can't see well enough to focus

VayCayMom

Hello, my first post! I wear bi-focals.. lately I cannot tell when my photos are in focus, I have been using autofocus whenever I can. I am not sure what my problem is, me, my glasses, my settings, my age lol. I use a Nikon d 300 of which I only understand 30 % of user's manual. I know how to adjust the diopitor ( or whatever it is ) but at night or in a large photo, I am shooting blind. What am I doing wrong?:dunno

pathfinder

Welcome to dgrin.

Are you wearing your glasses to look through the viewfinder, or do you take your glasses off to use your camera? If you are not wearing your glasses, that MIGHT be the reason, depending on what your glasses prescription is. Or you may be able to adjust the diopter adjustment near your viewfinder.

If you cannot tell if your camera is in focus after adjutsting the diopter wheel - focus adjustment near your viewfinder, you really need to see an ophthalmologist to see if your vision is impaired. If you wear bifocals I am assuming you are over 45 years of age and are thus at risk of a number things that can impair your vision, only one of which is needing new glasses. Your symptoms could be related to cataracts or glaucoma, or just needing your glasses changed, but you need a correct answer which I can't give you here. You need to see an ophthalmologist or optometrist.

Your prints may be fairly sharp due to the AF of your camera, but they will be better if your vision is not impaired.

Trevlan

Now that you bring it up. I thought for a bit, that my vision was going. But adjusting the Diopter really works. I'm not sure if the correction will be good enough for her vision, but any bit helps.

One thing you can do, I do this all the time because my D40 doesn't autofocus my 50mm. Keep your eye on the lower left hand corner. There is a green dot that tells you when a subject is in focus. When it's steady green, it means that whatever you are focusing on (Anyone of your 51 focus points) is in focus. Try it out and see if that helps at all?

Fred Maurer

Hi VayCay Mom,
Welcome to D Grin!
I have changed the diopter on my camera to a -3.0 to accommodate focusing while looking over my glasses. The standard diopter adjustment just wasn't strong enough. This works well, since you can't see through the viewfinder easily with bifocals. (You can't get your head back far enough.) The only problem comes up when someone wants to look through the viewfinder and they say, "I can't see anything". Then I remember!

ivar

Welcome VayCayMom

I never know if I have to keep my glasses on, or take them off. I know for Canon, there are lenses that you can put in front of the viewfinder as well as adjust the diopter adjustment, I'm sure Nikon has similar solutions, also.

My eyes suffer from astigmatism, so the lenses and diopter adjustment won't do me any good.

I bought one of those lenses that you can put in front of the viewfinder, and I had my optician cut a custom lens, and replace the original lens. Not all opticians are capable (or willing) of doing this, but the better ones are. (In my case, since it's an angular problem, I would need one for portrait, and one for landscape oriented shooting, though).

BradfordBenn

I have trouble also on occassion. When it is critical stuff, I do tethered shooting so I can look at it on the larger screen of the computer and that helps a lot. Not always practical for on the go shooting thought.

Good luck and welcome to Dgrin

dbd

VayCayMom wrote:

Hello, my first post! I wear bi-focals.. lately I cannot tell when my photos are in focus, I have been using autofocus whenever I can. I am not sure what my problem is, me, my glasses, my settings, my age lol. I use a Nikon d 300 of which I only understand 30 % of user's manual. I know how to adjust the diopitor ( or whatever it is ) but at night or in a large photo, I am shooting blind. What am I doing wrong?

I don't know that you are doing anything wrong, the point is to find what can work for you. I've had to figure out approaches in three areas:

Your Eyes

If you have followed pathfinder's advice and your eyes are ok and your prescription is current, you might consider what works for you. I found that I could not use bifocals for tasks like working at a large computer monitor or evaluting focus across the entire image through a viewfinder. The angular coverage of the close focus region simply wasn't large enough to let me perform these tasks without craning my neck. So I have gone to reading glasses for these tasks. This has also had the terrible fashion impact that I try to wear shirts with pockets for the reading glasses so that they are always handy.

Your Gear

To help with focusing I upgraded to lenses with wider apertures. I use Olympus gear so this ment a move from the kit lenses to the midrange lenses to pick up a stop or two. The autofocus electronics benefit from this at low light levels as well. I shoot primarily panoramic landscapes so I normally want to focus near infinity. My kit lenses had no range markings but the mid-range lenses did so I could start by setting the lens to infinity even if it was too dark for me and the electronics. Modern digital lenses don't always limit the focus travel to the infinity position at the long end. The reset position may be an out of focus position past the infinity position. On my cameras I was able to turn off the lens reset at power down so that if I was working at infinity, the next time I powered up the camera my lens would still be set there. You use a different camera so there may be different solutions, so the point is that it may be worth the time to read the manual to determine what gear and equipment modes are available to help.

Leveling is important when I shoot 360 degree panoramas with a moderate telephoto so I find that the circular levels on even the best tripods are too small and not always visually accessible so I carry a larger level with a larger bubble. Find the tools that can help you with what you do.

Your Proceedure

When focussing is difficult, it is important to plan to check it the best you can and plan to recheck it whenever you make a change in setup that will alter focus. You can plan a picture-taking work flow that includes checks at the right times to insure that you catch changes that your eyes (and mine) wouldn't otherwise notice. Better to plan extra checks than to find the problems in post-processing. You can develop approaches that fit your gear and the subjects that you shoot to minimize out of focus results. It helps to practice the procedures so that you don't need to put as much conscious effort into them when your photographic opportunities occur. Cameras with customizable setup modes can make it quicker to make complicated setup changes. Capabilities like live-view may work for you. Try them ahead of time and see.

Good luck developing your personal approach

Dale B. Dalrymple
http://dbdimages.com

richtersl

VayCayMom wrote:

Hello, my first post! I wear bi-focals.. lately I cannot tell when my photos are in focus, I have been using autofocus whenever I can. I am not sure what my problem is, me, my glasses, my settings, my age lol. I use a Nikon d 300 of which I only understand 30 % of user's manual. I know how to adjust the diopitor ( or whatever it is ) but at night or in a large photo, I am shooting blind. What am I doing wrong?

I know the feeling all too well.

Are you wearing your glasses when you make that diopter adjustment? Try shooting without your glasses, adjust the diopter accordingly, and then see if that works for you. If you're like me then your distance vision should be OK.

I am very farsighted and wear bifocal/multifocal contacts full time. But on days that I don't wear my contacts and shoot, I have to readjust the diopter. I do have reading glasses but I never wear them when shooting, unless I have to adjust a camera setting such as white balance, ISO, etc. Once I've made the setting, I take the glasses off to shoot.

If you like to take photos a lot, you may want to bring this up with your eye doctor. Perhaps he or she can suggest and alternative to you -- such as Varilux glasses or bifocal/multifocal contacts.

broby6

Hi VayCayMom. There seems to be lots of us with this problem. I thought I would mention a related hazard I have personal experience with. I have a sliding plate for a ball head mounted on my camera and it stuck out behind the camera a little way. I can get pretty engrossed with focusing, and with the camera in portrait position, I managed rub the glasses lens I wasn't looking through on the sliding plate, scratching it deeply. The scratch fortunately doesn't affect the are I normally look through, but it isn't what you want to do to a new pair of glasses.

The lens you look through is somewhat protected by the rubber cup on the eyepiece, but if you're like me the other eye is closed and your other glasses lens is more vulnerable to touching camera parts..

Incidentally I find it easiest to use the long distance part of the bifocal lens when focusing.