Hello Ashish,
Try turning on "focus confirmation" on the LCD display. I do believe the 5700 has this feature, but not 100% sure. The feature was introduced with the 995, I believe.
I had a Nikon 5700, but it was stolen in March. I took some great macros with that camera, though.
There is a button on the left side of the camera to change 'scene modes'. The first time you push it, a mountain icon shows up in the view finder for landscape shots (focus at infinity). The second time you push it, you get a flower icon, which is what to use for macro shots. I was able to focus on subjucts nearly touching the lens.
Stay away from manual focus. I found it to be useless. The autofocus is also nearly useless unless the subject is well lit. I used to focus on a subject while shining a bright light on it, then turning the light off prior to exposure.
The autofocus issue is why I did not replace my stolen camera with another 5700. I bought a Sony DSCF717 instead. I have been very happy with it so far, and it was less expensive.
Good luck and have fun!
JD Anderson
The 5700 autofocus and manual focus work perfectly well. First you need to take the camera out of the automatic mode and sue shutter, aperture proiority or totally manual (which I usually do). the manual focus is the bottom left MF button (same as the landscape/macro button. You have to hold down on that button as you turn the right thumb dial to focus manually. the AF confirmation helps some people, but I think it is easier by eye.
Manually focused examples. //www.dpchallenge.com/image.php?IMAGE_ID=16535 //www.dpchallenge.com/image.php?IMAGE_ID=16711 //www.dpchallenge.com/image.php?IMAGE_ID=15023 and look in my portfolio below.
Just have to get to know the camera. Doesn't hurt to read the manual and carry it around with ya too, until you understand it all well.
hey Tracy did you crop those at all or are you getting that close? I find that I can get some pretty tight focus but I still need to be at a bit of a distance. Having 5 Mpix comes in handy because then I can crop to make it look more macro.
hey Tracy did you crop those at all or are you getting that close? pd anything from Nikon on the firmware yet?
the backpack shot is cropped, but I was about 3-4 inches away. the cacti one I got to about 3 inches and the bud I was right on top of (3-4 cm). I have taken many within that 3-4 cm and had no problem with AF of MF (as long as on macro mode)
the flashlight thing works great for AF in lowlight too. I have a mini flashlight (size of a dime) attached to my camera now. they work real well. And if I know I am going night shooting, I take a stronger and focusable (flood to beam) flashlight.
Another thing that helps immensely (lowlight and landscape photos), go to manual focus and run it all the way open (to the mountain icon) then back it down a click or two. the AF on landscape, likes to focus on things in the foreground, and not get that all over "focus" you are looking for. Oh yeah....doesn't hurt to have the aperture open to about 5.6+ (I like it right around here though-seems to have better all around DOF on landscape.
The firmware thing seems to be straightening itself out. Not really having a lot of problems with it., now. I have been messing around the house with it (same as before, when it seemed to not focus), and it is getting AF lock more than 75% of the time at (manual) aperture from 2.8 through to 8.0 and shutter from 1/15 to 8 sec. Not sure, but when it was installed, I had to go back through and reset everything the way I had it before. May have forgotten something...I don't know for sure. Seems to be doing ok now. I have been setting the white balance manually lately. Maybe I will look into that and see if that does anything.???
Thanks for sharing your 5700 experience with us. Its just been couple of days that I have got delivery of 5700. I think I need to spemd some more time playing around with the settings of the camera, which I havent done much yet.
There is a firmware upgrade if you do not have version 1.1 yet. This is what Pedro was asking about here also.
//www.dpchallenge.com/forum.php?action=read&FORUM_THREAD_ID=22331 I had some questions on how it was working. Never heard back from Nikon, but it does seem to gotten over the problem of focusing in lowlight (unlike on the 1.0 version). Your choice. If you haven't had much use with it yet...there should be no difference noted. The upgrade is available at //www.nikonusa.com.
