PhotoWalkPro

The other day I was taking some pictures for the new book when I noticed that things just weren’t looking sharp.  I’m not talking about the images coming out of the camera, rather the actual scene I was looking at through the viewfinder.  At first I thought it was the lens focus but all of my images looked razor sharp on the LCD and again in my computer.  Then the thought hit me, maybe it’s not the camera, maybe it’s me.

In the past year or so my reading vision has begun to deteriorate.  Yes, it’s true. I am one of those people that now needs to hold things further and further away to see them clearly (luckily I have long arms).  I have resorted to wearing reading glasses for really small text but the thought never occurred to me that it would effect my view through the camera.  Sure enough, I made a minor adjustment to the viewfinder diopter and everything snapped into crisp focus once again.

Here’s a quick and easy way for you to check your diopter adjustment as told to me by my friend Anne Cahill from Nikon NPS.

♦ Locate the diopter adjustment for your DSLR.  It’s usually somewhere near the viewfinder and is either a slide or knob.
♦ Remove your lens from the camera.
♦ Now look through the camera and point it to a blank, light colored wall.
♦ Adjust the diopter until the auto-focus points and other markings that appear in the middle of the viewfinder appear sharp.

You should definitely consider doing this if you shoot while wearing glasses or your vision is changing.  Also, your knob or adjustment slider might just get moved over time so check it out and see what you’ve been missing.

Have a great weekend!

Related posts:

1. Getting a Better Look
2. Is your Focus Letting You Down
3. A Focus Tip For Landscape Photography
4. One From the Mailbag
5. My Father’s Day Gift Guide

This entry was posted on Friday, January 29th, 2010 at 12:05 am and is filed under Camera Gear, Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.