Question about DOF preview button on D2H/X

[Rich Gibson]

I took a batch of flower shots with my new D2X and even used the DOF pre-view meter. They looked good, but when I loaded them into NC they only had a small plane in focus (f/3.5 70mm on the 28-70mm lens). Is there something special I should look for? Looking at the setting I posted it's reasonable that the DOF was too thin, but how come it "looked" fine through the eyepiece when I pressed the DOF button?

Rich :?:

 

[MontyDog]

#1064 - You have an error in your SQL syntax;

 

[Gale]

Clive,
I am with you. I am not good enough with what I have.

Now, if and when a change were to come about, like aD2X somewhere in the distant future. I really would hate to have to learn all over again what has taken so long to learn.

Oh dear.......

 

[bpetterson]

Rich;

I've been racking my brain on how to answer your question.
In simplicity I would say that under your circumstance the DOF button does not apply.
To demonstrate- take a 600mm lens aimed at 45 degrees at a line on telephone poles along a straight road- then you would see how many poles were sharp when you used the FOV button when you varied the aperture.

When someone asked Weegee what his camera settings were [ he used a Speed Graphic] He replied " f8 and be there".

So I went to my DOF sheets from Minolta which were for 35 mm film.
But then I started to think about circle of confusion and the D2X
Different for Coolpix, D100, D2H, and now D2X.

So if you want to calculate- naw don't-
For close up of flowers in focus- just increase f3.5 to say f16 and try that.

Birger

 

[MontyDog]

#1064 - You have an error in your SQL syntax;

 

[bpetterson]

Yes - it seems that the D2X does have a shorter DOF than D2h or D1X.

Now there may be something else that may contribute.
Lets say for a certain setting you have the focus range of 2 inches.
Are you focused on the beginning or the ending or the middle.
We like to think the middle.

I think and I say I think- it may be better on critical wide aperture
settings to use AFC instead of AFS.

I know that when I am on AFS I find myself taking focus several times.

Birger

 

[nfoto]

It isn't D2X per se that has "shallower" DOF, but its higher resolution more clearly shows DOF is a perceived, not a physical quantity. Since D2X can render small detail much better, it also can more easily show that they are not in perfect focus. Traditional DOF calculations assume the eye can "tolerate" a certain fuzziness of detail before we regard it unsharp, but D2X will remove that veil before our eyes.

Yesterday I shot some coastal landscapes with my 17-55 on the D2X and tried to use f/8 for maximal image sharpness. Fine, but now DOF was more limited and in some cases I could observe that the background started to go out of focus when I later examined the images. With the same lens and settings on the D2H, this wasn't shown at all.

 

[MontyDog]

#1064 - You have an error in your SQL syntax;