Hi all, Over the past few days I have been trying to learn as much as I could about a problem I am having with my 505v. Being new to digital photography, I am a bit naieve on some issues but have been a 35mm and camcorder user for years. My 505v is producing photos that are consistently showing sharp or sharper focus than my intended subjects where the are photos with any depth in terms of picture persapective (foreground-subject-background) I am being told and this may in fact be the case, that all makes and models of digital cameras have an inherent problem in this regard. Looking at many posted 505 and 505v photos over the past few days I have seen this background focus problem fairly frequently. I am using pre-focus, spot metering, large and small appertures, wide angle and tele zoom shots and all seem not to have a much varied effect. A bit disheartening to say the least as I had felt that autofocus technology had evolved greatly over the past few years. In a Nikon forum this also appeared to be a problem. Any thoughts, explanations, or suggestions as to how to live with or circumvent this problem, as recently my enthusiasm for my camera and digital photography has taken a bit of a nosedive. Seems incredibly ridiculous in a camera approaching $1000 in cost. My Canon camcorders have all had a "flexzone" focus system where thru a viewfinder user manipulated cursor, the location of the cursor determines area of focus and exposure. LIGHT YEARS better than what I am experiencing with my 505v and Canon now includes this focusing system on even its' least expensive camcorders. Different animals to be sure, but surely something as rudimentary as focusing ability would seem to be a necessary "given" when purchasing and or producing a camera> Any thoughts and or suggestions would be appreciated Thanks CurtA.

-- Curt ammerman (curtnmarie@cs.com), August 21, 2000

Answers

Hi Curt, Being quite new at this myself, I don't know if this will help or not, but I had somewhat the same problem and started using my spot meter crosshair during setup and seem to have better results. I am not sure if there is a mechanical difference, or it just makes me take more time with my shots and thats doing it, but the problem seems to have resolved itself.

Larry

-- Larry Yerxa (larz@cybertours.com), August 22, 2000.