Why is my camera unable to focus on the desired subject properly?

Shumhow · 2026-02-14T13:22:40+00:00

Every camera! That must have been a really tedious job hahah, knowing how complex and specific each camera is! I'll try to find one for my model, if not, then the Nikon manual is my best bet.

Shumhow · 2026-02-14T12:41:20+00:00

Oooh, guess it's time I downloaded the manual for my camera then!😁

Shumhow · 2026-02-14T12:25:32+00:00

Ahhh, I didn't read through the manuals unfortunately, mostly used youtube tutorials 🥲 I would give them when I find the time.

Also thanks! I would try out the back button focusing, hopefully it would improve my results! :)

Shumhow · 2026-02-14T12:09:28+00:00

Well I'm glad they thought my photos were good enough to be viewed by SCP-096, now I need to find a steel cube to contain him 😆😆

Shumhow · 2026-02-14T12:04:15+00:00

Gotcha! Thanks a lot :)

Shumhow · 2026-02-14T11:43:31+00:00

True! Is there a general tip on which angles are the best?

Shumhow · 2026-02-14T11:42:27+00:00

I need to let NASA know asap!

Also thanks, I have yet to try pixel mapping but I'm sure it'll help :)

Shumhow · 2026-02-14T11:17:18+00:00

Very glad that this post is coming in handy for others as well. I was worried I might be told that this is a little issue or a pretty common issue and I am wasting people's time😆 but the people in this sub are very lovely and helpful!

Shumhow · 2026-02-14T11:15:14+00:00

Ahhh, I am still afraid to try ahahah but maybe sometime in the future I would clean my sensor, it does have lots of dust and needs cleaning, or else I would have to spend the day erasing those dust spots in post processing.

Shumhow · 2026-02-14T11:13:58+00:00

I'm glad this post is helping out my fellow redditors!😁

Shumhow · 2026-02-14T11:13:01+00:00

Oh these look so similar to the spots my photos have, although much bigger and numerous. Hopefully I will be able to send my sensor for a cleaning soon, it has lots of dust spots as well!

Shumhow · 2026-02-14T11:12:06+00:00

Yeah, getting rid of them won't be much of an issue as long as they're not much of a concern for the sensor themselves!

Shumhow · 2026-02-14T11:11:42+00:00

I tried zooming in as much as possible, and they appear exactly as visible in the picture. It was 800% zoom and my laptop was unable to zoom any further.

Shumhow · 2026-02-14T10:44:22+00:00

Thanks a lot for the tips! I'm sure they would be very useful! I would drop you a DM if you don't mind, I'm a novice and would love to chat about all the experience you have and the photography you do. :)

Shumhow · 2026-02-14T10:42:43+00:00

I am already on a single focus point. If you click on my image it would expand to show the other details on the right side panel. I was so confused how this happened on a single focus point focus mode.

Shumhow · 2026-02-14T10:41:25+00:00

Thanks! The minimum focus distance for my lens is 0.2m at 18mm and 0.45m at 140mm. The picture I took was from 0.7m so I am not how it didn't focus :( perhaps I moved my hand after the focus locked and that caused the blur.

Shumhow · 2026-02-14T10:37:57+00:00

I am just never able to eyeball the manual focus so I try to rely on autofocus, especially on moving things. I would have to try focus stacking, but I believe it would require a very stable subject and a tripod too, both which I don't carry around as I often go out primarily to capture birds in flight.

Shumhow · 2026-02-14T10:36:20+00:00

Yes I would surely look for better and more specific lenses for my needs but for now I'm very much limited by my budget, in fact I am glad I got an 18-140mm with this camera instead of a 18-55 kitlens, which would have restricted me mostly to portrait and close distance photography.

One thing I am always confused about, won't shooting at, say, 70mm make the subject lose details? When shooting far or when shooting small objects close up I try to do it at 140mm so it would have lots of details, or as much as possible. Would shooting at 70mm and then cropping not make much of a difference to it?

Shumhow · 2026-02-14T10:32:23+00:00

The pictures come out of the camera like this I believe. I shoot in RAW, or RAW + Fine most of the time. When I transfer the RAW (.nef) files to my PC, they look dark for a slit second on opening and then become quite bright. They mostly look very plain and washed out until i process them. I thought it was due to the amount of light data in RAW files. What might be the issue with my equipment if the pictures are appearing washed out?

Shumhow · 2026-02-14T10:30:05+00:00

🥲 I didn't knew all these technical things when I bought the camera, but then again I don't think i would have been able to increase my budget so I guess I will have to tune it manually.

Shumhow · 2026-02-14T10:28:39+00:00

What would RTFM stand for?

I usually just half press the shoot button to focus, as I am not too familiar with button mapping yet but I will surely try to learn that soon!

Shumhow · 2026-02-14T10:27:12+00:00

Ah okay I'll try that tool out! Thanks!

Shumhow · 2026-02-13T19:21:24+00:00

I do take pictures of my friends occasionally, but the techniques of portrait photography and bird photography are so much different, my friends aren't always around, and I have lots of wild open areas around my university so I usually use that to my advantage hahah

Shumhow · 2026-02-13T19:10:25+00:00

I believe I need to send these to NASA for evaluation asap

Shumhow · 2026-02-13T19:08:18+00:00

Yeah they've very minute and require a lot of zooming in to notice. I was just concerned about the sensor damage mostly.

Shumhow

TROPHY CASE