# New Nikon lens blur question



## Longshot270 (Aug 5, 2011)

I recently got a 70-300mm lens for my D50 and have been loving it. Great magnification and the AF is working well for clear targets. I had a little bit of trouble with it focusing on sticks but that is what manual is for.

For the picture in question.










To the right of the deer it looks like the camera shook. It could have because I should have been using my tripod instead of freehand, but then the whole picture would be a blur, right? On the computer I can see the chin hairs on the little buck so I feel that I can generally rule camera shake out.

I read in the Nikon manual that came with the lens that at higher zoom and shallower depth of field anything out of focus will render as "pleasant blurs". Is this the pleasant blur they are talking about?


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## Pocketfisherman (May 30, 2005)

Yes it is. The Depth of field (Area of in focus) is not deep, and even shallower at wide open aperture numbers (smaller F stop number). To maximize the depth of field, you can stop down the lens to a larger F number, which would require using either a higher ISO value (more noise) or slower shutter speed (more chance of shake blur) to get that same exposure. Another technique you can use when you have a situation like yours with one subject close and another farther back is to focus on a point 1/3 the distance behind the front most subject. That will give you the best chance of getting them both in focus. If you have a smartphone, there are several apps you can get that will calculate how wide your depth of focus field is for given lens settings. That will help you determine best camera settings, or if you should not even try to get both subjects in focus. Lastly, one other technique in shots like the one above is to take two frames, one with focus on the front subject, and one with focus on the rear, then combine them in photoshop using focus stacking. That works best with the camera immobile on a tripod.

I think for your shot above, the camera and lens were working to their best ability and the rearmost subject was just beyond the depth of field for in focus subjects.


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## Longshot270 (Aug 5, 2011)

That is what I figured but wanted to make sure. Tomorrow I'm thinking about going to Lake Austin for some water bird pictures and wanted to make sure that was the case.


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## JuiceGoose (Oct 4, 2006)

What were your settings for this shot? It would help isolate some things.


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## Longshot270 (Aug 5, 2011)

The F-stop was at 5.6 and the exposure time was 1/400. I wasn't watching any of the other settings.


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## 47741 (Jan 5, 2010)

The lower the f stop, the smaller the "focusable" depth. The close sticks and far stuff are blurry....the things about the same distance as the deer are in focus.

Try f8 or f9 for more general shooting, but your shutter speed will be slower...which should be ok for that light. This assumes your ISO stays constant.


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## Longshot270 (Aug 5, 2011)

I've had the ISO set manually to the lowest, 200 to keep noise down. I'm also shooting from a tripod but the images are still out of focus.

Today I shot about 100 pictures in three sunny locations using both my 18-55 and 70-300 with f/ from 1-25 on a tripod and timer, 2/3 of which were shot in the raw format.

smaller versions are cropped at a 1:1 ratio


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## Shaky (May 21, 2004)

I shoot canon, and don't know a whole lot about Nikon, but some things are consistent through brands. If your shooting from a tripod make sure your lens stabilization system , vr? Is off, also you might want to rethink your autofocus mode or even try manual focus to help isolate the problem


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## Longshot270 (Aug 5, 2011)

Yeah, my next purchase will be a split focus screen to help with the MF. Giving everything a good cleaning helped also.


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## 47741 (Jan 5, 2010)

Longshot-

Looking at the pics you posted (sorry, didn't see them before) Some of the settings don't jive with the picture. Landscape type, should generally be higher Fs. Was it windy for the leaf picture? Bigger versions would help see blur/non focus. For the last one, it seems mostly overexposed on the white rock rather than oof.

Anyway. Lots of ways to adjust. A good book is Understanding Exposure author's last name, Peterson.


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## Longshot270 (Aug 5, 2011)

When I looked at them with RawTherapee, the 4-5.6 F/ was the clearest. I shot F/ from lowest to about F/22. Everything higher or lower than 5 was starting to get fuzzy. 

I went back later and adjusted for the exposure. The WB was quite a bit off, corrected that and the picture looks really good. The lower rock picture was a 1:1 crop of the creek bed shot.

It was dead calm that day and I was shooting from a tripod using a timer.


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