributing to the grain appearance. Try shooting with the ISO at 100-400 and you will see a marked improvement. Also, the more you crop an image, the more you are likely to see graininess as you take a smaller area and enlarge it.

 

[Space Face]

It's digital noise not grain. Just saying like

 

[SquarePeg]

yes Nikon I have center focal point

Neither the deer’s face nor the flower are in the center of the frame. Did you move the focus point where you wanted it or are you using focus and recompose?

 

[mrca]

On some cameras, Nikon has placed the iso button near the shutter button because, unlike my d200 where I rarely went above 400, newer cameras have acceptable noise at 3200, 6400 and iso is changed much more often and further. But understand the exposure triangle. You can set your shutter speed to the lowest you need, choose your aperture then adjust iso for a proper exposure, keeping it as low as possible. Not only does raising iso increase noise, it decreases dynamic range, so keeping iso at it's lowest is especially beneficial. I shoot alot of film. No iso adjustment there mid roll and pushing has it's effects on the results. When it comes to iso, there is "no free lunch." There are trade offs.

 

[Susan Will]

Here are the setting on the second image.
Not familiar with the 3200 but the higher iso could be the issue with the second image. Didn't check the deer as it seems to be a missed focus.

Now 1/4000 is a very fast shutter speed for a flower. At your highest focal length even 1/320 should be able to get a stable sharp image. 1/4000 is hummingbird territory. Again F11 seems a bit high. F8 should be able to get the DOF large enough to get the whole flower in focus. Now if you were at 1/320 then F11 would be fine to maintain a good exposure.

View attachment 247085

Thank you I appreciate your help

 

[ntz]

Hello,

from the images metadata (EXIF information) it seems to me that you're using Auto ISO .. And the ISO is probably higher that needs to be (at least for the flower)

In my opinion it's better to get used on to always use a manual ISO and set ISO accordingly based on the situational requirements .. You posted some jpges, they seem to be cropped out of camera jpgs, if you were using raws, you can apply some additional postprocessing and noise removal ..

regarding the deer, yes, it's out of focus but hard to tell why .. you need to examine lenses and closer and check how many times it is in focus and how many times it's out of focus .. I have exactly same lens also, they are unfortunately not the synonym for pin-sharp-accurancy-in-10/10-cases

regards, dan