The Nikon D300 is a good camera. I believe the controls are very similar to my D7000.
Settings to me are simple, since I have had Nikons for a long time.
90+% of the time I use 'A' mode and choose a low f-stop to get focus on the subject but not the other things.
I do not use 'P' mode because then you don't know what the camera will do - it is close to 'automatic'.
Of course blurriness can happen from a few things:
Settings to me are simple, since I have had Nikons for a long time.
90+% of the time I use 'A' mode and choose a low f-stop to get focus on the subject but not the other things.
I do not use 'P' mode because then you don't know what the camera will do - it is close to 'automatic'.
Of course blurriness can happen from a few things:
- Your camera shaking
- The subject moving too quickly
- Focus on the wrong thing
- Depth of field (DoF) too narrow
Camera shake
To compensate for camera shake, of course make sure that VR (anti-vibration) on the lens is switched on. Other than that, you need to have a faster shutter speed - the general rule is that shutter speed has to be at least 1/x where 'x' is the focal length. Eg if your zoom length is 60mm, then shutter speed has to be 1/60 or faster; if your zoom length is 100mm, then your shutter speed has to be faster, at least 1/100.
If your are already at the largest aperture (lowest f-stop), and the shutter speed is still too slow, then you need to increase the ISO setting. I used to manually set my ISO... of course the lower, the better, but what I do now is set ISO to automatic - and in the settings, you can limit how high the ISO goes - I limit mine to 1600 or 3200. You can also limit how slow your shutter speed is (because I shoot Aperture-priority) - I limit the shutter speed to be 1/50 as the slowest 'allowed'.
Subject moving too fast
This is easy - the faster the subject moves, the faster your shutter speed needs to be. Panning also helps (follow the subject with the camera), which I know you do.
Whether you use Shutter speed priority (S mode) or Aperture priority, just pay attention to the shutter speed that you can see in the view-finder. Even at walking-pace, shutter speed of 1/60 will have some blur.
Same tip about ISO to increase shutter speed. Either manually increase ISO, or set it to auto.
Focus on wrong thing
I also got some bad focus photos when my D7000 was new as well, because I left it in 'automatic' focus mode... which means I let the camera uses 'multi-point focus' and works out what I am supposed to be focusing on, which is often incorrect!
I now mostly use spot focus, ie use only one of the dots in the view-finder and I tell the camera which dot in the frame to focus on. The back circular dial lets you choose which spot to use.
And then there are different modes like AF-S, the one I use the most - it means the camera focuses once only, when you half-press the button - keeping it half-pressed locks the focus. Then there is AF-C - meaning continuous, for moving subjects... if using spot-focus, AF-C will continuously focus on whatever is in the dot you have chosen. AF-A chooses between AF-C and AF-S.
Lastly there is 3D (only possible with AF-C and AF-A), which is for moving objects and the camera predicts where the subject will be when the shutter goes off.
The way to change focus modes is to press the button at the front, next to the lens mount, the switch in the middle of the lever that sets automatic or manual focus. With that button pressed, rotate the front or back dial.
Depth of field too narrow
The narrower the Depth of Field (ie the lower the f-stop), the less in the frame will be in sharp focus. So at say f1.8, only one specific distance form the camera will be in focus... say, the nose if that is the focus point. Even the ear may be slightly out of focus. F9 or higher will be more 'forgiving', meaning a greater depth will be in focus. I make these mistakes - shooting with aperture-priority mostly at the lowest f-stop, and if I get the focal point slightly wrong, then my subject is out of focus, and the thing next to the subject is sharp. Very annoying! Of course the down side is that the more everything is in focus, ensuring that the subject is also in focus, to me, the less interesting the picture is, because generally I only want the subject to be in focus, and nothing must else ultra sharp...
Hopefully with the above tips, more things will be in focus.
