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D5500 Goes crazy near water - completely out of focus


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8 replies to this topic

#1
dswan

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This happens near water, on a D5500, the autofocus goes completely, utterly out of focus. It happens repeatedly until I completely shut off the camera and restart. After that, if I shoot very quickly at something else randomly (my foot, up in the air, etc) it's OK and will do a normal waterfront picture. Manual focus doesn't help. It's OK in other situations and, most of the time, it's OK near water, so this just happens at seemingly random intervals, always waterfront.

The camera has a stock kit lens, 18 - 55 zoom and it works fine everywhere except near water. The other night, I was shooting at a big Baltimore night event on the waterfront with all sorts of lights and festivity and shots with lights illuminating harbor water made it go bad again. It's not just at night, daytime too, bright beach shots. A "reboot" fixes it for the moment, but it is aggravating to miss a shot and not know when it will happen again, except for the part of being at a waterfront location.   Farms, cities, etc, are OK.

What gives?

 



#2
TBonz

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Is this a repeat of the topic I replied to yesterday?  I would say that if you can't focus the camera with autofocus or manually then you need to get it to service.  It could be that you did not have sufficient lighting on that night shot with which to focus automatically.  While water can damage a camera when they come in contact with one another, I know of no other way that it can cause a camera not to work properly,



#3
Jerry_

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Looking at your previous posts (7 and 3 months ago) it seems that your camera (or your lens) has a general problem with autofocussing and therefore I join the idea for having it serviced.

One sentence in your above post puzzled me. You said that manual focus does not help. Maybe it is put in the wrong context, or could you explain please?

#4
dswan

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It's never been wet or out in the rain and everything is fine for any situation other than focusing over water.  It seems to get "confused" over multiple points of light at varying distances, like ripples on water.  The camera behaves just fine most of the time and even most of the time near water but every now and again, day or night, it goes out of focus, completely out of focus.  If I focus manually, it goes out again.  My trick has been to cuss, turn it off, turn it on, shoot a picture of my foot (no water) and try again. Most of the time, though not all of the time, that works.  If not, cuss some more and do it again and repeat if necessary, or pull out my iPhone.  Fortunately, some other people in other forums have had a similar problem, so I'm guessing that it's something not right in the firmware.  I keep hoping that someone knows a magic cure, but I don't think it's going to happen.  I did do a firmware update some time ago, but that didn't help nor did a cleaning job.  Knowing that a few unlucky others have had the same problem is a bit of a relief.



#5
Merco_61

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It still sounds like dust on the sub-mirror and nothing to do with firmware.



#6
TBonz

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As Jerry suggested, your manual focus statements don't make sense.  If you focus manually, the only one who can take it out of focus is you - barring a hardware problem...



#7
dswan

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Of course it doesn't make sense.  It doesn't help that, most of the time, it's OK near water.  It's just now and again.  I've cleaned everything inside and outside.  Most water shots are OK, but when the water is glittery, like sunrise or sunset, that's when things go bad.  I've hypothesized that the glittery light coming off the water makes a thousand points that the camera can try to focus on and because they change all the time, it just gets "confused" trying to focus on everything and then decides to focus on nothing.  That's pretty darn anthropomorphic, but it's also an accurate description.  Fortunately it doesn't happen all that often, and when it does, I restart, shoot a picture of my foot and try again....second time usually works. And, yes, the crazy autofocus over rides manual, in spite of that being "impossible".  Every time.  Fortunately, it doesn't override my foot.

 

What's life without some mystery and cussing.



#8
TBonz

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Why not set a single focus point and keep that point from the water...that would potentially prove or disprove your theory of the glittering water.  If that works you have your answer...



#9
Nellybelle

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I agree, sounds like to many focus points selected or the continuous focus is on.