Blurred lens in pictures and viewfinder

camshootercamshooter
edited February 2017 Posted in » Nikon D5100 Forum
My lens is blurred both in pictures taken and in its viewfinder when zoomed in. When I look at the viewfinder and I zoom in, the subject at which I am looking at through the viewfinder becomes blurry. Because of that, when I take the picture of it, the photo is blurred. It happened after I've done customization in manual mode (M). I fiddled the shutter speed, ISO and aperture, and now all modes are affected, even those standard modes (landscape, night portrait, flower, sunset, food, etc.). They all get blurred when zoomed in both in viewfinder screen and in final photos taken. Please help me. I appreciate your help. Thank you so much in advance.

Comments

  • brutobruto
    You should check to see whether your lens or your camera has gotten shifted out of auto focus. There's a switch on the lens, and also a software choice in the focus menu. Often the depth of field is so great at wide angles that focus errors are unimportant if the focus is at a convenient distance (the principle of the focus free box camera).

    Make sure that the lens is correctly seated and making good contact, and double check the AF/M switch on the lens even if it looks right.
  • camshootercamshooter
    edited February 2017
    Yes I know the A/M switch on the lens. To illustrate simply, I switch to A when the mode dial is on auto, and if mode dial I'm using is on M, I shift to M on the lens switch. Now in the auto mode (lens switch is on A), why does the subject get so blurry when I zoom in? Is there any way I can just factory reset the camera so that all changes I have made in aperture, shutter speed and ISO will be corrected? Because you know, all changes I did were done while mode dial is on M. Does it follow that when the M mode setting has been missteped, all other modes settings are affected? I can't take any photos now because as I zoom in I see through the viewfinder that the subject gets extremely blurry.
  • brutobruto
    edited February 2017
    It's a bit hard to tell what's happening here, but you do not need to shift the lens out of autofocus mode when you are in manual exposure mode. The A/M switch on the lens is only for focus and not for any exposure issues.

    One thing you should probably do is to make sure the lens is really operating correctly, and auto focusing at all. Just as an experiment, put the camera on auto, with auto focus turned on. Now put your hand in front of the lens, and push the shutter. Does the lens try to focus? Take your hand off, and push the shutter again. Does the lens try to refocus? If not, there's a problem. Either the lens is malfunctioning or the camera is not trying to focus it.

    There should be a general reset function for your camera, but I'm not sure in this case whether it's a multi-button push or a set of menu choices. On the D3200, it's a couple of menu choices, one in shooting, one in setup menu. In some others, there's a 'two button' reset in which you hold down a couple of buttons. You'll need to check the instructions for yours.
  • camshootercamshooter
    edited February 2017
    Bruto thank you so much. I am afraid that the lens doesn't function right. I did what you said, and the lens won't adjust. I know that it should adjust and rotate while the shutter is being pressed, right? But it won't. Here's what I did. I set the mode dial to auto and switched the lens to auto (A) as well. As you said my hand was in front of camera and as I slowly pushed the shutter the lens didn't adjust until the camera took picture of my palm and it's blurry. The picture of my hand is blurry while the background is sharp. Do you think this malfunction will be corrected if I do a hard reset?
  • brutobruto
    edited February 2017
    You should make sure that the camera itself has not somehow gotten switched to manual focus. A hard reset should take care of that, but you can also go into the AF section of your [i] menu and make sure it's not set to manual there.

    But if all AF functions are turned on and the lens is not auto focusing, that's not good. One last thing to make sure of is that the lens is making good contact. Take it off, clean the contacts with a swab and alcohol (don't use an abrasive eraser as some people may suggest), and reinstall the lens to see if that helps.
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